A Rob Fleming-Gordon inspired list

John Dillinger was killed behind that theater in a hale of FBI gunfire. And do you know who tipped them off? His fucking girlfriend. All he wanted to do was go to the movies. - Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

There is, apparently, a rash of inconsiderate break-ups going on across our fair land. OK, maybe not a rash, but at least two via text message, and that’s two too many. The other aggrieved party in a text break up was mndmazes who writes “It is what it is”.

She was cool enough to comment on my post and point out it wasn’t just the ladies doing text break-ups, since it’d recently happened to her. My condolences mnd. She’s right, guys are equally inconsiderate and stupid. I won’t even try to make any excuses for myself or the fellow members of my gender. Really, how could I?

From her comment I jumped over to her blog (which is pretty good so take a look) and I left a comment inspiring me to write what you're now reading. What I said there was “Actually caught myself ([Thursday] morning) considering “Hi-Fidelity” as this evening’s entertainment. Either that or a Rob-inspired blog post: “Top 5 songs to send the person who just ditched you via electronic medium”…or something like that.”

Well, that sounded like such good advice I actually did sit down to watch this fine film adaptation of a great book (hence the hierarchy of names in the title of this post). Even though both are actually called “High Fidelity” we won’t let that get in the way. And now I've written the post. So at least I know how to keep promises to myself.

We’re going to shorten the topic to “Top 5 break-up songs” for simplicity, since I don’t know of anyone singing about getting dumped via Facebook, twitter or, as in my case, by text. If you do, please pass them along. So, here we go...

Foggy’s top 5 break up songs
5. You Oughta Know by Alanis Morisette. I’ve always wanted to meet the man, be it Dave Coulier or whoever, who inspired this song and ask him “Dude (it was the 90s, we could still say “dude”), what the fuck did you do to this chick to have her write this song? Really, I wanna know so I can avoid the same mistake. That and take her to the movies. “Would she go down on you in a theater?”

4. Du hast by Rammstein. Once listened to this song in a black, Mustang Cobra while going 110 mph in the local lanes of I-270. That little nugget of a memory has nothing to do with a break-up, but it's still a good break-up song. And it's in German.

3. Why Don’t You Get a Job? by The Offspring. This song was on a continuous loop through my head most of Thursday.

2. Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds Five. “Gimme back my black T-shirt…” If I were to add up all the clothes I’ve lost in break-ups, I could probably start my own charity. The one that really hurt was a rugby jersey with the School House skull and crossbones logo.

1. The Heisman by Johnny Quest. A great song from the college years. OK, maybe pre-college years, but not by much.

Any deletions and additions? Tell me in the comments what your favorite break-up/getting dumped song is.

Well, that's a new one...

While I don't normally delve too deeply into my personal life here, what just happened deserves a word or two. Or more.

This, this here is me:

Yep, dumped.

It's not that it hasn't happened before, cause it has, but I've never quite been dumped like I was tonight. But more on that in a minute.

When I got stood up on our first date, albeit on the night before Thanksgiving (but that was her idea), I should have said that's that. But I didn't. I'm a forgiving type who recognized that night was a stretch and, hey, no harm no foul.

We met up the next week (she paid since she'd stood me up) and I decided, hey, she's pretty nice, let's see where this goes. It next went to a Caps game, which she was late for. Anyone seeing a pattern? While I was waiting at RFD she texted to say "sorry, got stuck at the office xmas party, be there as soon as I can." But the idea is to spend time together and get to know each other and we only missed the first period or so.

Fast-forward to Christmas week, right after the big snow. We had plans to meet for dinner, you know, the third-week or so dinner at a place nicer than any you've been to before that you're really looking forward to because, hey, this might be going some place. I was on my way out the door and I got a text saying "just hit an ambulance. Don't think I'm going to make it." We ended up getting together later that night at her place and were just kinda, together. She'd had a rough day and I figured the best thing I could do was be there for her.

Skip ahead to today.

I hadn't seen nor hear hide nor hair of her since New Years Day.

Then I got a text tonight saying, basically, "i don't think it's working." It didn't say that exactly, but that's the gist. While I'm not going to read it again (did that enough already), I've decided not to delete this text manually, but let it quietly, and naturally, expire out of my inbox. Soooo, if I happen to get a bunch of texts over the next couple of days the process will be hastened.

Aside from the staggeringly abrupt end of what I thought was something that might be going interesting places, I have to say seriously? A break-up by fucking text message? What the fuck is that?

What the hell ever happened to common, fucking courtesy? The best you can hope for is for someone to have the guts to face you and tell you how they feel. After that, doing it by phone they have the comfort of not facing you, but they at least have to personally explain to you what's happening.

But a text message? That's just cowardly.