Endless loaves of bread.
After too many mornings of waking up at his house and finding there was absolutely nothing to eat, I started bringing my own food over. The coffee and peanut butter stayed in the cupboard where I’d left them, but the bread would disappear immediately. At one point I was buying a loaf a week for my own house, and up to three loaves for his. Then he started complaining all that bread was making him put on weight.
* Lesson: Bring a man a loaf of bread and he eats for a day.
Fancy water bottle.
My ex and I had the same water bottle: a red aluminium canister of the kind that will last a decade if you look after it. I’d been looking after mine. Then at some point during the relationship the bottles got swapped, but I didn’t become aware of this until we’d gone through the only breakup I’ve ever had where things got so ugly we no longer speak. And my ex had not been looking after his bottle. I don’t want to think the swap was deliberate, as that would have been petty. But then again, he’d been known to use the Twitter account belonging to the cat he’d shared with his ex to try and make her jealous, so.
* Lesson: Trust no one.
James Bond back catalogue.
My ex was really into TV, and as a result we watched what amounted to, in my opinion, endless amounts of crap. Amateur cooking shows and kitchen sink dramas, urgh. So the Bond films were an attempt at coming up with stuff we both actually wanted to watch, as we’d exhausted Star Wars and Harry Potter. So I bought the DVDs and kept them at his house, and we chuckled our way through them. I mean, those films are comedies, right?
* Lesson: Opposites attract, then opposites bicker endlessly over what to watch while eating dinner. Romance is dead.
Favourite knickers.
Do women actually leave used underpants at the houses of men they are dating, or is that a 1980s film cliche? In any case, these knickers were left behind in a clean state, in a moment of optimism that I’d be returning to wear them. I did not return to wear them. At the time I was too torn up about the guy to be upset about the pink and orange lace number, but it goes without saying: I’ve never left a favourite piece of clothing at anyone’s house ever again.
* Twist in the story: About a year later I found myself back at the scene, briefly, and retrieved the lost knickers! I’ve never been able to wear them again though, so the loss stands.
Favourite yoga teacher. 
I once got asked out by a man who, like me, liked to do 90 minutes of Ashtanga yoga on Tuesday nights, overseen by a wonderful teacher named Kate. This man was attractive, as boys at yoga often are, but I’m fairly sure I’ve never met a person I have less in common with. Cue Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction making a square with her fingers, if you catch my drift. Fast forward a couple of weeks, to when his prettiness no longer compensated, and I saw no other choice: I begrudgingly gave him custody of Kate, and bought a bike instead.
* Lesson: Good men are hard to find, but not as hard to find as good yoga teachers.
Tags: ex-boyfriends, jessica furseth, love, relationships, take to the sea
I am still angry that I accidently left my nice NEW AND EXPENSIVE bra at my LDR’s house. I thought I’d be visiting again, so it wouldn’t matter.
I did not ever visit again.
I sent every single thing at my house back to my LDR within two days of his dumping me. He received six Banana Republic shoe boxes full of crap at his office.
He waited SIX MONTHS and only until I called him in a panic to demand my keys back because he had the only other car key. He still has some of my DVDs (since replaced). You’d think he would have been happy to get rid of my winter boots and robe.
In return all I got to keep was a pair of greying far-too-brief-for-a-man-his-age underpants.
I have lost so many sweaters, some of my favorite sweaters, to exes. If you break up with me, you shouldn’t get to keep my sweaters, dammit! They were so soft! So soft.
Approximately 20 years ago I “borrowed” a hand knit, chunky, manly as hell wool sweater from an ex that I still wear today. I freaking LOVE it, especially in winter. Hope that’s some consolation for you!
It’s not.
… If it makes you feel any better, as an intemperate thief of exes’ sweaters, I have found that they have then been stolen from me by others. Something something Traveling Torso-Pants.
Apparently every woman my husband dated before me tried to steal his hoodie. If our marriage doesn’t last, I’m going to be the one who succeeds.
I lost an adorable stuffed toy ewok 🙁
ME TOO!!
Did we date the same guy?! Is this some kind of trophy-collecting behavior?!?!?
my heart sincerely weeps for you.
I had a stuffed ewok in my childhood. I made Wicket a little openwork crochet sweater thing. <3
I am astonished at how two of my exes never seemed to get hungry. Neither of them had food in the refrigerator, but neither suggested actually *EATING:* breakfast would go by, lunch would go by, and Dude would still be sitting on the couch watching TV and/or playing video games.
I would carry a stash of granola bars in my backpack. For Ex 1, I’d say “I’m eating a granola bar, want one?” He wasn’t hungry. For Ex 2, a very short-lived relationship, I would eat them secretly in the bathroom.
GREAT TIMES.
I have an ex who, unless I cooked for him, subsisted upon corn chips, canned beans, cottage cheese, and salsa. Now that’s not a terrible snack in and of itself but we had other food in the fridge, eggs, fruit, bread, and stuff, he just wouldn’t eat it unless I prepared it for him. He consumed quite a lot of corn chips with weird, lumpy dip in the two years we were together.
I find this to be true with exes and with just friends even, except at least with friends you can be more blatant about it, and not feel all shy like you do at the beginning of a relationship. Do they not understand the levels of hanger I can reach? How do these people go hours without food??
I have a friend who regularly says things like “oh no, I couldn’t eat, I had a latte a half hour ago and I’m still full from it”. I don’t know how we manage a friendship, as we are obviously from entirely different planets.
I am this person. I have several close friends with what seem to me like ridiculously fast metabolisms, and they are mystified that I can have a big salad for lunch and sincerely not want to eat again for, like, 7 hours. There was a period when I was so busy I would forget to eat until like 11 pm. I’m not saying that was a good thing, but these friends of mine would have passed out. Me, I’d be all, “wait, was the last time I ate…yesterday? Huh, I should do something about that.”
When we visit each other now and go out to eat constantly I always feel like I’m going to die of so much food so close together. So much starchy meaty food that isn’t raw plants. I come from a rabbit planet.
My boyfriend is the same way, never eats breakfast on weekends, MAYBE a late lunch around 4, but by then I’ve eaten breakfast, lunch at a normal hour, and then get hungry at 6! He snacks a lot during the day but: nutrition, dude! How do you appear to not need it?
My husband sometimes suggests our going without breakfast or dinner, or having a small bag of chips. He does not understand that I MUST FEED.
I’ve found that birth control in particular requires that you EAT or you get NAUSEATED. Seriously. I hate brunch for precisely this reason.
BRUNCH IS THE WORST. Have to wait to eat when you wake up, then have to wait looooooonger for dinner. But it’s particularly the worst if you have to stand in line for it, which seems to be a thing with brunch.
Birth control may be part of it. But my father has the same problem and carries around little snacks with him to prevent THE RAGE, however, so it may be genetic too.
haha, I always just eat breakfast and then also brunch? sometimes I eat lunch afterwards too.
my hunger knows no bounds
I support this.
this is a great choice
Aaah, the hobbit dietary plan! I approve most heartily.
I only do brunch when I wake up laaaaaaaaaaaaate
YES, down with brunch! I now use my baby as an excuse for why I can’t take my in-laws to brunch when they come visit, but it’s a lie. She can wait in line fine; I cannot.
Haha I’m the same. Hanger is real!
Doctor Who box sets for all of 9 and 10…. sigh. I can watch the episodes on Netflix, but what about the DVD extras? They are lost to me now.
🙁
This is truly a painful loss. 🙁
Ouch
Noooooooooooooooooooooo!
There are *cough* ways to get them, y’know. And considering that you actually bought the DVDs, once upon a time, it wouldn’t really be unethical, would it?
But the EXTRAs? and the commentary from the cast. It’s all quite tragic.
Including those! The whole DVDs (I just checked).
Nah, I’d rather just nurse my righteous anger.
Things I have lost to exes: a first-edition copy of a rare book, some bands I can’t listen to anymore, CDs, several recipes, a pie
Things I have gained from exes: innumerable comfy t-shirts, CDs, vintage clothing formerly belonging to their parents (I’m a parent-charmer), knitting needles, the ability to knit, several recipes, an art portfolio of angry drawings, and knowledge of several obscure subjects they were interested in
Was the art portfolio yours, or an ex’s that you somehow managed to get custody of? I can only imagine that angry drawings from exes would have the potential to be amazing.
The portfolio was mine. Interestingly, the ex who inspired the angry drawings was in my same art class, but I never saw any of her angry drawings (if she made any).
Oh my god the obscure subjects. If you ever want to talk about fMRI I am the person you should seek out.
Oh man, that’s amazing. The most obscure thing I ever acquired was crossword puzzles. (She also loved a very particular section of US history, but I was a US history minor at the time, so any and all such expertise in my brain is not neuron-tied to the person)
The bands you can’t listen to are the worst! You can do your best to avoid certain music, but then all of a sudden you’re in a bar or the grocery store or watching a movie and, bam!, awash in painful memories.
In a funny postscript to my most recent terrible break up, my current roommate knows some of the members of a band that was lost to me when my ex and I broke up, so I could meet this band the next time they’re in town. However, I’m not certain that this wouldn’t result in me in the bathroom of a bar trying not to cry, so I’ve just kind of dodged that possibility.
Oh yeah. That book. Signed by the author. Probably still at his apartment. dammit.
I lost my metal snips because my ex thought he had more right to them than me because tools are for men.
On one attempt at leaving the same ex he threatened to burn all my stuff and I was on foot so all I left with were the essentials and a floor length ballroom skirt in plaid silk which actually packs down surprisingly well.
Both those stories are horrible.
I KNOW.
Also tragic: I still have the skirt but have never worn it. When will someone take me to the ball *record scratch noise* I mean, when will I independently go to a ball, possibly with a friend or lover.
You should definitely go to all the balls, but also you should wear it immediately to whatever occasion will next involve a lot of people/soon-to-be-admirers. Wedding? Birthday party? Happy hour? It sounds amazing.
What do you mean “the essentials AND a floor length ballroom skirt in plaid silk”, I’m sure you meant that AND to be INCLUDING :((
A nice reusable plastic food storage container, my beat-up West Wing season 2 DVDs, and various travel-sized toiletries: casualties of the one ex who didn’t have the courtesy to eventually give me my shit back.
Come on, exes! Put my stuff in a Jiffy envelope and stick it in a mailbox if you must; we don’t even have to do this face-to-face. CAN WE HAVE A LITTLE CIVILIZATION, PLEASE.
(I did gain a pair of super warm, soft knee socks I’m pretty sure belonged to one dude’s mom during an overly thorough Ex Stuff Exchange, so I guess it could be worse.)
A duvet and two nice pillows. Do you know what’s a bad sign? When your boyfriend does not have pillows or a duvet/comforter. Since I was dumb, I brought over my spare guest ones rather than run far far away or sleep over without them. Shortly after, he and his roommates ended up with bedbugs and he threw them out because it was too much work to figure out how to de-bug them.
I think it comes out in the wash, though, as I got a big, lovely fish tank from him. We broke up while we were dating long distance and I had all his stuff he hadn’t brought when he moved back in with his dad. Since he was broke and useless, I had to drive his stuff 9 hours to his dad’s house. I told him the fish tank wouldn’t fit and my sister would be keeping it for her fish. He didn’t argue.
No pillows? NO PILLOWS. No pillows. The more I say it, the harder it is to imagine.
He used rolled up towels instead.
D:
This reminds me of a discussion on the Hairpin a while back where someone used the term “garbage bed boy.” It is such a perfectly/horribly accurate description of that particular kind of gross dudebro.
YES why do guys spend time trying to get people into bed, then make the bed as uninviting as humanly possible?
On the other hand, a handsome man I know makes his bed every morning and I found this so alien to my experience and unbelievably adorable and charming!
HA! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
I would like to point out that cheap pillows cost the same amount as towels. I never thought to ask if he had bought towels specifically for the purpose.
I actually can’t decide which is worse — buying extra towels for the sole purpose of using them as pillows, or using towels you already have as both towels and pillows interchangeably.
What. I feel like they’d unroll eventually and you’d have to roll them up again, and it just seems much more complicated than having pillows.
Good GOD, Lemon.
I had movers steal my down comforter and 1000 thread count Egyptian Cotton duvet. We didn’t officially break up, but, bedding is important and I am sorry for your loss. EMPATHY.
I’m not sure I would drive 9 hours to give anyone their stuff back (assuming I could drive.) Just like… do it your own goddamn self.
He didn’t have a car…and couldn’t afford to have them shipped…and probably a thousand other stupid excuses I can’t remember right now. On the plus side, he was living in the middle of wine country, so my brother came with me and we visited a bunch of wineries, did a tasting at the tiny local distillery that makes fancy absinthe and high-quality fruit liquors, and stayed with childhood friends we hadn’t seen in years. Having to see Garbage Bed Man (because 34 is too old to be Garbage Bed Boy) was the brief low light of the trip.
Okay, this makes sense because doing fancy things is fun. I would have still possibly been of the mindset “you have one month to figure out a way to get your stuff back, then it’s being donated or discarded” but I am not always the nicest person.
ALSO: Everyone be proud of me please, I upgraded to a queen size bed almost an entire year ago and I just bought new pillows and a new comforter and new sheets so I won’t be sleeping on the same one set of cheapo Target sheets and I will have a comforter that fits my bed yesssssssss
(sorry for being so offtopic but I’m super excited about being an adult and having a nice bed and I wanted to share it with you all! Although I may be buying a Star Wars duvet cover, so perception of adulthood may vary…)
Star Wars is totally adult. Which one are you getting?
http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/star-wars… I think this one is the best color but: http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/star-wars… ENDOR LEIA IS THE BEST LEIA
Maybe I’ll go stare at them at the Pottery Barn Kids for an hour before making a decision; that seems reasonable.
Not just reasonable, but very adult.
Personally, I’m All. About. the earth tones, so it’d be an easy decision. It also seems like it would be fun to pick out solid-color pillowcases/sheets in those reds/greens/oranges/etc.
Yeah my new sheets are like this: http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/44655?feat=1156-CL… in the vintage green so the Endor ones might be best. I don’t know yet! I’m super excited about it though. Maybe I’ll even like, properly fold and put away my clothing! It could happen!
New bed stuff is the best! And I am all for quirky duvet covers and the like. My bedspread has birds and snakes fighting on it and I love it enough to actually bother with a bedspread.
I have a Pirates of the Caribbean bedspread but it is only for a twin-size bed 🙁
not quite the same thing…and I can’t testify to the quality (I got it as a wedding gift for someone, and they were happy, but I don’t know how soft it is) but you might find this of interest: http://www.amazon.com/Veratex-Flower-Skull-Queen-…
Ah, if I hadn’t already bought a full comforter I’d be pretty into this. It’s fun!
Noooo, this is worse than my ex, who had only one pillow (I eventually bought another one for me because sharing pillows = no) and NO TOWELS. He used sarongs instead of towels and told me “they don’t really absorb moisture as well, so you have to use them to kind of whip the water off of your body.” Obviously I bought my own towel for his place, which he would use and then leave on the floor.
Sorry, but I gotta:
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
I love you so much for this and more, Arsenio B Ham.
Also, this article was hilarious and SPOT ON!
ETA: A pseudo ex gave me a copy of Elizabeth Bishop’s poems. But (I think) he took my Mavis Gallant short stories which I can’t find Stateside. Ugh.
If you hadn’t, I would have.
A Villanelle deserves more than one thumbs up, but alas, the system does not allow more.
My most perfectly worn-in t-shirt (from my high school soccer playing days), and, weirdly, my favorite childhood stuffed animal.
I lost my complete DVD set of The Critic. Still pissed about that one.
I lost all my fancy knickers. Short story, we were not exclusive, he apparently did not believe me that we were not exclusive, when the realization dawned on him that I meant what I said two weeks into our fling, he and my (and half of my roommate’s) fancy underthings disappeared in the middle of the night. I don’t begrudge him his affinity for fancy, vintage underthings. I do begrudge him the theft of fancy underthings I’d spent years collecting and didn’t have the budget to replace.
Lesson learned: do not strike up casual affairs with the guy you felt sorry for and let camp out on your couch for a while, because he accepts not the definition of “casual” and will make off with all your snazzy knickers.
So he was staying with you or he broke in to steal your underwear? Either way – rude.
That is the most bizarre reaction on his part. Like, what did he do with them after?
I am pretty sure he fancied them. Which is fine, but dude, my things are not your things to have and to keep, get your own!
So…he just stole your entire lingerie drawer, AND that of your roommate? This is madness.
He stole your underthings? He will be the first to go, come the revolution
Alternate/additional lesson: Keep underthings under lock and key (?)
No, no. That can’t be right. What littlehuntingcreek said.
A Nintendo Wii, which I bought as a reward for finishing his exams (because hey, now you have free time to play in, that had been in short supply!). We played exactly once together. Now he and his wife play. YES WIFE.
Never Give A Man A Gift. [imagine this in scroll-y font over an inspirational picture of the beach]
*pages IcebergMama*
Harry Potter 5 🙁 The now-incomplete collection on my shelf bothers me!
Ooooh, I don’t even loan my HP books to family members and I know where they live and where they keep the spare house keys. Y’all must have been serious!
I think the REAL lesson here is: take to the sea.
This is always the lesson.
I am the kind of stubborn ex/person who REFUSES to lose any social ties and aggressively keeps going to yoga class, book club, networking events (and so on) and keeps talking to all mutual friends even the ones I met through the ex. These Are My Friends/Instructors/Colleagues Too! is my rationalization. Plus this gives me ample opportunity to look totally hot and together and not pathetically dumped. (I am the worst, throw me away)
Not even! I fully endorse this strategy.
love it; do it; own it. ITS YOURS.
You are a stronger lady than I, and I applaud you for it. I’ve given up entire neighborhoods for exes.
Since my first relationship, I have never ceded any such thing to the ex. However, I have often thought about how it ought to be the solemn sworn duty of my exes to cede things to me. Like, say, the time zone.
You are the best, come hang out.
I’ve never made that many new mutual friends through a boyfriend, but then, relatively limited dating experience. Most recent ex didn’t really have many friends in the area anyway, which should have been more of a red flag, and ex before that, well, his friends were either crazy or just stoners.
This IS an excellent strategy. I was trying to explain to a friend why I wouldn’t go to a concert with him–lost the venue in a breakup–and my friend said “Just be like
‘”
‘
Which, fair point.
my annotated copy of lolita. damnit.
Oh, I lost mine to a roommate! I did recently replace it, though.
-One really nice Tupperware container I used to bring over baked goods
-Several pairs of underwear
-A 3-D geometric bracelet thing that had a lot of sentimental value even though it was a cheapo F21 purchase
-Innumerable rings, lost behind bedside tables or under mattresses
-The Criterion version of Chungking Express
-A taxidermy bat
Man I would be so pissed about the taxidermy bat
Oh, I was. It’s not like I just casually left it at his place, he took it from my house. It was a THEFT. A bat theft. The most goth breakup ever.
I’m beginning to see a tupperware theme emerging.
Me too – how can you even replace that?
I still have elaborate fantasies of getting back in touch, becoming friends, being invited to his house, stealing my bat back and leaving some type of comic book villain style calling card behind in its place, and disappearing forever into the night. You know, normal things to think about.
Doooooo eeeeeeeet.
Carpe Bat (new Toast Hoodie)
Alternately, you could go all Strangers On A Train route where you loiter conspicuously in public while a fellow Toastie stages a daring cat burglary to retrieve your bat. Plausible deniability!
cat bat burglary
Y’know, you have fellow Toasties who could probably help you with this heist.
In college I woke up one morning and COULD NOT FIND my $65 (expensive on my student budget) Victorias secret half water-balloon push up bra which obviously came off SOMEWHERE in that apt. There were at least 3 roommates in that house though, and a rambling house party /pseudo-orgy that evening so i’m not entirely sure it didn’t leave w someone else or was held onto as a trophy? ANYWAY IT WAS EXPENSIVE AND I TAKE LINGERIE SERIOUSLY. I’m quite a bit heated about this 10 yrs later.
On the flip side, I once broke up w a terrible human who began stalking me and tried to use the exchanging of stuff as a means to reconnect. Instead, I put all his things in a cardboard box and left them at his bffs apartment that lived by me– who I knew was traveling abroad for an indefinite period. Rain, mist, mold, wind, insects. Voicemail : “go pick up your ish at Ben’s!”
My favorite hoodie, but it’s my fault. He said, “Hey, I’ve got your hoodie” and I said “No, I don’t think it’s mine” because I did not want to see him again. “Really? I’m pretty sure it is.” NOPE NOT MINE LET’S NEVER TALK AGAIN. Goodnight, sweet hoodie. Your distinctive paint stains made me sound like a lunatic but some things are worth sacrificing.
ahahahaha YUP.
So many of the fine things I have lost in break-ups, I could not really regret because I let them go, sacrificing them to the break-up gods as my payment to avoid one more conversation.
Yes. This.
Custody of our python.
Euphemism? 😉
Finnegan Snake was no euphemism!
I lost custody of five snakes and their future babies. Sadface.
Losing the snake is kind of a PLUS in my book…just sayin’
I didn’t lose my favorite beautiful swingy black dress. He took it. Because it was my favorite.
At least I took his comic book collection and Playstation3 OH NO WAIT I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT
Mother fucker.
BURN HIM DOWN.
QUESTION: I used to have sex with a dude a year and a half ago, but then I decided to be exclusive with my boyfriend and kind of stopped seeing this other dude pretty abruptly. Now I have two of his books. One of them was really expensive and someone had borrowstolen his last copy of this book. How do I get him his books back without having to speak to him at all? He has moved so I can’t just drop them off on his doorstep and run away.
I KNOW I’M THE WORST (I also have a pair of his pants)
…mail?
Mutual friend, locate workplace via LinkedIn, or pretend it never happened–I think those are your only options.
Or you could contact him just for the mailing address and get out of there. It’s been a year and a half, and he might be happy to see his expensive book back if he isn’t happy to hear from you.
the mutual friend express?
Like the pony express but when you don’t have a pony.
Email him for an address and mail the books?
The last time I did a stuff-exchange with an ex, we arranged it by email, pulled up to the parking lot in our cars and handed over the stuff without speaking, so you could try that too, I guess.
My brother has a bad habit of lending my stuff to his girlfriends. I’ve lost my Buffy season 5 DVDs and my first edition copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to his exes. Thankfully we’ve both now moved out and he no longer has access to my stuff.
The only thing I’ve lost to an ex is a necklace I used to love. But I still have his hat, so I think that one evens out.
WHAT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR BROTHER.
I’m gonna go with teenaged hormones. But, right? I was so mad
SEASON 5 WAS A GREAT SEASON
my condolences
I don’t think I’ve lost any objects, just places (a coffee shop here, a concert venue there) and a few activities (writing haiku).
I rarely keep anything. I rather enjoy the purge of giving things back. One notable exception: years ago I made out with a dude in a dance club and exchanged numbers in a moment of weakness. We went on one date afterward, and I realized that it would not work at all: I was not ready to date again after a recent breakup, and he was completely ignoring my plain speech to that effect and making plans for our next dates. One day he showed up at my house on his way to the airport for his business travel. He gave me a bottle of tequila and said that was his contribution to the dinner he had decided I would be cooking for him when he returned, and he gave me a rather beautiful textile wall hanging he got from his business (imports).
The next time I saw him, I told him I was getting back together with my ex. The wall hanging is still hanging, and you can guess what happened to the tequila.
A copy of checkov’s love stories that I now recognize was an attempt at flirting. But when it was given to me I put on a table and never read while also never speaking to the person who gave it to me again.*
*Because he is an idiot who got himself and nearly me arrested trying to call out police brutality in the most idiot white anarchist dudebro way possible.
I am quite fortunate in that in my only adult relationship, my ex moved out of our shared apartment before we broke up (he moved for work; it was ultimately quite convenient/a further sign that we, as a couple, were doomed) and our belongings were sorted amicably.
However I did lose my childhood journal to my boyfriend from middle school/high school. I let him look at it and he never gave it back to me, I guess? It’s been way too long to ask him if he still has it (unlikely, I think) but it is a shame to have lost such an artifact.
Sometimes I feel bad and awkward about reaching my Advanced Age without managing to eke out any long-term relationships. Then I read stuff like this and feel better.
The entire Seinfeld series.
Joseph Campbell’s “Hero With a Thousand Faces”, a cat that technically still has my name on its adoption papers, and every library in my home town.
If I started listing things I lost in the break-ups, we would be here all day. I didn’t even have that many relationships, but goddamnit didn’t every one cost me something precious.
But I think often of a lesson I could have learned from a previous partner’s apparent loss. He had an expensive, elaborate TV-video system, back when such a thing was a status object for a certain kind of geek. (I do not disparage geeks, o my people; I am wholeheartedly geeky.)
He never let an opportunity go by to mention that his ex-, who had been responsible for packing it up when he moved out, had failed to pack one of the remotes. That made the set-up slightly less simple to operate, but more than that, its absence ruined something intangible for him: a sense of completeness, of flawless operation, of a certain geeky perfection that he’d known too briefly and now was forced to relinquish.
Months and months after he and I started dating, by which time I had heard him repeatedly disparaging the carelessness and thoughtlessness of his ex many times, he had occasion to unpack his tent. And at the very bottom of the tent bag was the missing remote.
She didn’t overlook it. She didn’t lose it. She didn’t spitefully throw it out. But she did, apparently, stuff it down into the bottom of a tent bag where he would not see it for months or years.
And if I’d been paying better attention, I would have wondered not what I did wonder, “What kind of spiteful ex would do such a petty thing?,” but what I later realized I should have wondered: “What kind of partner was he to drive a person who otherwise sounds pretty awesome to such a small, spiteful, petty act?”
But of course, I got the answer to the question I should have been asking all on my own; it just took longer. And hurt more.
[edited to add] I’m going to call myself out here for the implication of that last part: no, we are not culpable for other people’s acts against us, and it’s not okay that I suggest we are. But by the end of the relationship, I understood her gesture as an eloquent, even poetic act of harmless vengeance. I wouldn’t perform that act myself, but it makes me laugh even now.
She and I could be related, for this is EXACTLY the kind of petty thing that would make me and my girlfriends cackle with glee over cocktails. For years.
What about things we’ve lost and gained in friend breakups? With one particularly bad one, I lost an amazing, perfectly fitted vintage swimsuit and a huge cd collection but gained two gorgeous vintage dresses that I still wear. That’s probably a decent trade, come to think of it.
I still have her lavender-colored pashmina.
And I bet it looks lovely on you! Or does it linger like an almost-haunting trace of the thing that used to be? This particular friend breakup was more than 10 years ago, and I still go back and forth sometimes between “WELL RID OF YA” and a pinch of sadness for the fun, funny, exuberant, dramatic, never boring time that passed. I mean, I can clearly see how the friendship was unhealthy, and I don’t wish it back, but even so.
nah, we were friends for a long ass time, & I borrowed it from her long before the friendship went south, which was by 100% her choice to drift away – not acrimonious, in the sense that there was only sadness on my side & apparently no feelings at all on her side. So I’m sort of like, ehhh, I guess I have a pashmina now.
I was actually just thinking about the lovely pashmina I lost to an ex-friend recently. Probably not worth the drama to get back.
Everything I’ve gained from a friend breakup has somehow broken. Do I do it subconsciously? Is it the universe making some kind of statement? A poem in calligraphy faded into a blank page. Two jade bowls fell off a counter and shattered. A scarf unraveled into a pile of yarn! What is that?
The universe righting itself.
It’s the universe saying EVERYTHING IS PROCEEDING AS IT SHOULD. Maybe.
My copies of several books I quite enjoyed, and wanted to share with him. Pretty sure he never read them and I am never sharing ever again.
I have not ever lost anything, but I did mail a guy’s book back to him after he met another girl and fell in love with her in 3 days then broke off our casual thing to be exclusive with her. He wanted me to keep it. I wanted to not need to burn a book.
It was a terrible book, and his favorite (so many dumb things underlined). I would rather he just have it.
I foolishly forgot to pack all my cookbooks when I moved out.
The beautiful stainless steel and diamond ring he bought me that I will never be able to wear again so it just sits in my jewellery box looking sad.
I did get the cats though.
And all the remote controls in the house, even the ones for the things I wasn’t taking. That wasn’t me though, that was my AMAZING friend who was helping me move, who did it on a whim and didn’t tell me until we got back to my new place (which wsa 2 hours away). She said she knew I’d have been noble and said don’t do it, so she just packed them all without telling me. I love her.
Was your friend Elsa is Emily’s ex-partner’s ex-girlfriend, by any chance?
Hah! I will have to ask her if she ever did similar to one of her exes…
Ha! thats a creative form of vengeance i’m into it.
Any chance of selling the ring and using the proceeds to buy new cookbooks? A good friend of mine sold her engagement after divorcing her asshole husband, and used the money to throw herself a fantastic 40th birthday party.
I probably could but I don’t really want to sell it! We were happy together for a long old time and the ring does still mean something.
I’m so sad for your lost cookbooks 🙁
The lesson I got here was date every commenter here, get free stuff!
Hey now, no fair abusing knowledge gleaned from Toast comments.
I am an awful human being =(
Well, we’re not telling you the horde of delicious goodies we’ve reaped from our break-ups, and somehow I don’t think that list would be as tempting. It’s always easier to remember the things you lost in a vexing way than to appreciate the things you gained through carelessness or worse.
I somehow kept a hold of my teenage dirtbag’s varsity baseball sweatshirt (which is the only piece of clothing I have with my high school’s name on it). I don’t actually know how I got it, because wearing your boy’s team sweatshirt was a big deal (obviously) and we weren’t Actually Dating (see: dirtbag), but somehow I did AND kept it. A few years (!) later he asked me about it and I probably denied all knowledge. I still have it, though I don’t wear it, just because it makes me feel good about not being with that coercive douchebag anymore/treating myself better.
Ha, upon reading this comment makes me realize how incredibly ridiculous it is to keep this dumb sweatshirt. He was The Worst and this is the only good thing I got out of the two years I spent with him, so I can’t make myself get rid of it. So petty, but true. *sigh*
Just a thought: you could donate the sweatshirt somewhere and buy yourself something you love to replace it. Make your freedom from thinking about him the best thing you got out of those two years ending.
But only if that feels good to you. I know I always need some time to burn and fume about something before I let it blow away with the winds of time.
I say allow yourself the luxury of spite and enjoy your harmless petty shirt-hoarding. It hurts no one and the relentless drive towards self-improvement (“if I was a better person having this shirt wouldn’t be weirdly satisfying”) will eat you alive if you let it.
Perhaps (probably) because I was a reserved and unforthcoming motherfucker in all previous relationships, I only gained things from them. Particularly from first boyfriend, a German dirtbag: he gave me a bunch of burned CDs (among them Tubular Bells, Depeche Mode and, weirdly, Tori Amos) and Charles Bukowski’s Notes from a Dirty Old Man translated into German (Aufzeichnungen eines Außenseiters, never read it but still own it for some reason)
My dad likes to text me entries from my semi-rural hometown’s police report. Relevant to this thread:
“Police are trying to locate a silver canoe taken from the side of [Rural Road]. A woman breaking up with her boyfriend told police that she placed the man’s property near the road and a passer-by likely mistook it as a free item.”
Potential friends. Not him, but I liked a lot of his friends.
On the upside, he deliberately me some fancy kitchen stuff so that’s a small win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Broken_Rel…
I lost a copy of Pride and Prejudice, of all things.
This thread has persuaded me to something I should have done a decade ago: my last ex gave me a carbon-steel serrated knife. It was fine, but I didn’t especially want it or like it; he had a hobbyhorse about carbon-steel knives and wanted it, but decided to pass it off as nominally for me, when it was clearly one of those presents that has nothing to do with the recipient.
After he dumped me and I had to move out, I found my bread knife hidden in the back of a drawer instead of its normal handy spot. So I packed it and have been using it ever since, partly because he’d left me so few useable kitchen knives and partly, I’m ashamed to admit, from stubbornness and spite.
But I think I’m going to pry open my notoriously tight wallet and buy myself a goddamned knife of my own to replace it, and then I will never, ever think of him when I slice my morning bread.
I highly recommend this one, which is super affordable yet also pretty much the best bread knife I’ve ever used: http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/dexter-russel…
It has a curve to the blade which makes it absolutely magical for getting through the tough bottom of a lovely crusty loaf without turning the bread on its side. It’s not as pretty as a global or something, but made in the USA and rosewood handle is a pretty good deal for a +/- $20 knife.
A very nice, good-sized shisha, my beloved copy of I, Robot, a life without eating disorders (I’m better now!), a favored bra (that was a one night stand thing, though – I probably could have found it if I hadn’t been so hell bent on getting out of there before he woke up). I think that’s all?
I had a white tank top from one ex, but he didn’t mind. I told him I was taking it as I left his house to go to the airport on vacation, and he responded, philosophically, “Well, at least I’ll have a shirt that’s been to Europe.”
Breaking Bad: one of the last things we did together was watch the finale of season 4. I went back over a year later to keep watching but it reminded me far too much of him and now I guess I’ll never see the end. I also delayed watching the third Dark Knight movie for a long time because we saw the first two together, but that turned out to be not so much of a loss.
A handmade very-high-quality riding crop made by a couple that now sells impact toys professionally. I was their first customer and I got it for a steal. He insists he doesn’t have it. I know I left it there.
I was gently teased for being “the Jane Austen girl” in our group of friends for years. When my best friend and I finally (FINALLY) got together – as had been coming since that spring break fling in 2000 and fueled by the years of comforting him after break ups and his wishes that they had only been more like me – it took him five short months to burn it all down. Our final conversation went like this:
Him: I met someone, T.
Me: ::blink blink::
Him: You’d like her. She’s smart, she looks a lot like you, she loves her cat… you are so similar.
Me: … I…
Him: Oh! And… she loves Jane Austen even more than you do. She has her own Jane Austen show! She plays Lizzie Bennet on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
Me: So, she’s me, but an actress and lives 300 miles away.
Him: Well, and her name isn’t Tika. But yes.
And that is the story of how I lost Jane Austen in my last break up.
I have this one friend who is lovely but like this as well, and it's pretty frustrating because she keeps inviting us over for dinner. She invited eight people over for Shabbat and served a two-or-three-person quiche with a small bowl of tiny, worm-eaten apples that she explained were "forest apples." One of the guests was pregnant, and another one (me) was breastfeeding with a young baby, and we were all uncomfortably hungry. Another guest was a nine-year-old boy who didn't like mushrooms (the quiche had mushrooms), and she had me fry up a single egg and cut a slice of bread for him. I suggested that we put the bread out for everybody (it was Shabbat, for which challah or at least bread is a necessary part of the proceedings, plus that quiche was TINY and there were eight people not counting my baby), and she said, "why? I see no reason to. There's quiche for everybody and it should be enough." Monsieur Siniichulok offered to buy pizza, but she turned it down. It's not a money thing, but an apparent inability to see that other people have different needs thing (when her boyfriend is there and cooking too, portions become adequate, if modest).
She just invited us over for a Seder recently and mentioned that she'd make roast lamb and soup and someone else would be bringing salad. Monsieur Siniichulok and I were pleasantly surprised because it sounded like there'd actually be enough food. We all had the soup and salad, and were having a good time and waiting for the lamb to show. An hour went by after the appetizers, and some of the guests left, looking hungry and annoyed. She called me into the kitchen to help with the dessert (I'd made dessert). I considered asking her if she needed help serving the lamb first, and then I thought maybe she hadn't had a chance to make it and felt bad, so I didn't want to bring it up. We had dessert and were getting ready to leave, and then she said, "oh, I'm so full. It's too bad about the lamb–it was so nicely roasted and it's still sitting in the oven, but I'm so full I could pop, so there was no point in putting it out."
Anyway, sorry to go on about this and possibly hijack this thread, but I'm just kind of mystified and don't know how to break it to her that she's the only person in this friend group (the pregnant woman is now VERY pregnant) who can subsist happily on teeny bits of food without hurting her feelings as a hostess. Any suggestions?
The pepper grinder my mother gave me (it’s not a big deal in and of itself, but she was batshit abusive with a bunch of personality disorders, and she had died, and it was one of the only things she ever gave to me that I actually wanted and that did not manage to convey a subtle or not-subtle insult), a book about Hayao Miyazaki’s anime movies, my copy of Ursula Le Guin’s Planet of Exile, and all of my Turkish textbooks. I had to leave these things behind when fleeing my abusive ex, because it was either that or interact with him again.
Thanks for sharing, hope that it can be a goodness for us all. be a modest muslimah , Keep istiqomah. ^^