After He Broke My Heart

"We didn't have a relationship, we only went out on a few dates." This is what he told me after I had defied my parents and flew out to visit him over my Spring break. He was my everything. I truly thought that he was the one. In fact, I had made a last minute decision to apply to a graduate program about an hour's drive from his home in hopes of seeing where things would lead. But now I knew the answer and it cut like a knife.

Dating in the Jewish community can be interesting. Everybody seemed to be somebody's cousin, best friend's nephew's college roommate, or some other Six Degrees of Separation connection. He was no exception. He was the first cousin of one of my parents' best friends.

Stupidly, I had too much pride to go crawling back to my grandmother's condominium a few miles away and have things get back to my parents. They had never approved of him to begin with being 13 years older than me and divorced. I wasn't ready to hear the inevitable "I told you so." So I was stuck at his apartment until my flight home, about 3 agonizing days.

One night we got into a conversation about his relatives that were my friends, too. "So what does my cousin think of all of this?"

I replied, no holds barred, "Well, she told me not to get involved in the first place because you are an asshole."

"Okay, fair enough. What else has she told you about me."

I was on a roll, "Well, she mentioned you and your siblings' history of drug abuse. In fact, she said that your sister is very sickly and your brother is a total loser. That he cannot get his life together."

His face is crestfallen and I know these truths are causing him pain. I continue, however, wanting him to feel a fraction the hurt that I did.

"She said that your first marriage was doomed from the very beginning and that you never should have married her in the first place."

He shakes his head sadly, "I can't believe it, my own family."

I know that at this point I should stop it, try to make him feel better but in looking at him and his pain I think, "Good, at least he is as miserable as I am right now."

I continue, "She said that she could see how I had fallen for you because you have the gift of gab of your father, although you both use it for shady purposes."

His face falls even more and his eyes are pleading with me to stop. I just couldn't help myself as the hurt from the heartbreak made me viscous in a way that I never knew I could be.

"Oh yeah, she also mentioned that you remind her of Mickey Mouse with the way your ears stick out."