Confessions of A Naughty Girl

Train Wreck By Proxy

These days, in case you haven't figured it out, I am single. I am Natasha-Bedingfield-"Single"-song-single. I am Lisa-Loeb-VH1-Reality-Show-Called-"#1 Single"-single. I am order-one-chicken-breast-at-the-deli-department single.

And while opportunites come knocking - in the form of two bad dates in the last three weeks and some geographically-undesirable offers for no-strings-attached sex - my love life is (relatively) quiet. A little drama here and there that ultimately nets out to an even-keeled heart and gratefulness that I have no one to worry about but myself.

Well, and my family and friends.

A born extrovert, I have always had a lot of friends. My social circles usually consist of the following groups: the innards, the exes (those who I am still in contact with, usually only for either petty conversation, sex without increasing "my number", or both), the drinking buddies, the friends, and the acquaintances. But with six innards, four exes, ten drinking buddies, at least twenty friends, twice that in acquaintances, and 168 MySpace friends, that tends to become a little overbearing.

And in your twenties, when you factor in the exes and current significant others of even just "best" friends, it populates faster than an inbred rural town in West Virginia, or Kevin Federline's spawn.

Girls love to talk. We talk everything to death. We talk until we're blue in the face, gasping for air, begging for God to have mercy on our lung capacity. There's no way to fight it - it is what it is. Men of the world, take note - most girls will overanalyze your words, your inflection, your face, your gestures, your behavior, and the size of your penis. We parse through all of these things like they're goddamn constellations and if we stare at them hard enough, Orion's belt will appear.

And as the very single friend these days, the nature of everything I've discussed above makes me the perfect candidate for what I like to call the "Train Wreck By Proxy".

You see, girlfriends have a pretty special bond going. Not to take away from guys and their friendships, but really - bitches do bond. Once you get to a certain level of friendship with another girl, their happiness becomes yours. Their misery becomes yours. You end up hearing so many stories, you feel slutty and guilty because you've practically f*cked their boyfriends yourself. And their exes to boot. And when it comes to good or bad times in their relationships, their outlook determines whether or not you are going out and dropping Hamiltons like you're Aaron Burr, or staying in, watching "Sixteen Candles" and letting her cry on your shoulder. Because most of the time, Gentlemen, the burden of if and when you mistreat our girlfriends falls squarely onto our shoulders. Yeah, that's right, assholes. Thank us. I personally accept Visa, certified check, and Diner's Club.

I've seen my girlfriends through every kind of relationship - the Happy One, the Abusive One, the Not-Abusive-But-Totally-Dysfunctional-In-Its-Own-Right One, the Long-Distance One, and last but not least, the Train Wreck.

The Train Wreck is the worst kind of relationship, I think, because unlike other relationships, it starts off disastrous and ends...well, worse. It can encompass any of the above situations, and can take on Train Wreck qualities at any given time. It's like an allergy, really. No way to figure out until you do some diagnostic testing and see red bumps and inflammation. Prerequisites to the most commonly diagnosed Train Wreck relationships include, but are not limited to, the following:

• interoffice relationships
• "older man" relationships
• making-it-work-with-an-existing-ex relationships

and my personal favorite, the "he-doesn't-know-we're-in-a-relationship-but-she-thinks-they're-in-one" relationship. Well f*ck. Fun to be a passersby in that situation. And as I know from personal experience, even more fun to be a participant. Nothing provides you with a bigger rush than watching him flinch when you refer to him as your "boyfriend", or being on the receiving end of the "I'm not looking for anything serious" line after you've been dating for a few months and deleted all of your fallback hookups from your cell phone. Good times!

But as a passersby in these wrecks, you certainly do your fair share of toeing the line. On one hand, you know your friend well, so you have to maintain the fine balance of being honest (if you don't think things are headed in a good direction), yet being tactful and sensitive to their feelings. On the other hand, all you're really given is an email (via bcc: or fwd:). Here's a tip, guys - please do as much as you can in writing to help your designated train wreck by proxy out, since phone conversations and face-to-face tends to get a little emotionally biased by our girlfriends when they recap it for us later. Better yet, sometimes all you have to work off of is a mere description of a glance. ("Well, he looked upset by the whole thing, but I also know that we had Mexican for dinner and refried beans really upset his stomach.")

My poor friend Beth is the absolute master of the train wreck by proxy. Need advice? Ask her. She has seen me through a host of damaging relationships over the last five years, and has the routine down quite well. She's heard every excuse in the book, ranging from, "I think he's intimidated by how great I really am" to "He's in jail, so there's not much he can do to hold this relationship together - the burden has to be on me". She has the beautiful combination of both foresight and tact, and no matter what the outcome, is always there when it falls apart, armed with an assload of Verizon minutes and an offer to fly down from New York if I need her. She and my friend Chris even conspired once to hire a hitman for me. Not that they know any hit men, but I have no doubt that had I expressed interest, Beth's nose would be buried in the Yellow Pages, looking for a listing under "homicide".

In recent weeks, I've found myself in a number of situations where my inner Dionne Warwick kicked in and told me that I was going to have to prepare myself for heartbreak - by proxy. And while I always hope that I'm wrong about this, I try to stay as prepared as possible.

It's hard to stand by and watch your friends proceed to get trampled on, because here's the thing - ain't no arguing with the heart. When you're a participant in the game of love, you see what you want to see, you hear what you want to hear, and you sure as hell don't want any brand of reality check if it involves a thought that doesn't fit into your immediate agenda. So if you're a train wreck by proxy standing on the sidelines - even if, as a decent human being, your conscience is begging to have its say, remember the wise lessons of "Jerry Maguire" - freeing your conscience in this situation will only f*ck you, fire you, and then try to steal Cuba Gooding Jr. away and force you to put Bruce Springsteen on your soundtrack. Your friends won't listen, you'll feel miserable, and you'll end up looking like the naysayer/bitch/disgruntled person. And really, is "I told you so" really all that satisfying to say anyway?

Your best bet, in my opinion, is to grab a hold of that rosary, say 900 "Hail Marys", and pray that your friend comes out of the eventual fallout ultimately unscathed. And until then, you'd best prepare to suck it up and prepare yourself for the slew of excuses that are headed your way.

The beauty of having been through a lot of these situations myself is that at least I have the wisdom - and the experience - to call my friends out when they attempt to justify with the jail excuse. Because really, who dates someone who went to jail six months into the relationship? Aside from me, that is.

posted by KA @ 7:00 PM