C'mon C'mon

Now We Grieve 'Cuz Now It's Gone
All The Things Were Good When We Were Young
-- C'mon C'mon, The Von Blondies

So you wonder why all the gnashing of the teeth over Setup Chick. Why all the heartache, the grief over this woman who treated me like shit, who got what she wanted all along--for her boyfriend to propose to her--at the cost of our friendship.

And that's precisely the reason why I grieve--our friendship. We had been really close friends since November. We saw each other almost every day at our job, and we talked almost every night. Whenever she saw me sad, she'd figure out a way to cheer me up. She said the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me, the "Marty, you're going to end up marrying a drop dead gorgeous blonde" statement. I made her laugh constantly, cheered her up when her boyfriend was watching hockey even though she needed help. Even my friends who never met her said, back before the hookup, how happy we seemed together, how they thought Setup Chick was a wonderful person. Now they all hate her, and are shocked at how this played out.

Now, all the good things are gone. I won't be there when she turns 25 in August, laughing when I have to make good with the stupid bet that I would be sitting across someone I absolutely adored and who absolutely adored me before her birthday. She won't be there when I turn 32 in October. There will be no more nightly phone calls where we just talk about work or life or our pets. Even if I see her in the future, that friendship is gone.

It might sound rather obvious, but the reason why breakups are so hard is not the loss of sex (though that sucks ass too). Instead, it's really the death of a friendship, knowing that someone who knew you better than yourself is no longer part of your life. In a way, and not to demean real death or say that real death isn't horrible, but the death of a friendship is in some ways worse than the friend passing away--because the friendship is gone but the friend still is there just a phone call away. And in your weak moments, you want to call, but you know if you do, you'll be talking to a different person inhabiting the same body. Your caught between trying to recapture all those great memories, and demeaning those same memories by trying to bring them back.

And so today, the anger is gone, but the grief is there.

I try to take solace in the fact that I'm not the one who is making the wrong choice. I try to take solace in the fact that if Setup Chick wants to stay with Jon, then they deserve each other. I hold on to the following:

Jon is 43 and started dated Setup Chick, who was his personal assistant at the time, when she was 19. Before Setup Chick, he dated another one of his employees and who was ten years younger than him (see a pattern here?), who he never asked to marry despite the fact they dated for ten years, and who cheated on him (yeah, I wonder if the ten years they dated with no commitment had anything to do with that). And Setup Chick ended up with Jon because she was consoling him. And two weeks ago, knowing that Setup Chick slept with me, he lied to her about ordering her a ring and proposed to her. And knowing that Setup Chick slept with me again a little over a week ago and she hadn't slept with him, Jon went to her parents' home to "say goodbye" (but we all know the he went there to get their intervention). And knowing that Setup Chick slept with me yet again this weekend and didn't feel a thing when she slept with him, Jon called her and begged her to come back, with a not so concealed threat to commit suicide--"I have no purpose if you leave." Do any of you really think that Setup Chick is going to be happy with this guy?

I know I was weak as well for sleeping with her. I know love makes you do stupid things. But I never begged her to come back to me, and I never threatened to do kill myself. I always told her, until her final betrayal Sunday, that I wanted her to be happy--to get away from Jon and me and get some clarity. And for her to choose Jon, a man who has no self-respect, who admitted to her that he had taken her for granted, who only tried to change after telling him she found someone else, who had treated her at best like a pet who did his books and had sex with him, who still begged and threatened her even after she still kept sleeping with someone else--it makes Setup Chick's decision to kill our friendship even more painful.

So I'll grieve for our friendship, and I'll move on eventually. I know I'll have my weak moments, and I might try to hold on to that little spark of hope that we can rekindle our friendship. But I hope that I learn from this, an extra layer of armor in the future. It's really all I can do at this point.