Breakups fucking suck.

September 3, 2015 3:31 PM

Exes ask each other questions they never got to ask when dating. Two-part Youtube video that gets really real, really quick.
posted by Huck500 (47 comments total)

Does "getting real" mean shouting at each other about their problems, or something more profound? Because if it’s just meanness, I’d like to nope out.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:35 PM on September 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ouch.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:37 PM on September 3, 2015

Can I get more context? Am I going to learn something or will this be all daytime TV talk show?
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:48 PM on September 3, 2015

Does "getting real" mean shouting at each other about their problems, or something more profound? Because if it’s just meanness, I’d like to nope out.

No shouting, just people sharing some real vulnerability.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 3:49 PM on September 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

No shouting, just sincere discussion about the relationship. It does get really sad, IMO.
posted by Huck500 at 3:49 PM on September 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Did that sound bitchy?"

Yeah, kind of. Pretty much. But you loved it.
posted by GuyZero at 3:50 PM on September 3, 2015

It was really nice to see the guy cry and admit he missed her. But it was so real to see the woman admit she didn't think she could be with him again and that she doesn't want him back.

She cries, but she seems so happy and free now without him. I'm so happy for her. I feel like I could see the ghost of the burden she's free from now. It's really beautiful.

I feel sorry for the guy. He's clearly devastated from losing her, because he couldn't see what he was doing to the relationship he was in with the woman when they were together by being self-centered, dwelling on an ex, not participating in the relationship he was in, getting a blowjob from someone, etc instead of enjoying the relationship he was in with a woman who did what she could to love him. But he seems pretty immature and mixed up, and it is clear she deserved better and she knows it now.

This could be a lesson to people who treat their partners like options or accessories instead of real living breathing human beings/people. From the green, there seems to be a lot of guys who do this to their wives/partners. It's probably due to socialization, but this really explains the real cost of minimizing/objectifying a partner, especially for men (who are said to be initially fine after a breakup but end up in more pain with more regret in the longterm, according to studies).
posted by discopolo at 4:02 PM on September 3, 2015 [38 favorites]

She's not bitchy at all. She's nicer than he is, trying to be kinder. She's finally being honest and she shouldn't have felt the need to call herself bitchy. If she sounds bitchy, then he sounds like a mega-bitch but he certainly doesn't even apologize for it.
posted by discopolo at 4:05 PM on September 3, 2015 [12 favorites]

I was recently able to reconnect with my first girlfriend, about 10 years after we broke up. It was an excellent healing experience, being able to debrief the relationship from an adult perspective. We were just kids, really, and both fucked up plenty. I was finally able to apologize for my behaviour, which I now understand to have been emotionally abusive at times. On the flip side, we were able to talk about how grateful we both were that our first sexual experiences were so sensitive, gradual, and positive. Knowing now how rare that is, we were able to truly appreciate it.

I highly recommend the exercise. If both parties are prepared to be fully honest and vulnerable, as the people in the video are being, it's worth it.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:07 PM on September 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

Last year I did this kind of reconnecting with an ex unexpectedly - I stumbled upon his LinkedIn profile, which said he was on the other side of the world, and sent a quick "wow, look where you ended up" email. We'd dated 20 years ago, for a few months. Both of us kids, really.

And he got WAY excited, and we emailed a lot and video chatted some, and that got pretty vulnerable and intense and we talked about the past a lot, and he divulged that he wasn't happy in his marriage and we did video sex once, and i was telling myself to be careful, but it was soft familiar territory...

And then a few months later he started to fade out, and even though at first he'd been thanking me for coming back into his life, now it's barely a response when I email him on a birthday or something, and I realized that holy shit, this is how he broke up with me too.

So reconnecting with an ex can be healing, but it can also let you see that "wow, yeah, you still haven't figured some stuff out yet and you don't even know that."

I honestly don't think I'd be that enthusiastic if he tried to lure me back in again.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:15 PM on September 3, 2015 [24 favorites]

Having had to carry a lot of "getting closure on my own" after a breakup of a 17 year relationship, I can relate to this, wanting to be able to say all those things I want to say. But even if we tried there's so much I'll never be able to say, or understand, or to be understood. It's why (ding!ding!ding!) the relationship failed. We just could never get each other right.
posted by Annika Cicada at 4:26 PM on September 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

Can I get more context? Am I going to learn something or will this be all daytime TV talk show?


The learning, my dear BrotherCaine, from anything, is always up to you, be it Maury or from this. (For example, while watching Maury, one can ponder if we really aren't all the father,....even if the man on stage chooses to joyously do the worm upon hearing the negative results of the paternity test on the newborn child).

It is up to you.
posted by discopolo at 5:02 PM on September 3, 2015 [17 favorites]

Aw man, that was kind of hard to watch. The truth is he just wanted to have a good time (blow job, sure, maybe. He is still probably just having a good time), and didn't much care when a minor transgression on her side prompted the breakup, was relieved; more than that, he judged her as weak for taking him back the times he asked her to (because he liked their "traditions", she made things easy). And she's (still) leaning into him the whole time, wanting him to say she and they were special, so pleased when he digs deep to say he thought he could maybe see marrying her, for thirty seconds.

He's probably not that bad of a guy, comparatively, he was and is just young... I dunno, I sometimes think women dating men would be better served on the whole by mostly steering clear of any kind of serious emotional investment in monogamous relationships prior to age 30.
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:11 PM on September 3, 2015 [15 favorites]

He's probably not that bad of a guy, comparatively, he was and is just young....

I feel like she probably told herself that all the time when she was dating him and he was lying to her. I had an ex once argue that he wasn't that bad because he didn't come home drunk and beat me. I probably listened to him and I think I probably let some egregious stuff slide because I figured he just didn't know better and that's how you end up wasting many years with a manipulative, lying asshat.

We really do need to teach young women to not invest emotionally when they're looking for a decent partner, that loving yourself and taking care of yourself is more important than being loving and forgiving and "good" because some people will take advantage.
posted by discopolo at 5:36 PM on September 3, 2015 [24 favorites]

It was quite painful to imagine myself in his shoes. Ouch.
posted by habeebtc at 5:37 PM on September 3, 2015

I have no interest whatsoever in ever having anything to do with any of my exes, even if it goes as "well" as this, which in my view isn't that well. I don't need more information about how crappily they behaved. I gave them plenty of chances to turn things around and apologize after the fact, and they didn't. Why give them another opening, however small, to treat me badly?
posted by orange swan at 5:56 PM on September 3, 2015 [9 favorites]

Yeah, I get the point about age, but it's more about maturity. The best man I ever dated? We started dating when we were 19 and I left him when I was 26. He was the kindest and most respectful, loving, mature (I could keep listing adjectives here) person I have ever had the chance to be with, and I can only hope that I will ever meet a man even half as good a partner ever again. Actually, my experience dating men who are over 30 has been far worse - they've all been abusive, or alcoholics, or unkind, or unwilling to love me, or a bad combination of those things. Sometimes I feel like "all the good ones are taken" after 30.

This video made me really sad and I had to stop it, because what I wouldn't give to go back in time to be with the guy I was with in my early 20s. That was a good relationship, and like the guy in this video, I squandered it, for no reason other than young, foolish stupidity.
posted by sockermom at 5:59 PM on September 3, 2015 [12 favorites]

I can't think of a single thing I'd want to ask but I bet he has a lot to ask me!
posted by desjardins at 6:18 PM on September 3, 2015

Yeah, no. Frankly I asked them plenty, but there is no good response that effectively communicates "yeah I was a raging misogynist then and actually I still am" other than just occasionally peeping into their social media accounts and being all "um....."
posted by likeatoaster at 6:28 PM on September 3, 2015

Gahhhh I found that excruciating.

For all that they claimed they saw things differently and had found insight into the breakup, I felt like they were doing the same dance they must have been doing forever. He's the bad guy who fucks up, but in exchange she gets to be the smarter, more sensitive, holier one; the one who who gets to both judge and forgive him. She wheedles romantic confessions out of him and he chases after her and she pretends she's above it, but ultimately she is the one who's really in love with him, and secretly believes in the absolute sacred specialness of their relationship, while he's probably had some version of this conversation with at least three other women, and will be the one who won't return her phone calls in the end.

They both just needed, so hard, the other one to admit the more intense feelings; they both still needed to win. The part at the end where they were like, "Let's be friends!" practically made me choke on my sandwich - this is exactly the kind of deeply dishonest* and tortured relationship that makes me think the government should institute a ban on "being friends with exes" among everyone under age 35.

*By which I don't mean that they're lying to each other, but that they're lying to themselves.
posted by pretentious illiterate at 6:55 PM on September 3, 2015 [26 favorites]

Yeah, there's something about watching someone talk to an ex, when you're not currently in a similar situation. It's so gut-wretching and relatable when you yourself are recently out of a breakup and so asinine and banal when your not.

It's like watching a ten year old trying to lie his way out of trouble. I'm constantly like "go! leave! stop being coy! start something new and not terrible and be a better person!"

I'm all for being friends with exes if both of you are in a good place for that type of thing. But if thinking about an ex still makes you (1) emotional or (2) horny, then it's a bad idea.
posted by midmarch snowman at 7:15 PM on September 3, 2015 [5 favorites]

Oh great so it's not enough that I have to have this conversation in my own fool head all the time, now I'm supposed to have it for real?? UGH thanks internet.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:52 PM on September 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

I dunno, this was sorta interesting. About as interesting as possible considering it's a couple of strangers. I would do this with the only person who could be considered an "ex" because neither of us are hung up at all on the relationship, and probably agree the whole thing was a dumb mistake. (It didn't last anywhere near 7 years though.)

But man oh man would I love to see this with some of my friends who dated for years and then broke up. Lots of juicy gossip to be confirmed/denied and all that. Like, imagine if you were roommates with one of these people while they were dating. These videos would be totally fascinating.
posted by dogwalker at 7:57 PM on September 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

imagine if you were roommates with one of these people while they were dating. These videos would be totally fascinating.

Someone make this a reality show where the former roommates all watch these videos and provide commentary MST3K style.
posted by bradbane at 8:09 PM on September 3, 2015 [15 favorites]

I don't know how Ali could tolerate Andrew's khakis-and-Keds-and-polo shirt, with the newsboy hat worn indoors. Take off your hat, dude!

Wow that's some judgey shit. This was obviously a casual thing, it's not like she's all dressed up either--She's got jean shorts on. Anyways, I can see the tell-tale signs from the hair coming out from under the hat. Like me, the man has a stupid unmanageable hair helmet. People like us have limited options if we don't want to look like Ronald McDonald without makeup, and gotta wear hats sometimes. Or shave it real short which in my experience intimidates some people.
posted by Hoopo at 8:17 PM on September 3, 2015 [2 favorites]

I watched four minutes or so and then skipped around a bit but mostly this seemed like two people still seeking things from others that they need to find inside themselves.

This has been the wellspring of most varieties of 'not working' that I have both seen and experienced in my life, regardless of the age of the participants.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:18 PM on September 3, 2015 [3 favorites]

I don't know how Ali could tolerate Andrew's khakis-and-Keds-and-polo shirt, with the newsboy hat worn indoors. Take off your hat, dude!

Speaking of objectifying people....
posted by LooseFilter at 8:20 PM on September 3, 2015

This is part of a larger project called The { } And. (disclaimer: I worked on it)
posted by ryoshu at 8:28 PM on September 3, 2015 [6 favorites]

discopolo exactly hit on what I was trying to get at with the age thing, for women. I think many of us start out with some inherently damaging ideas about what romantic love is, and how we're supposed to get and keep it. If we spent fewer of those early years playing at a certain kind of marriage with people who just aren't up for it, and more years learning how to take care of ourselves, and to choose compatible companions (and having a good time, why not), I think a bunch of us would be better off.
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:57 PM on September 3, 2015 [8 favorites]

Metafilter: The man on stage choos(ing) to joyously do the worm upon hearing the negative results of the paternity test on the newborn child.
posted by vorpal bunny at 9:14 PM on September 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Get together by kinda-cheating, break up by kinda-cheating.
posted by rhizome at 9:29 PM on September 3, 2015

I just don't think we should be wearing hats indoors.
posted by charismatic megafauna at 12:15 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Wow. Came for the snark, stayed for the raw emotion in the first clip. Surprisingly most of it upbeat, although woven with sadness. I came away feeling that this is what actors aim for...but never quite reach.
posted by telstar at 12:59 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Shame. They both have great teeth.
posted by esto-again at 2:30 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Somehow I kept reading the headline as "execs", and kept expecting some sort of Mister Show type surreality to ensue. Oops.
posted by bitter_tincture at 7:04 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Man, I can't believe he tried to Bill Clinton his way out of the "why did you cheat on me?" question. NOPE. NO.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 7:25 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Man, I can't believe he tried to Bill Clinton his way out of the "why did you cheat on me?" question. NOPE. NO.

OK but it was worth it for the sudden about-face he had to do when he thought she said "hands down" and she actually said "hand stuff." "ABSOLUTELY I mean NO I mean...yeah."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:55 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Whiskey and a good dog seem to be the best closure in my book, maybe stealing that awesome casserole dish is a close 2nd. I always found talking to exs brings up wounds you never knew were there and just opens a can of shit that doesn't need to be opened. It didn't work for a reason, let it go, stop torturing yourself of the could/should have beens.
posted by lpcxa0 at 11:32 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Reading some of the reactions to this video is an interesting exercise because it is almost like a Rorschach test in that we are all looking at the same thing but having wildly different interpretations of what we are seeing. As I watched the video I was thinking that this was the absolute purest distillation of the "He's just not that into you" concept, since it appeared obvious to me that she was far more invested in their relationship than he was, so it was really surprising to read reactions here that seemed to take the exact opposite view (in fairness, a lot of my reaction is based on her starting to cry more or less immediately while he appears more even keeled).
posted by The Gooch at 11:48 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yeah, very much "not that into" her indeed. No surprise that she did the emotional labor of starting their entire relationship and keeping it going. No surprise he cheated repeatedly and now calls her "weak" for always taking him back. Damn, that's cold. Seven years together starting in their late teens/early 20s? Youth really is wasted on the young.
posted by hush at 12:10 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think people here are being a bit too harsh.

People are fucked up and weird and have hang ups and cognitive biases. Down to early on in the first video where they had different post-breakup narratives of what had happened.

For me, the most spell binding part was all the raw emotion on display. The interrotron-mostly-facing-the-camera-style allowed for a degree of intimacy you rarely get to experience. Good job ryoshu et al!
posted by pmv at 12:19 PM on September 4, 2015

in fairness, a lot of my reaction is based on her starting to cry more or less immediately while he appears more even keeled).

He looks emotionally constipated to me, like he's nervous and defensive and then she's all nice and sweet to him and then he admits he wants to date her again and his eyes are shiny with tears and he seems to be trying to staunch tears.

I've been thinking about this more. I do feel worse for Ali having had to endure his cheating and disloyalty, but I think maybe I should feel worse for Andrew.

I wonder--because his eyes well up with tears and he sheds tears at some points-if he was aware of how he was trying to resist being into her and if that inability to resist has screwed him up for good. because she clearly got to him, even though she was the one driving the relationship and he tried not to be into her or wasn't as invested in having a healthy relationship.

He seems too selfish to be the kind of guy anyone should invest in, and maybe he's scarred now and will never be able to achieve intimacy, but hopefully he'learned something? I just can't tell. He should get a therapist.

I really hope Ali doesn't get back together with him. I'm a little worried. Gah. Go no contact and forget him ASAP. this looks like such a bad idea.
posted by discopolo at 2:35 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

This was neat, but I think it'd be more interesting if there were a bunch with different couples. I'm more interested in the idea than the particulars of these two people.

Then again, I think the Gooch is right about the Rorschach test nature of this thing. Where I'm coming from is that "Don't be friends with your exes" is a totally foreign idea. My partner and I have a total of three exes between the both of us; all three were invited to our wedding.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 5:50 PM on September 4, 2015

I don't know about all that, discopolo. I think he'll probably be fine. Based on observation of dudes I think might be like him, I bet he'll discover his capacity for intimacy when/if

a) investigation of "possibilities" and related fallout is more boring or annoying than it is interesting (i.e. he gets sick of bars/clubs or drama)
b) he starts to need it because life stuff makes him feel more vulnerable than he appears to be now, and
c) he meets someone who's at least as dominant as he is in some ways, who also makes life pleasant/easy, around the same time that he gets sick of bars and drama*.

Ali seems like a lovely, charming person who is also going to be totally fine.

*I think that sometimes, people just feel compelled to test the limits of their power, sexual or otherwise. I don't even think this is always pathological - I think it can be temporary, driven by insecurity or immaturity, or by the thrill of it (especially if it's new, i.e. they're young); or because the opportunity presents itself - some person or situation gives or sets them up for power, and they just slide into taking it (and I think it's fairly normal and human to do that).

Bad news when a person in a moment like that encounters someone inclined to please (or give them power). Sadly ordinary news, too, thanks to how we're socialized, respectively. Extremely bad news when a pairing like that gets spun into a LTR. And if the people who are temporarily into power-seeking aren't fundamentally psychopathic, the moments when they recognize the effects of their actions lead to guilt, and then maybe contempt and irritation (why don't you fight me? Why do you let me do this to you?). They don't want to feel like they're a bad person, that idea is horrific to most people. So they do things to convince themselves they're not a bad person, like staying with their partner longer than they should. And at the same time, the involved people might actually like each other (or tell themselves they do, because they must if they're this far into it, right?). Or they're used to each other, and that's comfortable, in a way. So it continues until one of them is past sick of it.

I think that kind of power-seeking can sometimes find a natural end when people caught up in it run up against someone who likes them enough to tolerate their initial bids for power, but who's situated (because of never having needed to please like that, or because of growth, having developed their own power) to slap them on the nose and tell them "no". And they find it refreshing, because in addition to getting snuggles and hot dinners and not being lonely or bored, they can stop feeling like bad people.
posted by cotton dress sock at 5:51 PM on September 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

The neat part about this was the camera angles, providing a first-person view x 2 simultaneously.
posted by cacofonie at 8:32 PM on September 4, 2015

Dick is abundant and low value?
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 7:29 AM on September 6, 2015

This was neat, but I think it'd be more interesting if there were a bunch with different couples.

There are
posted by rhizome at 9:51 AM on September 6, 2015