Cold Turkey

Once, when I was in college, I found out that a young lady I had been dating for close to a year had slept with someone else while I was away for the weekend. I actually found out about it from the person she had slept with. You see, he was somewhat of a friend. He was complaining about the fact that the two of them had stained his sheets and that she hadn't offered to wash them for him. He was pretty pissed... so pissed that he didn't realize who he was complaining to, until it was too late!

I confronted the young lady about his accusation and she appeared shocked that I knew already... then, she was obsessed with finding out who told me. Oh, she accused the entire Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She said that they hated her because she had made her intentions known to pledge AKA. Then, she accused the AKA's because they might have thought she was a little too chummy with the Deltas. Next, she accused my "newsy" frat brothers because they never liked her in the first place.

Of course, none of these was true. I got the story from the horse's mouth. I could have told her but, I got a sadistic pleasure out of watching her try to figure it out and grow paranoid by the second wondering who was her friend, who was pretending, who could have seen her, and how they got it back to me so fast. (This was before cell phones, email, and BlackBerrys.) Mind you, she never denied it. She just wanted to know... needed to know who told.

I sat in my room for close to three days and didn't leave... I just stared out the window. I recall that I slept a lot, didn't eat, didn't bath, didn't shave... just stared out the window. It was a mild case of depression but, I will say this... all of that time allowed me to think clearly and "get my mind right ", as comedian Steve Harvey says. Well, I got my mind right and on the fourth day, I shaved, brushed my teeth, showered for a good long time, put on some clean clothes, and returned to the world. I had a new girlfriend (or at least someone to sport around) within two or three days. Today, no one would be able to do that... too many distractions with email, cell phones going off, text messages, Twitter, Blogging, etc.

So, I approached my good friend, who I spoke of in a post I wrote a few days ago. She is in the fourth day of what I'll call "relationship rehab." A guy she was involved with for four years told her last week that he was (finally) moving out. He said that he had been seeing another girl for months and that he could no longer lie about it. He told her that it wasn't her fault, that it was him, and he just couldn't "get himself together." I recalled him saying the same thing a few weeks ago at a mutual friend's Christmas get together. He kept saying, "If I could just get myself together, I'd be straight." He said this about ten times before he fell flat on his face, drunk and stoned in our mutual friend's living room. A couple of us had to help him to his car and his always loyal yet mortified girlfriend had to drive him home.

I'm sure, over a period of four years she must have grown tired of scenes like this yet, she endured. He went to rehab, came home, was "straight" for two weeks, and he was right back at it. He and I had been in the Air Force together for years and I was quite aware of his problems, which was why I told her in the very beginning to just "go out with him, have a good time but, don't get involved and don't let him move in with you." She didn't listen and four years later, we come to this.

I must admit, I didn't know about the cheating. I didn't take him for the type but, it all came out and this was one of three reasons why I have hung up my cape and long underwear. I realize that I can no longer save the world. Grown folks do what they want to do in the end and even though they ask for your advice, they never really take it unless it's what they really want to do.

My friend asked me how I handled a bad break-up and I told her the story I wrote above... how I just sat in my room and thought and thought, without being disturbed and without being around people for three days. She didn't want to do that and I wouldn't advise anyone else to do that. You can get pretty hungry and otherwise unbearable during that time. What I didn't do, however, was call that person (she wants to call her ex's sister, just to see how he's doing) or beg. I explained to her that if she hasn't heard from him, he's probably doing fine and further more, why should she care? She agreed with me but (there is always a but), I wasn't inclined to hear it.

From what I understand, she is spending her evenings watching BET (that will take your mind off of anything right there) and reading magazines. Everybody rehabs differently after a bad break-up... some people eat, some people meditate, some people cry, some people drink, and some people sleep with a series of partners until the pain subsides. I can't say what is right or wrong... it depends on the person. I just know what worked for me. I hope my friend finds something that will work for her.