Valentine's Day Heartbreaker

Valentine's Day Heartbreaker

I do not have a strong record of being in relationships on Valentine's Day.

Look it's a terrible holiday. If you're in a relationship and want to go out that night, all the "nicer" restaurants jack up their prices. If you're not in a relationship, it's just an oppressive reminder that you're alone. God help you if you're fresh off a breakup or are in some b.s. "it's complicated" relationship limbo.

TANGENT!!!

Here's a "fun" social media story from my divorce year, around 2005.

I'd been married for just over a year when my wife walked out on me, needed some time apart. A month later, without any further discussion, she was requesting a divorce. I eventually got her to agree to try marriage counseling. I didn't want to walk away from this marriage without knowing that we'd at least TRIED to work things out. We were in marriage counseling for about a year which was excruciating and expensive.

Sometime during that year, I logged onto my "Friendster" account. If you're not familiar, Friendster was a social media site that was sort of a precursor to Facebook. It was a way to keep in touch with friends but some people used it to meet people: the idea being, you weren't complete strangers, you were connected to common friends. Anyway, my wife and I both had Friendster accounts when we were married but when I randomly checked "Friendster" in the middle of our marriage counseling year, I noticed that she'd changed her relationship status from "married" to "it's complicated".

This was upsetting.

What's worse, she had filled out a dating section titled "Who are you looking to meet?"

Suffice it to say, the marriage counseling went nowhere and we eventually got divorced. I kept a perfect ignorance of her personal life once we finally parted ways. About a decade later, at a random party, I strike up a conversation with a guy who happened to know her -- and he inadvertently confirms my suspicion that she had been dating some guy (that I knew) during that marriage counseling year. Ain't it fun when old wounds get reopened?

TLDR: To hell with love.

I made this animation in dishonor of this national day of mourning.