The unfortunate thing about breaking up with a guy, when you happen to be a blogger whose best material comes from the very act of breaking up with a guy, is that people are actually pretty excited by your pain. During your immediate post-breakup week (the week in which your average non-blogger solicits sympathy from her dearest friends and family), your proclamations of devastation are met with rejoicing, as demonstrated by the following exchange:
Coworker: How are you?
Troi: Not good! My boyfriend and I just broke up!
Coworker: Awesome! So you’ll be back to writing blogs again soon?
Unsatisfied by this conversational exchange (women need a minimum of 539 painstaking and scrutinizing conversations about a breakup in order to sufficiently work through what happened and move on, whereas men just spit, shoot something, and start dating the next thing that walks by), you determine that you must not look sad enough, and adjust your facial expression accordingly for your next enounter with a friend, family member, or the employee at Starbucks who really regrets having asked you how your day was going even though his manager really stresses the importance of friendly customer service:
Friend: How are you doing?
Troi: [effortfully curving both sides of mouth downward so that sadness cannot possibly be missed, nor be mistaken for the classic one-sided facial drooping indicative of a stroke]: I’m TERRIBLE [emphasizing the adjective for added effect]. My boyfriend and I just broke up. Boy, I sure feel sad! [Inwardly applauding clear communicative intent that will surely result in significant sympathetic response by friend]
Friend: That’s great — now you’ll have some good material for your blog! I’ve missed your posts.
No longer devastated by your breakup, but by the celebratory mood your breakup has kindled in everybody but you, you realize that having pushed so hard to enlist your best friends as avid blog readers (through unscrupulous means, such as subscribing their email addresses to your blog site without their knowledge, but that’s beside the point, right?) may not have been the most savvy move. Because now you’re stuck wading through the breakup aftermath in a very expensive session with your counselor who has thankfully never read your blog, you think, although she did call you trekkychick during that last session.
On the bright side, everybody’s right. You’re back to entertaining the masses (all three of your readers, to be precise) with your blog posts.
–Troi out