the phone when I didnât get my way and I may want to look into that. I need to be loved by someone who can fully comprehend that when he sees me get locked out of my apartment three times in one month, that that may very well be the Thing About Me That Is Never Going to Change. And he loves me anyway. Not because itâs an unconditional love, but because he actually truly knows me and has decided that my fascinating mind and hot bod are worth perhaps missing a flight or two because I forgot my driverâs license at home.
But thatâs not really the point right now. The point here is that Ruby refuses to step out for a cup of coffee, go shopping, or even take a walk with me, because Ruby is a disaster at handling disappointment. Particularly of the romantic variety. Whatever good times she has with some fellow, it will never be worth the amount of pain and torture she puts herself through when it doesnât work out. The math of it simply doesnât add up. If she dates someone for three weeks, and then they break up, sheâll spend the next two months driving herself and everyone around her crazy.
Because Iâm an expert on the emotional MRI of Ruby, I can tell you exactly what happens during her descent. She will meet someone, a man, say, as opposed to a feline. She will like him. She will go out with him. Her heart will be full of the possibility and excitement that comes with finally finding someone you actually like who is available, kind, decent, and who seems to like you back.
As I said before, Ruby is attractive; very soft, very feminine. She can be inquisitive and attentive, and a great conversationalist. And when she meets men, they like her for all these reasons. Ruby is actually really good at the dating part of dating, and when she is in a relationship, she is clearly in her element.
However, this is New York, this is life, and this is dating. Things often donât work out. And when they donât, when Ruby gets rejected, for whatever reason it may be, and however the bad news is delivered, a process begins. She is usually fine at the Moment of Disappointment. Like when this guy Nile broke up with her because he wanted to get back together with his ex-girlfriend. At the moment of impact, she is philosophical about it. A burst of sanity and self-esteem washes over her, and she tells me that she knows that it just means he wasnât the one, and she canât take it personally and itâs his loss. And then a few hours go by and time will push her further away from that moment of clarity and she will start to slip into the Crazy Pit. Her beloved, whom she once saw at normal size, starts growing larger and larger and larger, and in a matter of hours he becomes the Mount Everest of desirability and she is inconsolable. He was the best thing ever to happen to her. There will never be anyone as good as him ever again. Nile did the most powerful thing he could do to Rubyâhe rejected her and now he is EVERYTHING and she is nothing.
Iâve gotten so used to watching Ruby go through this, that I make a point of being around her during those critical few hours after a rejection, to see if I can stop her at the top of the stairs down to Crazy. Because, let me tell you, once she goes down, thereâs no telling when sheâs going to come back up. And she doesnât like to sit there alone. Ruby likes to call up her friends and describe in vivid detail, for hours, what itâs like in the basement of broken dreams. The wallpaper, the upholstery, the floor tiles. And there is nothing we can do. We just have to wait it out.
So you can imagine that after a few years of these ups and downs, whenever I get the call from Ruby that she has âmet this great guyâ or the second date went âreally, really well,â Iâm not necessarily jumping for joy. Because, again, the math is simply not promising. If three weeks can add up to two months of tears, imagine how