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Love: Like a teacup on the Titanic

Love: Like a teacup on the Titanic

Last updated on: May 3, 2013 at 11:25 am by John Shore

Love: Like a teacup on the Titanic 2013-05-03T11:25:37-08:00 John Shore

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Got this in:

Hello, Sir!

I’ve read through your work, and especially liked your 2+2=5 post. I have a problem that makes me very sad, and I can’t change anything about it, so I followed your advice in that post, asked for peace, and got some! Except it was temporary relief … Maybe I asked wrong?

It’s a girl! Yeah! I’m a 26 year old man worried about a woman! I really don’t know what’s wrong with my head. We knew each other for years and decided to date. Relatively hands-off stuff, too (just in case I was more tempted towards her body instead of “her”). But she decided she has better things to think about and went on her way.

You’ve probably heard of this exact issue a million times and you’ve probably heard everyone say the same thing. Still, I have to say it for myself. John—this really hurts. It doesn’t stop and it doesn’t go away. I was very happy to have her around. Somehow, I’ve linked my self esteem to the acceptance of women. Or just that one, I don’t know. Basically, she’s gone and she isn’t coming back. Can you teach me or tell me how to just be okay with it? You know… like someone who isn’t a pussy? Thanks for reading!

Like someone who isn’t a pussy. I know I should have edited that out; I know it’s essentially derogatory toward women. But sometimes you just … leave the knotholes in the wood.

Anyway, here we go.

Dear Brokenhearted Guy Who Wrote Me This:

You are boned like a fish filet. There’s no cure for a broken heart. You just have to suffer through it.

Wow. Many minutes later, and I can’t think of one thing to add to that. The truth is the truth.

Whoo-hoo! Easiest blog post ever!

Ahh, good times. For me, anyway. But not for you, letter-writer. For you now, life is bound to be just one suckofractoimplosive moment after another. One time, when I had my heart seriously broken, I went deaf for a week. All I could hear was this non-stop roaring static in my head. I was actually deaf. I’d watch people talk, and know they were talking, because they were looking right at me, and moving their lips and hands, and all I could do is dumbly stare at them and wait for them to either give up, start slapping me around, or call for medical help.

God, it was so awful. Especially once I got my hearing back, and had to once again realize that people never say jack worth hearing.

See? I was in high school when that happened to me—and boom, just like that, I’m back in that same frame of mind that … well, in my case, had me wandering the streets in the middle of the night wondering why, if there really was a God, he wasn’t employing a little of that famous mercy of his, and having somebody run me over with a car.

Can you imagine? Your heart is so broken that you take the fact that you’re still alive as evidence that God is either not there, or so derelict in his duties that he may as well not be?

Man.

Love sucks. It’d be better if we were all born robots.

And of course you can imagine a heart so broken you wish you were dead. Everyone can imagine feeling that way. Because everyone has felt that way. Everyone has had their heart broken like a china cup on the Titanic. It’s like taxes. You can’t escape it. It’s the rule of life: crawl, walk, talk, socialize, have love stomp your heart like Tyrannosaurus Rex on a gerbil, grow old, die.

Anyway, friend, sorry you’ve had your heart broken. Try not to drink too much.

Lately some of you have been kind enough to call me the love child of Dear Abby and Dan Savage. But can you imagine Dear Abby going, “Dear lovelorn in Ohio: The main thing is to try not to drink too much. Sincerely yours, Abby.”

Now Dan would say that. Which is why people love him.

Actually, there is one thing that immediately came to mind when reading this letter. It’s something that I would say to anyone with a broken heart. It’s a truth no one could possibly put better than the ridiculously awesome Alfred Lord Tennyson, who wrote:

‘Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

And there it is. The rest is silence. Until your hearing returns, anyway.

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