I think this is what is known as a "pre-emptive strike": Cock and Jaw, if you will...
The Line of Control: (Well "like" This)

Morose. I suppose that explains it. You, me, us. You can hardly bring yourself to touch me. Our conversations flicker into arguments and burn away any semblance of happiness. And we lie in bed next to each other, bodies straight and staring at the ceiling. Never to reach across the endless, imaginary divide between us, never to fix it with a kind word and a kiss.

We lie next to each other, not together. The inch that separates us in your “large-single” bed might as well be the DMZ or the line of control. Ideologically opposed – you with your French and me as an Englishman. That inch could be the Channel and I would still feel closer to you than when we lie, shoulder-to-shoulder, in your bed.

When it was me who was busy, the endless drudgery of case law weighing heavy upon my shoulders, you demanded my time. It was unacceptable to you that I had important things to do before seeing you. Those months of you working thursday, friday, saturday, sunday. And me studying on monday tuesday wednesday thursday, I don't know how we managed it. I suppose we didn't. You were so angry – I know I am not allowed to refer to the past but I do remember it. And I acquiesced, not always, but enough, in my mind, to keep me behind in my studies.

Now you have the coldness; the calculating of time management takes up all the spare time you have. I come to visit, and apart from the arguments, the late food and of course the television, there is nothing. Not a girlfriend, but an aspiring lawyer. A platonic friend with whom I hardly share a sentence, let alone a “real” hug. So many things have been wiped off the board – so many limits put in place and maintained. I can hardly remember who I am with all the things I have to refrain from. “Don't touch me, don't talk to me, leave me alone, I'm busy.”

Busy erecting walls. East or West it is all the same – there are no real barriers save those we have invented in our minds. The problem of other minds – I exist as a mere cypher – the exemplar of all the shortcomings on your graph of a perfect man, as you have oft informed me. A philosophical zombie, playing the game of consciousness. Well "like" this and see if the electrical circuits fire in the brain.

I drank too much before I met you, and I anticipate that it will continue after you are gone. But when I am with you, supping from the eighth can of “cheap” lager, and you have had nothing to do with me all day/night, save argue and accuse and reprimand and chastise, know that the booze does make it better. Ha! I am sure you laugh, pity the fool and all that rot. But I don't. Stupid fool. So what? We all make mistakes, I am still in the process of categorising mine. I'll learn from them, even if I die trying.

Yes, I believe we are reaching the end of the journey. Of course, we are not there yet – there are at least a couple of fights left in me, and I don't wish for an end. But we have stripped away so much. The intimacy we once shared in every moment together is gone, replaced with a cold space where every word is a potential offence, every action analysed by reference to the art of war.

Once all the fight is gone, what remains? A shell of all the things we proved we weren't?
(IdlePeAcEsign if trouble were my mistress, i'd send her to them, Thu 11 Nov 2010, 23:08, 11 replies)

Jesus
Sounds pretty horrible and unpleasant but not unfamiliar.

If you think it is all going to go wrong, and it does sound like you do think that, then the worst thing you could possibly do is to judge your life after you do break up based on what someone else (who it didn't work out with, and who you aren't with any more) thinks.

Despite the logic though. it's still a rubbish experience and I hope it isn't too bad.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 11 Nov 2010, 23:42, closed)

Ditto
Get out now. I had something that would have gone on to become this, and even when I left it was plenty bad enough.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 6:42, closed)

oh, fuck off.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 8:33, closed)

Nicely written,
but not quite as eloquent as the above post
(TheColonel, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 8:52, closed)

Very interesting and descriptive, if completely irrelevant, now stop dragging it out and break up like you know you have to.
No question about it. You clearly reached the end of life's joyous journey together a long time ago and are just hanging on through habit. Maybe you enjoy feeling sorry for yourself. Tough. Do it ASAP or I'll come round and boot yer baws.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 10:13, closed)

it takes two to tango
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1846041074/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0099727404&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=1N4ZQJ4XATD5NHGMF3EH
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 13:17, closed)

oh so roll over and give in and bloody hug.

( sleepybinky, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 15:45, closed)

Some of us tried that....
...seemed to make it worse :(
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 22:12, closed)

Yawn
Utterly pretentious drivel. Ditch the bitch and leave us out of it.
(rampants, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 16:36, closed)

Wow!
I am obviously causing some friction.

If you don't like what I write, drag your knuckles to someone else's post, no one forced you to troll B3ta looking for me to pick on.

And it is relevant to this QOTW, in my HARDCORE opinion. I protest, re your ridicule - just because you are not reading about F*** and C*** and massive drugs and poo in a cup. I yawn at your yawn.

Although I am familiar with difficult relationships, my story could be read as a metaphor for the ignorant few, b3ta-ing off over other people's effort. Pretensions - at least I have them!

And this one time, at band camp, I totally protested about, like, someone else's protest. They were shit. So there...
(IdlePeAcEsign if trouble were my mistress, i'd send her to them, Fri 12 Nov 2010, 22:13, closed)

I "Like" this
I know the feeling all to well :-/
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Mon 15 Nov 2010, 22:13, closed)