Tinder Tales

Things that happen on Tinder: Being propositioned for strip Mario Kart.

Break-up Therapy Series – Method 1: The Break-Up Bear

After this break up, I felt absolutely lost. I know that everyone feels this, but I felt slightly extra lost – at 29, I had never experienced heartbreak at this level. I had no rituals. I felt like I should be doing something specific to help to ease my pain, but had no idea what, aside from rearranging my apartment into something liveable and doing my best to avoid making degraded phone calls to my new ex. 

I spoke to a lot of my friends about their own experiences and rituals. One friend mentioned how helpful a trip to Build-A-Bear. She said it was really therapeutic to build herself a new buddy to whisper secrets to. I laughed a bit, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked this idea. She sent me a coupon and offered to go with me if I made the trip out to suburbia. 

For those of you who don’t know, Build-A-Bear is a store that lets you construct your own stuffed animal, with various customization options. First, I chose a “skin” from a wall of various animal types. That part was, admittedly, somewhat creepy. I chose a simple bear. 

Next, we headed over to a stuffing machine. A staff member asked how soft I’d like my bear to be. I stepped my foot on the pedal to help fill the bear with stuffing. There were scents hanging up next to the stuffing machine, so I chose to make my new friend smell like frosting. Then I chose a satin heart that would go inside my bear. The staff member led my friend and I through the Heart Ceremony, which may be the cutest thing I have ever experienced. I do not remember all of it, but it went something like this: 

Take the heart and rub it on your head, so he’s smart like you. 
Rub it on your eye, so he can see what you see. 
Rub it on your elbow, so he’s funny like you. 
Rub it on your knee, so he’ll always need you. 
Rub it on your toes, so he’s toe-tally cool like you. 
Rub it on your heart, so he’ll stay there forever. 
Now hold the heart in your palm, give it a kiss, hold it between both of your hands, and make a wish. 

A brief moment of silence followed to allow us time to make a wish. I silently wished for healing and love before handing my heart back to the employee. She put it in my bear, sewed it up, and handed it back to me. I applauded myself for not crying in the store and held my new buddy tightly.

Build-A-Bear offers a wide variety of clothes and accessories for your bear. I’d spent some time the night before thinking about how I would make my bear look, like any child making a trip to the store, but I hadn’t been able to decide on anything. I wandered around for a bit, thinking of how I should tackle this.

And then, Old-Me made a brief appearance, and I knew what I must do.

I found a biker fest, dark jeans, and sunglasses. I quickly turned my cute stuffed bear into a Bad Boy – a rebound, without the pain of actually rebounding. I found a tiny bouquet of fake roses to complete the ensemble. No one I have ever dated has brought me flowers, so of course my Rebound would. I officially named him Rebound on the store’s computers, and it was printed on an official birth certificate. The employee ringing me out giggled and smiled knowingly as she saw it while packaging up my bear. 

 

Effectiveness of this therapy: Build-A-Bear needs to market this as a reason to visit the store. This was such a fantastic thing to do. It was fun, silly, and yet emotionally satisfying. As a generally upbeat person, my default method for dealing with problems and tough situations over the years has been to deal with them in a humorous way. I like to find silver linings, to lighten tense situations with humour, to find ways to deal with things with a smile and work through it from there. This never worked within my relationship. He always felt that it was a sign that I wasn’t taking an issue seriously. Little by little, I’d been surpressing this part of myself to try and make us get along. It didn’t work – it made me more tense, and left me without my usual problem-solving toolkit. Building myself a Rebound brought some of this back to me. Naming him Rebound and dressing him up like a bad boy (who smells like frosting!) was a cheeky and adorable thing to do. He’s a great companion on my road to recovery. 

Plus, it’s nice to have something to snuggle up with at night again. 

 

Finding the humour at being back in the game…

Random Tinder Dude: Hmmm, nice name.
Me: Thanks, I got it for my birthday.

Dear Past-Me

Dear Me-of-Two-Years-Ago,

Don’t go on a first date on February 13.

Firstly, it’s a Monday- who does that?! Secondly, it’s the day before Valentine’s Day, and you know better than that. Thirdly, you met him on PlentyofFish and his first message to you was “Hey”. Finally, in a year and 11 months, he’s going to shatter your heart. And then, a month later, you will realize that your first non-birth-control controlled PMS, your anniversary, Valentine’s Day, and the arrival of your first post-breakup wedding invitation are all falling on the same week.

It’s going to be a tough, knock-down-drag-out week. It’s going to feel bad. It’s going to feel almost as bad as when he showed up unexpectedly with a UHaul in order to move out. It’s going to feel almost as bad as the fight in Niagara Falls, when you packed your bags and looked at bus schedules and wondered about going home and changing the locks. It’s going to feel almost as bad as all of the times you cried in the bathroom, wondering how to fix this mess.

But, Past-Me, I’m not telling you to cancel.

Reschedule.

Date this man, just…on a different day.

You need to date this man. You are going to enjoy so many things, and you are going to learn so many things. You are going to learn what it’s like to be loved. So loved, at times, that it’s a bit suffocating. But once you get over that, it’s a comforting, warm blanket that you wear all day, even when apart. A little later, you’re going to learn how to fall in love yourself. So much so, that you are willing to forgive things you never thought you would forgive. So much so that, when you’re crying in the bathroom wondering where things went wrong, you won’t contemplate leaving – you will continue to examine how much more you can love. You will learn that, sometimes, that’s not enough.

You will go on adventures. Together. You will laugh the hardest you have ever laughed, and cry the hardest you have ever cried. You will learn how much you are willing to sacrifice to try and keep the one you love…and later, when the dust begins to settle, you will learn that maybe you shouldn’t have to make those types of sacrifices.

You will learn about boundaries you didn’t know you had, and you will learn which ones you are willing to expand with the right person. You will find new interests. You will develop new tolerances. You will learn the difficult lesson of when to hold your tongue and your temper…and again, that there are times when that tongue and that temper should be listened to.

You will learn what it’s like to welcome someone new into your family, and feel like they were there all along, and you will seem almost unable to remember a time without them.

And when it happens, when the worst happens, you will slowly learn how to remember your old, solo strength. Past-Me, you are not going to enjoy this process. I’m sorry. It involves a lot of work, and a lot of time alone, and a lot of reflecting on times both bad and good. But I’ve spoken to Future-Me (Us?), and says we’re going to get through this. You and I are going to learn to pick ourselves up after each relapse, take another twenty steps forward, and come out all right in the end.

So, Past-Me, date this man, and enjoy the majority of the next two years. Learn everything you can about yourself, and love, and loss.

But do Current-Me a favour and just do it a few days later. I could have used the buffer.