Essay: You're An Idiot For Breaking Up With Me

An Admission of Weakness

By Lauren Hunt
QuailBellMagazine.com

“When I see people who weary of each other, I believe it is because they have sought virtues in themselves alone, attractions of physical beauty. Have they based their love on each other’s thoughts? Who can weary of thoughts which change every day?” –Anaïs Nin

When you told me it was over I thought I would be relieved. I had pictured this moment for a long time, and when I did it always felt like a weight had been lifted off me. And I was relieved—I am—but I was unprepared for the pain that accompanied it.

I’m not sure I ever even liked you, at least not more than as a friend. I wanted it to be over, and yet I felt rejected all the same when it finally was. Why does it hurt when someone I don’t even like, doesn’t like me back?

Everyone keeps telling me that you are an idiot for breaking up with me. I want to scream that I’m the idiot for ever listening to them in the first place. Everyone pushes you to date someone, as if there was something wrong with being single. As if being single was a sign of a personality flaw or an admission of weakness. So you look for someone to date. Everyone tells you to date this guy, or that one, because he’s cool, or attractive, or has a good job. So you date the cool guy with the good job, and you don’t get too emotional or clingy because you’re not supposed to. Or maybe just because you aren’t an emotional person, or because you’re still not even sure if you really care about him. And maybe he breaks up with you because you’re not “emotionally invested” or “emotionally available” or maybe he can just tell that you don’t really give a shit. And then you end up feeling hurt and rejected by something you never even wanted in the first place.

Why does not wanting to date me make him an idiot? He doesn’t think that I’m a bad person, or stupid, or selfish, or boring. He’s just not in love with me. And guess what? I’m not in love with him! And even if I was, it’s still not his fault. Where did this idea come from that love is about the kind of person you deserve? None of us deserve anyone. Love isn’t about being a good person, it’s about being happy, and making someone else happy. Love’s not something you deserve; it’s something you earn when you become a source of light for someone else. But we’re not all drawn to the same flame and some burn brighter than others in our eyes. You can’t help loving a selfish, arrogant miser any more than you can help not loving a saint. It is not about who they are. It’s about who you are, and who they make you become. It’s about finding someone that makes you happy in ways no one else can.

No one ever tells you to find someone who makes you want to be more, do more, just to be worthy of their love. They don’t tell you to find someone who makes you want to work on your faults because you want to be the best version of yourself for them. No one says that the one who you don’t understand, who makes you question yourself and your convictions, is the one that will challenge you all your life. No one says that looks fade and popularity wanes and styles change and that no matter what there will always be someone who disapproves of your choice. And if you can never please everyone, what’s the point in trying to please anyone? Please yourself. Make yourself happy. Make yourself happier than you’ve ever been. No one tells you that that is what love really is—it’s the strongest kind of happiness, and you get to share it with someone else. Or at least most people don't say these things and even fewer follow such advice.

It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. Contentment is not enough. We want bliss. Find your happiness.