Wait, Weren't You Just Obsessed With Me?

Keara About Town #2: A reflection on emotional whiplash

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s feeling duped. Thankfully, I don’t experience this emotion often as I am quite clever. Usually, it takes a Sherlock Holmes level ruse to pull one over on Ole Keara Sullivan. But then there are those unusual cases. Getting hoodwinked by an objectively inferior intellect proves especially frustrating and adds a new level of dupedom onto the already humiliated duped. It’s less a hat on top of a hat and more a dunce cap on top of an already comically large dunce cap. I myself donned this metaphorical dunce cap earlier this year after a romantic entanglement, which I had high hopes for, came to a jarringly abrupt end. I didn’t see it coming, which is unusual since I possess the gift of prophecy. But how could I have known? One day the man was absolutely infatuated with me and showed every sign of wanting a more serious commitment. Two days later, he cut ties. Wait, weren’t you just obsessed with me? What the fuck? 

I wish I could tell you that in the hours following the text I jumped straight to righteous anger and chucked my phone out the window screaming, “Girl power!” But that wouldn’t be the truth. Embarrassing as it is to admit, my first reaction to getting romantically 360ed was one of intense hurt, disappointment, and emotional whiplash. More shocking than the emotional reverse itself was how genuinely devastated it made me. We had only been seeing each other for a week, but that week had been chalk full of whirlwind romancing. I really thought we were on track to boyfriend-girlfriend station. But just like that, it had all been derailed. I pray the voice memos I sent to my friends in the hours following never see the light of day, because if they do, I will have no choice but to kill myself. Their contents included a lot of sniveling, crying, voice-cracking, and repeating of phrases like, “I don’t know why I’m so upset,” and, “I just see everyone else so happy and I wonder what’s wrong with me.” 

The shock of it all made it difficult to sort through my mixed, tear-stained bag of emotions. But in two days time I finally arrived at anger and loathing. I wanted to lay into him! I wanted to give him a piece of my mind! Like an enraged Looney Tunes character, I paced around the apartment, winding up my fists and muttering, “Why I oughta!” But what could I possibly say? What reason could I give to justify my righteous sense of fury? I don’t think he led me on intentionally. I don’t think he was planning to end things all along like some kind of 80’s movie villain. I don’t think he faked his intense interest in me. At the end of the day, I think his feelings about me just changed. So what argument could I make to him? “You’re a dick for not liking me anymore?” I’d sound like a bitter, crazy shrew and that’s so not the image I’m going for these days. Perhaps that’s the danger of infatuation - it can vanish just as quickly as it appears. Thankfully, pain works like this too sometimes. 

After about five days of reeling in emotional confusion, my heart returned to homeostasis. I’m not sure how all those intense emotions evaporated but I assume there’s some kind of cycle similar to that of nitrogen. I have thought about the man from this romantic entanglement very little up to writing this article. He rarely ever crosses my mind - he vanished just as quickly as he appeared. Now when I mention him to my friends, I don’t cry or snivel or feel sorry for myself. The most common reply I receive from my friends is “Who?” So I jog their memory with a quick recap. I watch their faces shrivel up as if they’ve detected a foul odor and feel a grin tugging at the corners of my lips. “Oh THAT guy! Ugh!” They groan, which of course makes me laugh, which naturally makes them laugh. And with our joint laughter echoing off every corner in the room, I can scarcely remember why I was ever so upset in the first place.