Last night during an after work happy hour at Boss Bar (also known as the classiest bar of all time), I must have mentioned in passing that I was newly single. I was at least three beers in so I’m not sure that I said it outright, but somehow the message was conveyed. This woman from real-estate whom I’ve only met a few times seized upon this fact, and asked if she could set me up with someone.

My initial reaction was to say ‘No’. Shouldn’t I be mourning Jim for a few months so that I can express the appropriate amount of sadness and wistful contemplation or something?

Instead, I hesitated awkwardly for several seconds before rambling something like, “Yeah…no…that’d be great.”

My co-worker seemed thrilled about the prospect of setting someone up. I wasn't particularly excited about the blind date, but I have to admit that her enthusiasm (and possibly the beer consumption) made me feel a little twinge of goofy optimism myself.

I guarantee you it’ll be awkward.

***

This morning, I was standing at the Wellington El stop sleepily waiting for a brown line train to rumble down the tracks and pick me up for work. After several minutes a purple line lurched into the station, and a sloppy, middle-aged man exited one of the cars. We briefly met eyes and for some reason he veered away from the exiting throng of yuppies and walked over to me. He stopped and held out his hand in a gesture that implied he wanted to shake.

“Hiya ponytail girl,” he said off-puttingly.

“Uh. Hello,” I responded and shook his hand in a stunned sort of manner.

He left, and somebody near me started laughing. I turned to see if it was someone I knew. It wasn't. It was some tall, red-headed guy. He was kind of cute so I smiled up at him and shrugged.

“You know that guy?” he asked.

“No.”

He laughed again so I smiled again.

“It’s weird,” I said, “that he would nickname me ponytail girl, since I’m not actually wearing my hair in a ponytail to begin with.”

He nodded, “Agreed. You must be one of those people.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. A crazy magnet. You attract attention from crazy people.”

“That’s totally not true,” I lied.

We both smiled, and I leaned forward to gaze northwards up the track for lack of anything better to do. If the brown line didn’t come soon, I was going to be running even later than usual. I finally saw the lights of the train pulling into the Belmont station a few blocks north.

“The train’s coming,” I said inanely.

“You work in the Loop?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yup.”

We didn’t say anything else, and the train arrived a minute later so I walked away from him to get in the first car. The train was completely packed. I suppose mostly because of the endless El renovations that are sadly just getting started, and the otherwise careless ineptitude of the CTA. Not that I'm bitter in regards to the state of our public transportation system. I spent the next twenty minutes pressed between strangers as we hurtled down the track on our way to staff those tall sky-scrapers jutting up in measured intervals from the Loop.

We’re breaking up because he cheated. At least that’s what I’m telling all of our mutual friends. And our mothers. It’s correct from the standpoint that he did cheat while we were still technically together. Two weeks into the breaking-up process, though, I’m starting to wonder if that incident was truly the catalyst or if instead it was something more along the lines of boredom or inherent incompatibility. Or being young.

I haven’t really cried. I mean in the uncontrollable heaving, thrashing, sobbing sense. I’ve definitely teared up a little, but just for a minute. And, I'm sad, but I think it’s more about the fear of losing the friendship that went along with relationship. Being friends is something we’ve always been good at. Also, I really got along with his family.

So. Like I said. The breakup is two weeks old, and, based on my impartial observations of other doomed relationships, could take months to settle into something tolerably mundane. Or possibly forever. Or maybe this is it. We’ve never really been a dramatic sort of couple. But I think the primary part (the part that takes up all of your time – the talking, analyzing, 'denialing', not-quite-letting-go part). The annoying part. Is over. He came over on Monday to pick up the last of his things. I’d folded them all neatly into a tattered grocery bag from Whole Foods -- including a filthy, mismatched pair of athletic socks.

We chatted politely for a few minutes, and he helped me carry in the boxes of groceries that Peapod had left on my back deck next to the door. When we were finished, I escorted him outside.

The thing that sucks about a moment like that is you never know what the parting words should be. Ideally (or at least the movies have taught us) it should be something profound. ‘Goodbye’ is fine for every other applicable occasion (past or future), but for this instance it was painfully wrong. I considered ‘see you later’, but that seemed too optimistic. I didn’t want him to feel optimistic. Our relationship may have been over long before the cheating began, but we hadn’t admitted it out loud yet. And. Whether he's realized it or not, my pride's been wounded and is insisting upon some sort of recompense.

The fact that he could casually throw away five years for what I’m assuming amounted to fifteen minutes…revise that…seven minutes (he’d been drinking) of sex with some girl who’s arms are so disproportionately short for her body that people refer to her as T-rex is appalling. I know that I should direct my anger at him because he’s the person that actually did the betraying, but, on another pettier level, I don’t really like her much now either. Before two weeks ago, I was indifferent, but now I truly dislike her. Allison. Allison's a stupid name. What bothers me the most is that she knows who I am, and is aware of the fact that Jim and I have been together for the past five years.

And I told him that it was over because I couldn’t and wouldn’t ever tolerate cheating in a relationship. And now. Two weeks past the event horizon, I have to wonder if cheating was really the problem. If it was, shouldn’t I be sad/angry instead of sad/relieved?

I finally thought of a decent alternative for goodbye.

“Take care of yourself.”

“Are we still friends?”

I shrugged.

He seemed dissatisfied, and then I went back inside because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.