#17: “I understand this sort of thing requires ice cream of some kind”

On breakups as proof of life.

Recent semi-tragic personal events have prompted me to reexamine all of Buffy’s breakups. I say semi-tragic because my worst breakups are behind me. I’ve already sifted through those ashes to find the lessons, have done and am still doing tons of work, and am too busy, too stubborn, too far along in my slaying-co-dependency journey to ever again be wrecked by close-hearted men. Growth!

But a breakup is still a breakup, and they’re notoriously, canonically shitty because even if you’re the one who pulled the figurative trigger, it’s painful and disorienting to lose a once-warm presence in your life. No matter how long or short the relationship, the possibilities of what it could have become are lost. No matter how right the break is, it’s still a break.

In fact, does anything transport you back to adolescence more than breaking up with someone? Not unlike death, the first big loss imprints on you, and every subsequent loss is just a reenactment of the emotional landscape of the first one. The circumstances and players change, but the losing game never does. Breakups are some real high school shit, so Imma throw on some Mazzy Star, dig into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s (my go-to is Chubby Hubby—ironic, because that’s the last thing I want), and process the best way I know how: through Buffy.

Buffy and Angel were doomed from the start, but is there anything more alluring to a 16-year-old girl than the bad boy who gives her his leather jacket when she’s cold? Omg, remember that giddy feeling the first time your boyfriend from a different high school gave you a soft flannel or American Eagle hoodie, and you just wanted to live in it, but then it started smelling, but you didn’t want to wash it because then you’d wash his smell off of it, too, so you bought your own bottle of CK One, not because you wore it (please, not after Gap Dream came along!), but because he did, and so you could spray it on his shirt right when it came out of the dryer? *crickets* No? Just me? Cool. “Keep it,” Angel tells her when she tries to return it. “It looks better on you.” “Oh boy,” Buffy says, I say, we all say, as we collectively feel the hook Angel just sank in her (it’s the little look-back as he’s walking away, gah). Then he had to go and make the whole thing forbidden! Buffy didn’t stand a chance.

If Buffy and Angel’s relationship was an ice cream flavor, it would be Death by Chocolate. Intense and indulgent, and I’m going to reach for it every single time, as if I don’t remember that too much of a good thing can have deeply regrettable consequences, and that nothing tastes, ahem, is that good forever.

They break up more than once, of course. That’s how first love often goes. They have a few false starts before getting super close and sleeping together in season two, which triggers the undoing of the gypsy curse that gave Angel a soul, and he breaks bad. In a move that might in turn rip the soul out of any teenage girl, he tells her their first time, her first-ever time, was just mid. She’s devastated, then has to fight him, and she does, but pauses at the moment she could have delivered the death blow. “You can’t do it. You can’t kill me,” he mocks her. So she kicks him in the balls as hard as she can and says, “Give me time.” This is the actual definition of catharsis—look it up.

He gets his soul back, but she still has to kill him. That’s breakup number two, and it breaks her. She runs away. By the time she returns and starts to heal (with Scott—I’ll get to him in a minute), Angel falls naked from the sky (but didn’t he come from hell? Wouldn’t he have come blasting up through the floor?), feral but still recognizing Buffy.

This is a metaphor for the ex who keeps coming back and won’t leave you alone to heal and move on. The one who swears they’ve changed, healed, but weirdly still needs you to take care of them. Nothing in the Buffyverse makes me roll my eyes harder than the season-three scene where a sweaty, convalescing Angel is doing tai chi, all controlled movements and laser focus, then sees Buffy and immediately staggers so that she rushes to help him sit down. Bro was literally just balancing his life energy like an undead boss, but sure. So much dude sweat on her cute lil outfit…

Their third breakup is the worst one, the real one, the one that holds. After insisting they aren’t together anymore, then getting back together, then pretending they aren’t together to trick Faith, then taking a break because executing that charade involved Angel making out with Faith in front of Buffy and that spun her out, then finally being together again, Angel dumps her. In the sewer. Ain’t that some shit?

The bewildered “I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me.” The lashing out. The tears and pained faces. It’s all very realistic, sure, but what puts the realism over the top is when Buffy sobs into her best friend’s lap, “I feel like I can’t breathe,” and collapses on her bed. Brutal. Relatable. If you care to remember being 18 and in love.

Before there was Angel, though, there was Owen. Buffy and Owen’s breakup is soft-serve vanilla in a sad paper dish. They only had one date, and I only mention it for one reason: the pain points Buffy racks up aren’t about losing Owen, but realizing for the first time how being the Slayer is going to inhibit her love life and endanger any and all of her love interests.

Ok, Scott. This guy is orange sherbert, and Buffy is like a waffle cone who…ew, nevermind. He’s orange sherbert—seems fun but is actually both childish and unfun at the same time—and he pursues and pursues her until she finally (tries to be) ready to be his girlfriend, then he tells her he doesn’t think they should see each other anymore. For a guy who’s a year or so away from coming out, this sure was some classic straight-dude fuckery.

I’ve written about the Riley breakup before, but this is Buffy’s first real adult relationship, complete with a real attempt to hash things out…which is ultimately ruined with a pissy ultimatum thrown down by a man-baby who can’t handle that he’s not the strongest person in the pair. Butter Pecan. Seems wholesome, if a little more exotic than it actually is, and tastes fine, I guess, if the pecans aren’t stale, but who’s going to choose it over brownie bites, cookie chunks, or peanut butter swirls? Be for real.

Spike and Buffy are Rocky Road. Obviously. With a relationship that volatile, the breakup isn’t even a blip on the tension radar (I will not be speaking of the horrific post-breakup events of a few episodes later). Spike gets dumped about as nicely as possible. Who wouldn’t be grateful, if not still hurt, over sustained eye contact while someone you care about, someone you were maybe even starting to let yourself love, apologizes to you, owns their shortcomings, and acknowledges the realness of the connection, all in honor of what you shared, as if it actually meant something, to both of you?

*

This time around, my aim—well, my aim was to not date at all, but I took a chance. Fail.—was to set aside one weekend for a tidy middle-aged-breakup recovery period, with a responsible balance of booze, escape into books, spontaneous eye melts as needed, and efficient micro versions of my usual coping mechanisms: a shortlist of the cons to cheer me up, dark-humored but affirming text exchanges with my favorite women, a back porch heart-to-heart with bestie, lots of Ani DiFranco, the ceremonial removal of proof of relationship-life. The evening it happened, I headed out to my usual safe space, my Cheers spot, and got loved on by a dozen of my favorite people. A newer friend, a woman I vibed with and trusted almost immediately when we met last winter, and who knew how monumental coming off an 18-month dating hiatus was for me, said, “Promise me you won’t crawl back into a hole over some fool!” I quipped about being queer and not promising anything, and she cackled, but squeezed me extra tight.

One efficient weekend. Feel it all, binge self-care, purge dude-care, and wake up Monday morning with clear eyes, ready to slay again. It was a good plan. Blown to hellmouth before I finished my first work-week cup of coffee, but still.

The plan fell apart, but I haven’t. Feeling is what I do. No holes. No more seclusion. No more running. This world is burning faster than my last ex’s stuff did, and I hate to wax cliché, but life is short and only getting shorter. I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t want to be alone, even if my concept of being “with” someone doesn’t look like cohabitation and marriage. Walking around with my heart exposed like a big squishy raw nerve hasn’t killed me yet. Damn near, but not quite. And if it eventually does, what’s a worthier cause to go out on than the pursuit of joy, love, human connection?

I’m sad, but I’m awake, remembering, if not knowing in my bones, that it’s the closed heart, the self-imposed solitude, the loneliness that’ll kill us faster than we might think possible. Even faster, thankfully, than all the ice cream.