The Break Up

Here’s a little tale that I’m still bitter about even though it went down a couple years back:

My friend Laura invited me to come along to a party at her friend Jordan’s house. The second Jordan opened the door, I was attracted. Then he introduced me to his girlfriend, Sammi. Bummer. Sammi and Laura were already friendly, so they ran off to chat, and I was left with Jordan. We clicked right away. He introduced me to his friends, and we all got along swimmingly. Of course, when Sammi returned, I went off to mingle and didn’t talk to Jordan much for the rest of the night.

A couple nights later, Laura invited me over for a movie night. Tim, a guy she was dating, was there, and so was Jordan. Jordan and I had no problem picking up where we left off, and ended up having a really good time playing third and fourth wheel to Laura’s date. By the end of the night, Laura and Tim had snuck off to do things in private, and it was just me and Jordan. He told me about his girlfriend, how they’d been together for about 6 months, and how he wasn’t feeling it anymore. He said it wasn’t as easy to talk to her as it was to me. I crumbled. By the end of the night, the sexual tension level was high, and I found myself wishing he’d just break up with this damn girlfriend already. Nothing happened, of course, but we exchanged numbers. The text stream after that was nonstop—and yes, it was flirty.

Later that week, we met up for a drink. That’s when I discovered that consuming alcohol around him just made me want him even more. He walked me home, and it took everything in me not to grab him and pull him inside.

Soon after, during one of our usual text conversations, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just on the couch.”

“Come to the door,” he said.

When I opened the front door, there he was—and he kissed me. It was pretty much the best surprise kiss in the history of surprise kisses.

“I broke up with her,” he said as he pulled away.

“I certainly hope so.”

Romantic as hell right? He came inside, and we talked and kissed until the sun came up.

First thing the next morning, I called Laura to tell her everything. “I know,” she said. “Sammi called me yesterday, and she’s devastated. He didn’t even give her a reason.”

Gotta be honest, I hadn’t even thought about his ex. I was too ecstatic to dwell, though, and I literally floated through the next couple hours. That’s when Laura called me back.

She’d just gotten off the phone with Sammi, who’d told her a very exciting story:

Apparently, Jordan had called to take Sammi out to lunch. Sammi was confused, but said yes. They had a great time at lunch, and when the waitress came to bring their check, she’d commented on what a cute couple they made.

“You are a couple, right?” asked the waitress.

“What do you think?” Jordan asked Sammi. Sammi just smiled. When the waitress left, he kissed her. Sammi assumed this meant that they were back together.

That seemed like a fair assumption. I was livid.

One of two things were happening: Either hanging out with me all night had made him realize that he really wanted to be with her, or he was trying to pull a fast one on us both. Given the number of calls and texts I received over the next couple days, I would say it was the latter. Unfortunately for Jordan, Laura filled Sammi in on his little game, and she wasn’t so into him after that either. Well played, sir. Well played.

—Raz, 25, NYC