From the Breakup Archives, Part 2

by Gwen Cooper — June 20, 2007

Michael was a guy I dated years ago, back when I still lived in Miami. We met through a poetry group I had joined. I was 27; Michael was 47 and going through a divorce.

When the two of us started dating, my friends accused me of--as one of them put it--"underachieving." In addition to being significantly older, Michael was short and potbellied. I had one of those absurdly lucrative dot-com jobs at the time, and Michael worked part-time in a bookstore. He had moved in with his mother, and the two of them had just bought a $10,000 condo in a retirement community. Before it sounds like I'm stacking the deck unfairly against him (and myself, for having been involved with him), I will add two pertinent facts: number one, he was unquestionably one of the most talented writers it has ever been my privilege to know; number two, the man could do things with his tongue that defied the laws of physics.

To give my friends credit, they probably would have been less apt to criticize this particular lifestyle choice had they sensed I was serious about this man. In fact, I was not. I loved the poetry and the sex, but it was always something of a "placeholder" relationship in my mind--the kind you secretly suspect you're only hanging around in until something else comes along, even if you would never actually admit such a thing out loud.

Michael, as he took great pains to let me know, was also not interested in anything serious or permanent. He was, after all, just coming off of his divorce. Don't get me wrong--it's certainly important to have these discussions early on, so that nobody's misled. But I began to find it somewhat...disconcerting...how often Michael would give me the "Don't you go falling in love with me" speech. Like I said, it's good to have the conversation once. Maybe twice. But by the time you start getting into double digits, the impulse to respond with something like, "Not for nothing, but have you looked in the mirror and then looked at me? Are you kidding?" becomes almost overwhelming.

But I held my tongue. It would have seemed cruel to point out to him the obvious differences in our circumstances and relative date-ability. And, when I wasn't hearing that speech, we were having a good time. The only other fly in the ointment were the endless diatribes about his divorce, the problems he and his ex had had leading up to the divorce, various comparisons between his ex and me...you get it. Again, however, it seemed natural to me that a man who'd been married for most of his adult life would naturally be preoccupied with his divorce and newly single status. Plus he clearly needed a friend, and many a middle-aged divorced man awakens to the realization that he didn't have nearly as many friends as he thought he did. Being a shoulder for him to lean on seemed like the right thing to do.

This went on for about six months. Then one day, my absurdly lucrative dot-com job went away, as such jobs were wont to do in those days. I would be lying if I didn't say that I spent the better part of the next two weeks talking incessantly about my recent job loss and future job prospects. I wasn't a person who was used to getting fired from things, and this particular turn of events was something of a body blow.

You'd think that, after six months of listening to Michael's divorce-related rantings, I'd be entitled to some ranting of my own. But about two weeks into my unemployment, Michael announced that he didn't think we should see each other anymore. I had clearly, as he said, become too dependent on him. He didn't have it in him to be a "friend" right now--what with his divorce and all--and, moreover, despite his consistent warnings to the contrary, I had obviously persisted in falling in love with him and regarding him as my boyfriend.

It was more than strength and sanity could bear.

"Let me explain something to you," I said. "I could throw a rock in a crowd--anywhere in Miami--and hit a better potential boyfriend than a broke, middle-aged, emotional cripple with a potbelly who LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER!" And, I added, "when you speak to me the way you just did, that's not the use of your tongue that I've kept you on the payroll for."

Well, needless to say, that was the end of Michael. Although I did speak to him once again, a couple of days after September 11th. Those of you who've read "Romancing the Con, Part 4" will remember how painfully close to it all I was. Michael tracked me down and called to see if I was okay, which was very thoughtful. We talked for an hour. I spent about 10 minutes describing what it was like to run for my life over the Brooklyn Bridge in a hail of projectile rubble, glass, and smoke. Michael then spent about 50 minutes describing what it had been like to watch it all happen on the TV in his mother's bedroom in Delray Beach, Florida.

Some things never change.

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.