Reader: Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

All right, well, I'm kinda AWOL these days. Part sickness, part sick of it. Just needing a bit of a slow-down with things in all areas of my life.

I had a reader question a week or so ago. Pretty short and sweet:

I was wondering what your take is on couples who have a peaceful, mutual breakup (stay good friends) and continue living together until their lease is up.

What, in a nutshell?

"Good luck with that" is about what I think. Good fucking luck.

Yeah, okay, somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds sing and rivers are made of chocolate, and couples who break up really truly can be friends. Yes, Toto, they can! Even in Kansas!

In my twisted little worldview, though, friends after breakup is a whole lot easier said than done. There's all those weird little remembrances you have to get over. Like, "watching a movie" means a whole other thing if you're "just friends."

"You mean I can't start nibbling your torso when there's a boring bit?"

Well, there's always popcorn, honey.

We're human beings. We're silly things with opposable thumbs and convoluted ideas on what constitutes civilization. We want to pretend we're all smart and brilliant when it comes to problem resolution. The problem is, this ain't no problem to resolve. The death of a relationship is, well, a death.

It dies. Six feet down, all bets off. It's not a simple change of state. It's a change of being. You used to fuck in frenzies. You told each other everything. You had dreams and goals and plans. And then, one day, it all went poof in a little whisp of smoke. You sorta saw it coming, yet there you stood still in a state of utter disbelief.

Because that's how it all goes.

Now you want to think that a little piece of paper that says you have a lease is going to be enough to keep it on an even keel. Let's hope you're right. In my world, it just doesn't tend to work out that well.

I'm a smart person with big brains and long memory, and pushing aside a past in order to have a present seems to be one of those equations I have a difficult time solving. Not that I wouldn't try to solve it.

But surprises happens. Luck tends to play its hand. And sometimes odds get defied. Me, I err on the side of probability and statistics. Numbers meaning what they do and all.