Oh, don’t we all just Love the rebound? The moment in Limbo between a wonderfully great romantic odyssey and the ‘moving on’, during which you simply let go and let loose. The marvelous blend of scum berg, complete a**hole, freaky dare devil, reckless nincompoop and awesomely funny potato head is something of a master piece.
You see, the rebound comes after three stages. It’s that one last stage before you finally recover from the grand breakup that got you down this road in the first place.
STAGE 1 – WHY, WHY, OOOOOH WHHHHHYYY!!!!
For me this lasted around one week. Yep, just a week. I realized I have an unbelievable capacity to recover from huge heart breaks. Plus the escalating stench from kicked around socks, unwashed dishes, overflowing dustbins and unchanged beddings hastened the process.
The Whys, oh the whys, I have never felt so pathetic. I learnt half the break up love songs in the universe. I vented the residue anger on my glassware and ended up with bandaged hands for my work.
Tim had to endure hours on the phone listening to me rambling over and over about the same point. All that idiot could offer me was a tired ‘It’s going to be fine dude’. Why I’m still friends with this guy I don’t know. But he was there. And he made it through the most bizarre of questions without losing his mind.
“Did you realize she was such a bitch?”
“I mean, how can someone look so perfect for you, yet be so wrong?”
“What would you do if Christine pulled a fast one on you?”
“Hey, could I have Christine for one night bro? For old time’s sake.” He actually said yes to this one, but insisted I’d have to ask Christine. We’ve laughed about this so many times since.
STAGE 2 – OK, I GET IT. SHE WASN’T THE ONE!
Here is what I like most about being a man; the tough talk. I hear that stage 2 for the ladies is the ‘HE WAS SUCH A PIG!’ stage where all the ugly words are used to express why the guy wasn’t worth it, in an effort to make the betrayed soul feel better about herself. It works for them. Men, real men, don’t know how to bitch.
Here is the problem though. Your close friends won’t come up and tell you the hard-to-swallow truth.
True story. We actually care about each other in a non-gay bro style.
The tough talk will always come from an external source. A friend of a friend of a friend, brought into the picture by the forces of nature when the time is right, at the price of all the hard drinks still left in your fridge.
“Listen man, imagine your Mac book. A sweet little machine, so perfectly designed to suit your needs. It feels right. Nothing could be better. At least that’s what you think. Until one day, you rise up from the sofa, and accidentally knock it over. It falls, gets damaged, and can’t get fixed because some core hardware got damaged. You could fix it. But it will cost you more than buying a new Mac book. As perfect as it was, or seemed to be, there are falls it can’t recover from. You pick up the pieces, curse yourself for being so clumsy, throw it into the junk box, and out you go to get another machine. You deal with it like a man! That’s the only way to get past it.”
STAGE 3 – ALRIGHT, LET’S HIT THE CLUBS!
I think this stage is overrated. But it’s essential. Here is the logic. If you truly want to get back at the enemy, find them at their most humiliating point. Point your finger at them, and laugh your head off til your lungs hurt. At this stage, my enemy wasn’t just Daisy (God I hate that girl!!), but the whole generation of females. I subconsciously needed to get back at them, feel superior and somehow revive my ego again.
So I hit the strip joints across several counties in Kenya and picked up random girls. During my brief absence from The Lily Review, I threw wild parties, got hopelessly drunk, went bungee jumping and rock climbing, did speed racing in remote areas I’d never heard of before (and had great fun scaring poor old women coming from their Shambas).
My friends and foes alike had a great time thanks to my hapless condition. That stage cost me a fortune.
It took one almost fatal accident for me to realize I was probably taking it too far. If you have never been in a car that went tumbling down a hill, don’t look forward to it.
Daisy visited me at the hospital. A bitch with some nerve is what that girl is. I told the nurse I didn’t want to see her but she somehow got into my room.
STAGE 4: THE REBOUND
Some people think stage three is the rebound. It’s not. A rebound is meant to spring you back up, give you a chance to sort of do it over again and hopefully get it right this time. If you get stuck in stage three in the ruse of a rebound, you never get a second chance. Life as you knew it is over.
“Will you be ok Lawrence?” Daisy asked.
“If I don’t ever see you again I will”
“I’ll stay away. But please let me know when you are discharged. I can’t sleep knowing you are here because of me”
“Don’t flatter yourself Daisy. You’ll hear of my discharge from the grapevine. Now go.”
“Ok.”
You might also like:
Lawrence is the guy next door; A young, aspirational Kenyan gentleman; But most of all, a romantic soul in search of true love.