What do I wear... to my breakup?

So the time has come to break it off. It's just not really going anywhere and the promises given in the first month have been falling off slowly. His drinking is getting worse (the "side effects" as well) and he's a chain smoker. His "mask" is slipping a little too much for my taste. I digress.

So, it's time to break it off and all I am really wondering about is the actual break-up scene, and specifically: what I should be wearing. I'm trying my best to make this into something deeply psychological, but it isn't. I'm trying to make this as tasteful as possible because he's been drunk texting me some horrible things and I really don't want to bring them up at the break-up. I just want to meet with him in person (respectful) and tell him that it isn't working out (clear). Every time I play the scene out in my head though, my outfit changes. One part of me wants to dress like the total psycho that he wishes I would act more like (making it easier for him to psychologically dump ME) and one part of me REALLY wants to show up in business attire and slap a home run.

This is pretty much the shallowest possible reaction to this scenario. I know. The thing of it is, I'm really kind of a clothes person and can't get away from the theater aspects of a possibly psychologically explosive scene. When I play it back in my head later, I don't want there to be any possible way that I could have diffused the situation any more. He and I are both kind of "dramatic" and I am swearing to you, gentle reader, that I will be on my very best behavior.

So: I'm leaning towards the professional attire and the "I am a more mature person than you are and you're not going to drag me into your personal hell anymore." I can't believe that I'm actually considering dressing up all artsy and giving him extra credit for the cognitive dissonance caused by my words versus my outfit.

Or should I just let him wonder and not even give him the satisfaction of a break up?

Dank-ass Doughnuts

***Guest post!! Special thanks to a nameless contributor for this tale of youth and young manhood. And Phish (not Kings of Leon). The towns in question are located in that lovely little slice of strangeness known as South Carolina, if you were wondering.***

When I was 17, I dated a girl from Mauldin named Jill. On a Saturday night in March 2001, we drove to Columbia to see Phish front man Trey Anastasio play at the Township Auditorium. Long story short, we all got fucked up on weed and nitrous and hippie beer in the lot and she began to annoy the hell out of me.

Once inside the venue, I left her and watched the show with my high school buddies Wilson and Daniel and some other girls. When it ended, I left with my friends instead of my girlfriend. Oops. :( On the drive back to Greenville, we stopped at the Hess on Piney Grove.

As we “shopped,” the evening attendant was discarding that day’s stock of Krispy Kreme into a -- honest-to-God -- pristine and absolutely fresh trash bag. Being freshly stoned bros, we naturally carpe-ed the penis out of that diem and picked out the best pastries with our hands. Those doughnuts got dominated. No joke: We shoved them into our gaping maws with the collective adroit of a half-wit homunculus.

While we were “eating”, Jill and her group walked in.

Her: “Dude. What. Are … you doing?”

Me: “Eating some dank-ass doughnuts. Um … See you at church tomorrow?”

I didn’t go to church again until after college.

That night in Columbia, Trey played a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”. Whenever I hear that tune, I can't help but think of that night and that poor girl. This one’s for you, Jill, darling. For the record, I am truly sorry. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still an asshole.

Stereotypes

So, I've been thinking a lot about stereotypes lately.

Between my and my friends' dating experiences lately, stereotypes have come up a lot. For one pal, it was a guy "acting like a chick" when he spilled his guts about feeling nervous and hesitant in their young relationship. For another, it was having her little white girl mind blown when the black guy she started sleeping with turned out to be extremely well-endowed.

Point is, these things stick around because they're true. But do they have to be? When it comes to biological features (so to speak), these things are inescapable. Do we have to say that a dude acts like a chick, though? Why can't he just be sensitive, or honest? The worst part is that so many of us feminist, intelligent, open-minded chicks are guilty of this. We want sensitive, honest, open men, but when they show their feelings, even WE say they're being too feminine.

And how about stereotypes and double standards? Why must they frolic about datingland like two such best friends? In fact, I think I conflated them in that last paragraph. As a girl who's "one of the guys," "the funny fat girl," and "too smart for her own good," I've been placed into several of the categories that act as both stereotypes and double standards. When you break it down, these all presuppose that a certain quality in a person means that she (in these examples) will have certain behavior. (Ex., Smart girl = nothing but hassle. Smart guy, though...)

Here's my upshot on all of this: Be your gotdamn self and let others do the same, especially your potential loves. Keep an open mind and just let things come.

As a control freak, I find this crazy hard to accept, but I try. I really do. We'll never be rid of stereotypes or double standards, so I say accept them for what they are - half truth, half lunacy, and zero relevance to that attractive person across from you. Take it from the little white girl who got her mind blown.... ;)