Original Post:25 MARCH 2010 on the now defunct NewGay.Net
The first few warm days of the season bring memories of barbecues, day-drinking and intramural sports. We think about cleaning out our closets and getting ready for warm weather, but unfortunately these warm days can bring bad news for some folks—the unexpected Spring Relationship Shit-Can. March seems to be the time when we are all turning new leaves and heading toward a world of betterness, cleaning out our spiritual and emotional closets, and sometimes that turning of a new leaf means the end of an old relationship. The relationship that survives the winter months is not always off the hook in Spring.
The most difficult part about the ending of a relationship? The Stuff Negotiations.
In a short relationship, it might be easier:
"Here’s a box with your Old School DVD, your Nascar bottle opener, your extra contact case and your college t-shirt."
Longer relationships get a little harder.
You might date three consecutive people who need new digital cameras. It makes a great gift, your S.O. is really happy about your thoughtfulness, you both enjoy the new toy – until you get Shit-Canned and after a $1000 investment in digital cameras you find yourself using a disposable camera at your best friend’s bachelorette party: "Wait, let me take another one with the flash in case that first one didn’t turn out. With my disposable camera."
Shared camping equipment?
"You get the tent, I get the poles. I just don’t want you to be able to go camping with your new girlfriend in OUR TENT."
How about the 3,000 pictures the two of you took on vacation in Mexico, flying kites and burying your toes in the sand, and at baseball games, showing off your new jerseys and drinking beer through a straw? Do you delete these images entirely? Do you sit down together and start copying them from one computer to the other? What about sexy or naked pictures? Do you label them “Cute Animal Pictures” or "Grandma's 65th Birthday Party" and keep them on your desktop hoping no one in your life would dare to open the file?
You may also lose access to your favorite band after the Spring Shit-Can — right when concert season is taking off. When they roll through your town on tour you can both go, pretend you don’t spend all night looking for the other, and perhaps crying into your cocktail – or one of you can opt out. Spare yourself the awkwardness. Be mature about it. The latter option is much less likely after the Spring Shit-Can.
Living together? That’s where it starts to get really rough.
She gets the down comforter and you get the duvet cover, leaving you cowering under what is in reality just a sheet while she’s snuggled up toasty under a pile of goose feathers.
Organizing cat visitation schedules – this may be easier with dogs, who tend to shift environments more easily, but in my world I imagine cats are the more frequent victims of divorce. "I’ll take them Tuesday through Friday. Think you can clean their litter box now that you have your 'space'? If I remember correctly I think that when it came to cleaning the box it wasn’t 'you' it was 'me.' Pumpkin-Pie, get in the bag. Get in the bag because I’m the one who really loves you."
Maybe you and your girlfriend of a few years break up but still share the same family phone plan. One of you spends the next 13 months sending the other checks with things like “I still love you” or “FOR BEING A TOTAL BASTARD” written in the memo.
May you are smart enough to never get a matching tattoo with your S.O., but if you do, does just one of you have to get it removed at the end of the relationship? Or cover it with a big circle strike? Or cover it with your new S.O.’s name? (Some people have to learn things the hard way.)
On that final day of living together – the last hurrah – you have to do all that stuff you’ve been putting off. Cleaning under the bathroom sink, one final hall closet, and the dreaded refrigerator.
How about the 3,000 pictures the two of you took on vacation in Mexico, flying kites and burying your toes in the sand, and at baseball games, showing off your new jerseys and drinking beer through a straw? Do you delete these images entirely? Do you sit down together and start copying them from one computer to the other? What about sexy or naked pictures? Do you label them “Cute Animal Pictures” or "Grandma's 65th Birthday Party" and keep them on your desktop hoping no one in your life would dare to open the file?
You may also lose access to your favorite band after the Spring Shit-Can — right when concert season is taking off. When they roll through your town on tour you can both go, pretend you don’t spend all night looking for the other, and perhaps crying into your cocktail – or one of you can opt out. Spare yourself the awkwardness. Be mature about it. The latter option is much less likely after the Spring Shit-Can.
Living together? That’s where it starts to get really rough.
She gets the down comforter and you get the duvet cover, leaving you cowering under what is in reality just a sheet while she’s snuggled up toasty under a pile of goose feathers.
Organizing cat visitation schedules – this may be easier with dogs, who tend to shift environments more easily, but in my world I imagine cats are the more frequent victims of divorce. "I’ll take them Tuesday through Friday. Think you can clean their litter box now that you have your 'space'? If I remember correctly I think that when it came to cleaning the box it wasn’t 'you' it was 'me.' Pumpkin-Pie, get in the bag. Get in the bag because I’m the one who really loves you."
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| Pumpkin-Pie |
Maybe you and your girlfriend of a few years break up but still share the same family phone plan. One of you spends the next 13 months sending the other checks with things like “I still love you” or “FOR BEING A TOTAL BASTARD” written in the memo.
May you are smart enough to never get a matching tattoo with your S.O., but if you do, does just one of you have to get it removed at the end of the relationship? Or cover it with a big circle strike? Or cover it with your new S.O.’s name? (Some people have to learn things the hard way.)
On that final day of living together – the last hurrah – you have to do all that stuff you’ve been putting off. Cleaning under the bathroom sink, one final hall closet, and the dreaded refrigerator.
Do you split the final contents of the fridge? 2 tomatoes, 3 pieces of pizza, an assortment of imported bottle beer. "No, I’m pretty sure I bought the extra firm tofu, you bought the Soyaki. Yes. That’s my mustard. Yes, it is. I brought it when I moved in. I remember fucking buying it."
While Spring is a typical time to be the perpetrator or victim of the Spring Relationship Shit-Can, it can also be a pretty excellent time to do the opposite. To start cleaning out the cobwebs of past relationships, to begin freeing yourself from some ties that have kept you from pursuing new relationships. It’s a good time to make room for someone else’s favorite cereal in your cabinet and think about all the sharing for which you two have potential – not the horrid memories of splitting your shampoo into two tiny travel bottles with your comforter-snatching, tent-pole-purloining, cat-kidnapping ex.
While Spring is a typical time to be the perpetrator or victim of the Spring Relationship Shit-Can, it can also be a pretty excellent time to do the opposite. To start cleaning out the cobwebs of past relationships, to begin freeing yourself from some ties that have kept you from pursuing new relationships. It’s a good time to make room for someone else’s favorite cereal in your cabinet and think about all the sharing for which you two have potential – not the horrid memories of splitting your shampoo into two tiny travel bottles with your comforter-snatching, tent-pole-purloining, cat-kidnapping ex.
