What Love Songs Are About

He's on his way now. It won't be long until he rings on my door. He called an hour ago to say that my car radio didn't fit through the mail slot and asked if I was already home so he could drop it off there. 'I'm still in the office. I'll be home in an hour', I said, wondering whether he would propose to hand it over to me in the office or drop by later, when I get home. He said it was more convenient to drop by later.
 
I went home and started waiting for him. Now it's 19:22, I'm at home, and our conversation was more than an hour ago, at 18:19, I can see that on my cell phone's registry. Soon he'll be here and ring my door bell. Then we will have one of those conversations again, of the ones I always have when relationships end, the ones in which I will apologize for my behavior and promise to better myself, and explain that that is the reason why my relationships are always so short, as if the only thing on his mind was to analyze me and finally understand me... as if he was not relieved as he is that he does not have to worry about that one thing anymore: me. Or maybe he will drop by and not even want to talk? Could he do that? No, he would not do that, not after the many times we told each other "I am crazy about you", not after picking the names of the four kids we were going to have together, not after telling our friends how we had found the most wonderful person in the world, not after spending the magical week we spent together.
 
I hear something outside. A car. From here I can see the street and, yes, it's him. He doesn't park the car - he just stops next to the parked cars, in the middle of the road - and jumps out, leaving the driver's door open. He's not planning to stay. He's not planning to stay and talk. I open the door. It's awkward.
'Hi', he says with a perfect smile on his face.
That's not the way guys look when they have a broken heart, I think to myself and hear myself answering 'hi'.
He gives me the radio, I take it and feel like in a movie where people actually don't talk to each other in situations like these. I see him going back to the car, saying 'Bye'.
 
I close the door and I'm about to explode. Because we didn't talk. Because he didn't beg me to take him back. Because he didn't beg me to forgive him for not being there when I needed him, yesterday. Because he doesn't seem to care. Because he's acting like we didn't promise each other the world last weekend. Because, before becoming my future husband, he was my best friend and he could understand me perfectly. But now we are strangers. I feel my heart racing and my chest hurting, burning. I'm about to cry out very loud. But I don't. Instead, I call him immediately and ask him what the hell that was.
 
'I told you I'd bring you back the radio', he says politely, and to my question on why we didn't just talk for a while, he answers 'I didn't think you wanted to talk after being so angry at me yesterday. And, honestly, after hearing you say that you wish you had not met me, I didn't feel like talking to you, really'. I can only hear an inner cry inside me 'no, no', I think to myself, 'it's not like I don't want to see you anymore. It's just that saying good-bye hurts so much that it would be easier not to have met you at all, like in that movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where forcefully forgetting each other is the only way to cope with the enormous pain caused by losing each other. I'm still crazy about you, but I'm too proud and ashamed to say it now'. But that's not what I hear myself say to him. Instead, I say 'OK, I understand, I think you're insensitive and indifferent, now I really wish I had never met you, and I hope I will forget you very, very soon'.
 
I see my relatively big thumb pushing the relatively small red button of the cell phone. I have hung up on him. Now I feel my body and heart doing very weird things again. I feel the world turning. Everything feels very, very wrong. Like ever since the world existed nothing has been right, and nothing will ever be.  I see his name on my cell phone. He's calling me. He says 'Do you want to talk? Shall I drop by?', I hear my voice, shaky, saying 'yes'. Waiting again. He rings the doorbell again. Now I think it's going to be the way it always is: apologize, explain, maybe cry. But it's clear to me now that there will be no reconciliation. This is really over. We blew it. Now it's a matter of getting along as good as we can for the times when our paths might cross in the future, maybe in some company drinks. The feeling of defeat would also be smaller if things end in a peaceful and civilized way. We are standing in the kitchen while I'm making tea for both. Talking is very difficult. I manage to explain myself a bit, it becomes clear to me that I clearly overreacted yesterday, but admitting that would imply losing face. He says that I was not acting in a reasonable way and that I was not saying clearly what I wanted and needed. Admitting that would be losing face, as well, so I insist he would have known intuitively what to do and say if we were meant to be together. But we are not. That's why we're having this discussion, of course. I wonder how many thousands of couples have the same discussion every day. I wonder how many couples, freshly in love with each other, ruin the moment of most endorphins they will ever have together, and spoil the chance to have the best-ever sex because of a discussion so stupid. We must be the only ones, I think, the most stupid ones of all, but I'd better not mention this right now. We're silent. I start remembering how two days earlier he asked me to marry him 'when we grow up', and how I instantly answered 'yes', with a big smile. And now this. I decide to make a joke 'I'm glad we had not sent those invites yet', he gives me a puzzled look and asks 'to the wedding?'. Instantly we start laughing. This was exactly the magic that had brought us together. Laughing about anything, no matter how bad it was. That was what we were good at, when we were friends.
 
We now start making more jokes like that and at some stage I hug him. I smell him. I feel him putting his arm around me trying to comfort me, like a real friend. 'You never told me which pets you prefer', he laughs, and we stay like that, holding each other, for 20 seconds. Then he says 'I have to go'. We let go of each other, he approaches to kiss me good bye, I'm not sure where, but I offer him a cheek, and a good-bye smile. I'm not angry anymore. I recognize him again, he's not some evil freak who pretended to love me but actually couldn't care less. He's my friend, who is a great person, but who is not the person I am willing to give my life to. Because it takes much more than friendship to give your life to somebody. I see him walk out the door, we are not looking at each other anymore, but we are both smiling with relief, probably both happy to have minimized the damage, to have lessened the feeling of defeat, maybe even about defending the company's best interest.
 
He is gone now. As I hear his engine start and watch his car drive away, I remember us laying on the grass 3 days earlier, on the first summer day of the year, and in my head I hear him asking me, while our hands are playing with each other in the warm sunlight 'do you think I'm crazy because I'm asking you to marry me after 2 days?', and I remember myself laying on his chest, being the happiest person in the world, answering 'no, not at all, I think it's good to be willing to spend the rest of your lives together from the very start of the journey together. If, one day, we don't think we'll be staying together forever, that will be the moment when we will not be together any longer'.