Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,25

shaking my papers in the air. I’d put an asterisk next to this word in my notes. “Binary! If it’s so binary, why get into the binary situation in the first place?”

I’m insufferable and I know it, but I can’t stop.

For the next several weeks, I come to Wendell’s office and report the details of my circular conversations with Boyfriend (admittedly, there are several more) while Wendell tries to interject something useful (that he’s not sure how this is helping me; that this feels masochistic; that I keep telling the same story hoping for a different outcome). He says that I want Boyfriend to explain himself to me—and that he is explaining himself to me—but that I keep going back because his explanation isn’t what I want to hear. Wendell says that if I’ve been taking such copious notes during our phone calls, I probably haven’t been able to listen to Boyfriend, and if my goal is to be open to understanding his perspective, that’s hard to do when I’m trying to prove a point rather than have an interaction in earnest. And, he adds, I’m doing the same thing to him in our sessions.

I agree, then go right back to railing against Boyfriend.

In one session, I explain with excruciating specificity the arrangements for getting Boyfriend’s belongings returned to him. In another, I repeatedly ask, Am I crazy or is he? (Wendell says neither of us is crazy, which infuriates me.) Another consists of an analysis of what kind of person says, “I want to marry you, just not you with a kid.” For this session, I’ve created an infographic on gender differences. A man can say “I don’t want to have to look at the Legos” and “I’ll never love a kid who’s not mine” and get away with it. A woman who said that would be crucified.

I also pepper our sessions with reports of what I’ve discovered in my daily Google-stalking: the women Boyfriend must be dating (based on elaborate stories I create from social media Likes); how fabulous his life is without me (based on his Tweets about his business trip); how he isn’t even sad about the breakup (because he photographs salads in restaurants—how can he even eat?). I’m convinced that Boyfriend has quickly transitioned into his post-me life completely unscathed. It’s a refrain I recognize from divorcing couples I see in which one person is struggling mightily and the other seems fine, happy even, to be moving on.

I tell Wendell that, like these patients, I want some sign of the scar tissue left behind. I want to know, in the end, that I mattered.

“Did I matter?” I ask over and over.

I continue like this, letting my freak flag fly, until finally Wendell kicks me.

One morning, as I drone on about Boyfriend, Wendell scoots to the edge of his couch, stands up, walks over to me, and, with his very long leg, lightly kicks my foot. Smiling, he returns to his seat.

“Ouch!” I say reflexively, even though it didn’t hurt. I’m startled. “What was that?”

“Well, you seem like you’re enjoying the experience of suffering, so I thought I’d help you out with that.”

“What?”

“There’s a difference between pain and suffering,” Wendell says. “You’re going to have to feel pain—everyone feels pain at times—but you don’t have to suffer so much. You’re not choosing the pain, but you’re choosing the suffering.” He goes on to explain that all of this perseverating I’m doing, all of this endless rumination and speculation about Boyfriend’s life, is adding to the pain and causing me to suffer. So, he suggests, if I’m clinging to the suffering so tightly, I must be getting something out of it. It must be serving some purpose for me.

Is it?

I think about why I might be obsessively Google-stalking Boyfriend despite how bad I know it makes me feel. Is it a way to stay connected to Boyfriend and his daily routine, even if it’s only one-sided? Maybe. Is it a way to numb out so I don’t have to think about the reality of what happened? Possibly. Is it a way of avoiding what I should be paying attention to in my life but don’t want to?

Earlier, Wendell had pointed out that I’d kept my distance from Boyfriend—ignoring clues that would have made his revelation less shocking—because if I’d inquired about them, Boyfriend might have said something I didn’t want to hear. I told myself it meant nothing that he seemed irritated by kids in public places,