Breaking up is hard to do......

At any age.

I find myself in the silliest situations, even though one would think that I had learned enough by now to avoid the yawning potholes of life.

Again, one would be wrong.

Why would a woman of my age, the age at which she just got her first social security check, find herself writing a blog about "breaking up"?

Yet, that woman is me. 

The breakup happened several months ago, but the ripples from that unfortunate event only finished gurgling within the past couple of weeks.

The problem, I guess, is that I have this notion that decency is possible even AFTER a relationship ends. That two people who have been intimate can continue to maintain a positive connection once the intimacy is over. (I will show my age here a bit by confessing that I've never moved from a relationship to a "friends with benefits" configuration. I do keep my options open at all times, though.)

I believe that life is too short to collect bad karma by collecting enemies along the journey of life. And I've managed that in most cases. But this last one, not so much, although I have tried.

We broke up (at my instigation) and agreed to remain friends.  We still have common interests, like college football, music, and eating out in memorable places. Why not continue to share those interests? Only one of us really meant it, though. Again, silly me.

I even reached out after a period of time and, upon my invitation, we attended a musical event along with dinner, a friendly occasion on a Sunday afternoon. I thought he needed to actually see how this could work and he agreed.....at the table. But, once we went our separate ways, he continued to keep those ways very separate. The door slammed and hasn't opened again.

And since this is the only configuration he seems to know after a relationship split, I gave him what he wanted all along: another "ex" to add to a string of similar beads. 

Maybe I'm naive. But I still think it's just sad.

GAME OVER