Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me

by Ben Karlin

  July 30, 1998

  4:22 a.m.

  My daughter hates me. I don’t care if she’s only a couple of weeks old. She hates me. And I am not OVERREACTING! Tell me if this is overreacting: I go in her room to try to get her back to sleep, cry cry cry cry cry scream cry scream cry cry cry. Angie goes in, picks her up and whimper whimper sob coo. COO! FUCKING COO! What’s happening to me? This is insane. I try to tell myself, she’s just a baby, it doesn’t mean anything, but it seems like she’s doing it on purpose. I feel like I’ve been dumped. I’m in love with my daughter for nine months, she comes out and dumps me. Beautiful. I need a Vegas trip.

  August 3, 1998

  12:49 a.m.

  Maybe it’s because I’m black. Seriously, I’ve run out of reasons. I’ve changed my deodorant four times. I’m using a different soap, different shampoo, nothing matters. Scream, scream, scream. I hate to play the race card but what else could it be?

  August 3, 1998

  2:15 a.m.

  I forgot, Angie’s black too so it can’t be that. I don’t even like Häagen-Daz and I’m on my second tub. Everybody says she’ll grow out of it pretty soon. Grow out of it? My daughter has to grow out of hating my fucking guts? Am I the crazy one here? I don’t think so. I am seriously out of control. I gotta get it together. Give it a couple of weeks.

  August 15, 1998

  9:32 p.m.

  Yaaay! Lauren’s a month old! The family came over, everybody held her, including her great grandfather, and she smiled and laughed and cooed for everybody . . . EXCEPT ME! Stupid family! They’re all like, “It’s okay,” “Don’t let it bother you,” “She’s just tired,” “She’s going to be daddy’s little girl.” Well, she’s not. She smiled at me once. She had gas and then threw up all over my Tommy Bahama shirt. And by the way, granddad stinks. She’s got no problem with the “old people smell” but a new Tommy Bahama makes her hurl. Jesus Christ, give me a fucking break.

  September 10, 1985

  8:41 p.m.

  I fear my son Ron is a homosexual. I mean, ballet dancer, what the hell is that?

  [Editor’s note: an excerpt from The Reagan Diaries was inadvertently placed in this piece. We apologize for any inconvenience and/or confusion.]

  October 16, 1998

  11:58 p.m.

  I was at Baby Gap today, buying some socks for “daddy hater.” I’m so pathetic. I see a guy in there with his baby daughter and they’re all laughing and smiling and having a good time. I was seething with jealousy. Seething. I’ve never seethed in my life. I can see why people seethe, though. It’s an adrenaline rush. Your whole body’s on fire. I’m okay now. I try to tell myself there’s no way this can go on forever. But it’s been three months. Three months. I don’t know if I can last another day. I cry and cuss all the time. I need some fucking Kleenex.

  October 31, 1998

  10:45 p.m.

  Great Halloween. We dressed up Lauren as a little princess, Angie was a beauty queen, I was a soulless void. No costume needed.

  November 23, 1998

  1:21 a.m.

  The whole point of getting a babysitter is to sit with the child because you are unable to be present. Not and I repeat NOT BECAUSE YOUR DEMON CHILD CAN’T STAND YOUR GUTS!!!! This was Angie’s first day back in the choir. My job was to sit in church with my daughter. That’s all I had to do. But no, we had to get a sixteen-year-old stranger to sit there with me so my daughter doesn’t scream and everybody thinks I’m beating her. And to top it off, the little jackal dumps the load of loads in her diaper and who’s got to change her? I’m in the church bathroom cleaning what I can only describe as debris you’d scrape off the bottom of a lake in hell; she’s screaming, I’m gagging, my wife’s singing, and the babysitter had an attitude. I’m done. I don’t have anything left. Thursday’s Thanksgiving and I have absolutely nothing to be thankful for. Great. I just heard Lauren cry. Well, I’m not going in there. She’s just going to cry more when she sees me. Cry your eyes out, see if I care. Cry all night, see how it feels. Wait, that’s a different cry than I’ve heard before. Maybe I should go see what’s wrong. What am I saying? I guess I still have feelings for her. I’m a horrible dad. I’ve just been thinking about myself. She’s a baby. My baby. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. What’s wrong with me? Have some patience. I’m going to go check on my little girl.

  November 23, 1998

  1:29 a.m.

  That little bitch. She baited me. She knew I’d be weak. I can’t take this anymore. I’m moving out.

  December 26, 1998

  9:36 p.m.

  I’m still stuffed. We had Christmas dinner tonight at my mom’s. I actually had a good time. I spent all night with Brendy [Larry’s niece]. What a sweet little girl. We laughed and played peekaboo and laughed and played more peekaboo. It was great. I have to admit and I know this is going to sound weird—thank God no one but me will ever read this—but I felt like I was cheating. Is that weird? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with playing with my niece, but the whole time I felt dirty. I even kept overstressing that she was my niece. Everybody must’ve thought I was drunk. That’s a good idea. I should start drinking.

  February 13, 1999

  11:09 p.m.

  Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day and I could care less. Lauren will be seven months old and I don’t care. Hey look, she’s crawling. Big deal. Oh my God, she’s trying to form words. Genius. She’s eating solid foods. Don’t choke. She loves going to Gymboree. Whoop-de-fucking-doo.

  June 1, 1999

  10:30 p.m.

  Angie and Lauren are in Minnesota visiting her family. Lauren still hates me. She doesn’t scream anymore. Now she jumps out of my arms when I try to hold her. That’s not embarrassing at all. But it’s cool. Got the house to myself. No writing job for me this year. I can’t stop being a smart-ass in my interviews. I almost got hired on Friends till I mentioned the closest they came to having someone of color on the show was when Ross had a monkey. Did nothing but watch daytime TV today in my underwear. I cannot get enough of Sally Jesse Raphael. People are so pathetic on that show, it’s great. I’m tired of porn. I should make some more popcorn. Lauren left her blankey. She needs it to fall asleep. It’s probably too late to call Minnesota. I’m gonna put on some porn.

  July 13, 1999

  7:23 p.m.

  She’ll be a year old tomorrow and she still won’t return my calls to her. It’s like I don’t even exist. I’ve actually given up. It’s weird. I think I’m over it. I don’t even think about her that much anymore. Hmmm. Why did I write hmmm? I’ll give it one more day.

  July 14, 1999

  10:57 p.m.

  Way back in the recesses of my mind I thought something special would happen today. Yeah, I’m the dad, yeah, I’m supposed to be giving her a gift, but I held out hope that maybe, just maybe, she might give me a gift today. Anything. A smile, a nod, a grin, anything. I foolishly tried picking her up to give her a kiss and she squirmed out of my arms. I thought it didn’t matter anymore but I was devastated. I tried to put on a good face but I was crying on the inside. Okay, the outside too. Last week, I took out the old pictures of her ultrasounds. We seemed so happy then. So many plans, so many dreams. Our bond seemed unbreakable in those innocent times. Angie’s calling. Talk to you later.

  July 14, 1999

  11:51 p.m.

  Angie called me into Lauren’s room. She just said her first word: “Daddy.” You gotta be fucking kidding me. Daddy! She treats me like crap for an entire year and her first word is “Daddy”! Who does she think she’s talking to? Daddy? I get my heart ripped out of its hole for what seemed like forever and that little . . .

  July 14, 1999

  11:59 p.m.

  She just said it again. You go, girl! That’s my baby! I knew she’d come around. I wasn’t worried. THAT’S MY GIRL! She is the loveliest little creature on the face of the earth. Fucking said, “Daddy”! High five to myself! Angie was so jealous. She said, “I carried her for nine mont
hs, nursed her from my bosom, changed almost all of her dirty diapers, and her first word is ‘daddy’?”

  She’ll get over it. She’s just a baby.

  Lesson#10

  Keep Some Secret Admirers Secret

  by Eric Slovin

  I love getting invitations in the mail. It’s always a thrill to find expensive stationary hiding out amidst the usual bills and junk mail. And I’ve never tired of seeing my name written in calligraphy on a high-grade envelope. It makes me feel fancy, like a Victorian dandy. But I’m never surprised by these invites. I always see them coming. A friend who I know is getting married sends me an e-mail asking for my home address, and a week later, an envelope comes in the mail. It’s nice, but no surprise.

  I was surprised once, though. It was great. It came out of nowhere. I took my time and savored the envelope before opening it. My name and address were written by the hand of a real calligraphy artist. Not printed on a computer. That meant genuine personal attention! The return address was Park Avenue. That meant top-shelf liquor! I opened it slowly and read:

  Now, for me, that was a real surprise! I can’t tell you how flattered I was that Eileen Silverman wanted me to come to her cocktail party so badly she actually hired a professional calligraphist to write my name on an envelope for what must have taken, I don’t know, ten solid minutes of serious calligriphization. I really appreciated that. I just had one question: Who the hell was Eileen Silverman?! The name meant nothing to me. I was left with the panic of having completely forgotten a person who liked me enough to hire a tradesman with an antiquated skill to write my name on an expensive envelope. I decided to call the RSVP number immediately.

  First, let me be honest. The name Eileen Silverman isn’t real. I made it up to protect the actual person. But I think it gives a good sense of the social-demographic and religious affiliation that we’re dealing with here. Actually, now that I think about it, Eileen Silverman is a little too strong. I should tone it down a bit. Let’s call her . . . Rebecca Schwartz.

  A woman picked up the phone.

  “Hello,” I said, “I’m calling for Rebecca Schwartz.”

  “I’m Rebecca Schwartz.”

  “Hi, Rebecca, this is Eric Slovin calling.”

  “Eric!!!” she screamed. “I’m so glad you called!! I guess you got the invite!”

  Shit! Obviously, Rebecca Schwartz was my dear friend, and I had forgotten her completely.

  “Rebecca, I’m so sorry, but, uh, could you remind me how we know each other?”

  “Know each other?!! We don’t know each other!” she squealed with delight.

  “We don’t?” I asked, relieved. “Then why did you invite me to your party?”

  And then she explained it. Rebecca and her girlfriends threw monthly cocktail parties to which they invited only a very exclusive list of high-caliber single men. The only way to be invited to a party was to be handpicked and vetted by the hostess herself. It couldn’t be expressed clearly enough how extraordinary a man needed to be to merit invitation. One of Rebecca’s friends knew me and felt that I fit the profile.

  “But who invited me?” I asked.

  This seemed to confuse her.

  “What do you mean who invited you? Don’t you know?”

  “No. I don’t know anything about this.”

  “Well . . . that can only mean one thing,” she said, her voice turning mischievous.

  “Uhhh . . . yeah?”

  “You have a secret admirer!!!”

  “I have a what?! Who is she?!”

  But no matter how much I pleaded, Rebecca Schwartz refused to tell me. She said she didn’t even know, but that she wouldn’t tell me even if she did.

  “The only way you’re gonna to find out is if you come to the party. You have to come!”

  Did I, though? Did I really need to put myself in that position? Did I really want to show up alone at some strange cocktail party thrown by a meddlesome yenta wannabe like Rebecca Schwartz? Sure, it was nice that she paid good money to have my name written in calligraphy on a fancy envelope, but I didn’t even know her. Besides, if there’s one thing I hate, it’s Park Avenue cocktail parties—even if there is top-shelf liquor! And who the fuck was this secret admirer?!

  But, then again, who the fuck was this secret admirer?

  I was twenty-eight years old and just out of an extremely long-term relationship that had devoured my twenties. As much as I feared the worst, I’d have been lying if I said I didn’t like the idea of having a secret admirer. I liked it a lot. Sure, there was the part of me that was convinced that any girl who admired me, secretly or otherwise, couldn’t be all that attractive. But the optimist in me was running wild. Hell, I had a secret admirer! Rebecca Schwartz was right. I had to go.

  The party was two weeks away, and the entire time I did nothing but fantasize about her, my secret admirer. The more I tried to temper my expectations, the more dramatic my fantasies became. I consulted all of my friends, but no one knew a thing. Outwardly, I insisted she was going to be a disappointment, but inwardly, I saw supermodels. I saw movie stars. I saw gorgeous physicists in lab coats and glasses. I thought of a girl I once met who, I’m pretty sure, was related to the royal family of Belgium. I think it was Belgium. It could have been the Netherlands. Belgium or the Netherlands. Or Finland. Anyway, we had a nice chat. So, maybe it was her. Maybe it was a previously unknown granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway. I had driven through Idaho once, so that was totally a possibility. In fact, there were literally thousands of beautiful women it could possibly have been. Surely, Rebecca Schwartz was friends with many beautiful women, women who would feel right at home at a cocktail party on Park Avenue to which only extraordinary, high-caliber men like myself were invited.

  Finally, the day arrived. I had to decide what to wear. I’ve never been the cocktail party type, I certainly wasn’t at twenty-eight, and I was more than a little intimidated by the uptown address. I knew it was going to be a gathering of young professionals, and I feared that my usual outfit of T-shirt and jeans was going to make me stand out. I began to resent the whole thing. I just wasn’t in the mood to dress up to impress a bunch of “high-caliber” yuppies. Then I remembered that I didn’t need to impress anybody. I was invited by a secret admirer. She was already impressed! She just wanted me to be myself, God bless her! I put on a black T-shirt, my best jeans, and a pair of brand-new Adidas low-top shell toes (genuine leather). Instead of my normal nylon windbreaker, I pulled out a freshly dry-cleaned 100 percent cotton windbreaker. I checked out my reflection in the mirror and liked what I saw. It was hard not to secretly admire myself, myself.

  I headed to Park Avenue.

  When I got to the building I told the doorman I was there for the Rebecca Schwartz party. He nodded and directed me to the elevator. Twelfth floor. I was shocked by how nervous I was. It had all seemed like a silly joke up until then. But there I was, in the kind of building my parents’ friends live in, riding the elevator, about to walk into a party where I’m going come face-to-face with a girl who has a crush on me, a girl I may or may not be happy to see. Suddenly the “may not” part of that equation seemed very real, and very unappealing. I considered turning back, but then, didn’t I owe the Belgian royal family at least the courtesy of showing up?

  The elevator opened to the twelfth floor. There was no hallway, just a small landing with doors leading to two apartments. In front of one stood a smiling zaftig woman in her fifties with frosted blond hair.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “Uh, I’m Eric Slovin.”

  “Oh, hi, Eric,” she said, the smile glued to her face, “I’m Rebecca Schwartz.”

  Actually, now that I’m picturing her there, smiling in the hallway in her smart pantsuit, I’m not so sure the name Rebecca Schwartz was right after all. I think I may have had it better at the beginning. Yeah, she was definitely more of an Eileen Silverman. Or, even a Helen Goldfarb. That’s what she was, a Helen Goldfarb.

  “W
elcome to the party. I guess there’s someone in there waiting to see you,” said Helen, smiling.

  I walked in.

  For two weeks I imagined a lot of things, but I never imagined what I had just walked into. The youngest man there was no less than fifty-five. The oldest could easily have been eighty, maybe more. The women ranged in age from about forty-five to sixty. Each one looked like she could be my aunt. What if one actually was my aunt? That would be awkward.

  In one corner a Nelson Rockefeller type slyly approached a woman who might have been Bette Midler’s sister. In another, a bald man with a fringe of dyed black hair was attempting to chat up a woman who looked exactly like my therapist. Over by the window, a lonely man in a cardigan spread cheese on a cracker. I’m fairly certain he was the father of a college friend.

  And then there was me, in my windbreaker and sneakers, looking for my secret admirer.

  With the exception of a few clusters of chatting women, it was a scene of perpetual lonely motion. There was very little conversation. Everyone just wandered around, eying each other. This was a meat market for the old and rich. No one said a word to me. I wondered if my youth made them uncomfortable. Maybe they thought I was there to fix the air-conditioning. I quickly walked through each room, but I knew it was pointless.

  After about six minutes I went back to the front door, where Helen Goldfarb was still greeting her guests. She saw me and scrunched her face into a pained smile.

  “I think there must have been some kind of mistake,” she said.

  “Yeah, I think so. Why am I here?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “But what about the exclusivity? What about handpicking every guest to make sure that only extraordinary, high-caliber men are invited?”

  She had no response.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, the smile finally breaking.

  I was sorry, too. My secret admirer was neither the princess of my fantasies nor the troll of my fears. In fact, my secret admirer wasn’t anything. She didn’t exist. There was nothing left to say. I took the elevator down.