Ladies, have you been called crazy?

How about “fucking crazy?”

In navigating single Pandemic Apocalypse Land, much of dating consists of protected chit chat. You small talk about sourdough starters and haircuts and then dive into personal history at some point. I have to admit, I do perk up when the conversation meanders to  why the previous relationship went bad. Since I now have a personal POV on the matter, I am eager to hear what my Mars brethren have to say.

So far the overwhelming response from 30 something males has been the pantomimed index finger circling an ear: she was crazy.

Unfortunately crazy is a spectrum, and my informants aren’t as gregarious as my girlfriends. Is it the garden variety drama of tears over cocktail hour crazy or up-leveled to a frenzied all night pharmacy search party adventure? Sorry, both sound fun. Maybe that makes me one of the crazy ones.

How are all these sweet simple good guys so inexorably drawn to the siren slaughter? Did every lady ex conceal the poison apple of her nutty center until climax? Should we be sharing psychological evaluations up front in addition to sex papers?

Rick Marin’s 2001 style section take challenges the single party blame game. He quotes Dr. John Gray’s analysis of this phenomenon: ”Men tend to become judgmental and critical, and when they’re not getting what they want, they think: ‘She’s nuts. She’s crazy.”’

Maybe women are only crazy when men get caught.

My friend once told me a story about a girl he knew while we were in college. I knew her too, but only slightly. She worked at a coffee shop in our small college town and was wonderfully noticeable. She was tall and slender, with astonishing eyes. They were blue, but not blue like the sky or blue like Billie Holiday. They were an icy, fiery blue. They were so blue that you kind of wanted to pee yourself when she looked at you and asked languidly, “What kind of milk?”

She also had a mane of blond hair. It sprouted up from her skull defiantly and rippled down to the middle of her back in oddly perfect waves. Sometimes she’d weave a brown feather into the curls. You could see it bobbing up from behind the Marzocco. She was striking.

This girl dated somebody equally striking sophomore year. He wasn’t honest about it though. He wore vintage pinstripe vests and girl’s pants. His black hair, streaked with amber and bleach, flirted with his eyeliner. He called himself by his first name, twice. Evan Evan.

After spring break he and his pocket watch decided they liked another girl. He returned to school and told mi amor he wasn’t interested anymore. I wonder what fierceness the blue took on when she looked back at him.

“So…I don’t love you anymore and I’m in love with another girl. Her named is Alexandra Alexandra and we are very happy. You understand.”

Fire. Eyes.

A following evening, our blond heroine could not sleep. Everybody knows the bleak insomnia that comes with nocturnal anger. The last time I tried to go to bed angry, I fell asleep at 4 am watching Halsey interviews after zombie eating a burrito.

Fire eyes whips out of bed, throws the covers off, and goes in to full vengeance mode. Evan Evan had left one of his fancy, gleaming guitars at her place. It’s shiny wood, oiled from Evan Evan’s forehead grease and Oil of Olay make up remover, sprung an idea from her head like Athena out of Zeus.

She grabbed it’s thin, strong neck, and smashed it to splinters, courtesy of her driveway and the months of frustration stored up from Evan Evan asking her if his eyeliner was even.

She then gathered the pieces and marched to his door. She dunked them with gasoline, and let out a banshee scream. Evan Evan arrived to the bonfire like Evita to the balcony and watched his baby burn.

Burn, baby. Burn.

I don’t feel particularly attached to property destruction, but I wonder how Evan Evan reflected on this chain of events. Did he feel so betrayed by the universe? A lamb to the slaughter? Did he comprehend Newton’s Law at last? Or maybe Evan Evan finally saw his true reflection in the light bouncing off her fire eyes. I’d imagine it was the most captivating sight he’d ever seen.

Oof, she’s been a bitch tonight.

Man I can barely write I am so sad.

If you told me at 32 I would be laying of the floor of my childhood bedroom, tears and snot ruining my naturally dyed baby Alpaca throw pillow (one of the staple home pieces I managed to salvage from when I flew the coop) I’d have said ABORT whatever you’re doing and PRESERVE THE FANTASY.

Preserve the Fantasy. Meaning play act the supposed linear version of events to the best of your ability that will enable this future. Marble farmhouse style table with long reclaimed wood benches, Sambada ringing in the morning and fresh squeezed orange juice for all? Family dinners on Sundays and children’s birthday parties in relaxed Ganni dresses? A writing desk for mama and jute rugs abounding, Saturday morning farmer’s market with cold brew and mothers with pursed lips smelling heirlooms in unironic Lululemon?

Anyone else?

I think I am just so smitten with all my highly detailed, yet entirely unspecific possibilities I completely lost sight of um, reality.

Preserve the fantasy also meant living carefully. It’s like me in roller skates–tragic.  Just accept it. Just change it. Just change you. Just do it. Just take it. Yep okay a little more to the right…just a smidgolaaa more…keep going…OKAY GREAT.

Dial the expectations down, then dial that in. Okay you’ve reached a new low? Let’s try this one more time…

And the thing is…it still feels good. It still feels good when the promise land of dinner parties and his-and-her sinks seem like it’s only one more compromise away.

But the marker will always move just a little bit more. And with that small parts of your precious untamed person get eroded. Until you’re shaved down to your soft little artichoke center thinking, “Is it worth it?”

And then, “Am I worth it?”

The Fantasy is great. It’s comforting. It’s silly. It’s a good way to spend a daydream. It’s palatable enough to drone on about; when people ask me what I see for myself in my future, I can usually get away with describing a party I’d like to throw for my nonexistent husband’s 50th Birthday Party. (Hotel Citroen–tropical shipwrecked chic; it’s a resort on island where Steve Zissou rescues Alistair Hennessey from pirates in The Life Aquatic).

But the Fantasy is dangerous if I allow it to rip me away from what’s most interesting about my current moment.  As my father would say, time is a construct. All that exists, both past and future, is now. I don’t want to spend so much time pricing a copper pan set that I miss out on the spectacular and prickly sensations of my present.

In my twenties I lived for what was to come.

In my thirties I only want what is here.

So let’s see how this decade goes.