Every man needs one major heartbreak

My heart hurt insanely and I thought I’d die from heartbreak. I really did. At 19 years you think your life is over when you break up with a woman. At that point you cannot imagine that you will ever meet anyone like her. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • That’s how I knew that when a woman says you are ‘cute’, what she means is that she doesn’t want to sleep with you because you remind her of a puppy. Or kitten. Cute is bad, gentlemen. You can be many things, but you don’t want to be cute. 
  • She left me for this 27-year-old doctor guy who wore terrible shoes and had a moustache that resembled a centipede. He had a house of his own and sometimes I wished everything in that house would burn and leave only his dreadful shoes.
  • I remember never leaving the house after the break up. I’d sleep in the whole day and night, eating next to nothing, and walking over to the telephone booth at 6pm to call their house and hear her say “Hello?” without saying a word, just standing there with the receiver pressed to my ear, breathing into the mouthpiece like a psychopath.

I remember the first time a woman broke my heart. I was 19. She was stunning. She had massive hips and impossible legs and a gap between her teeth. I could have sworn that the sun rose out of her left buttock cheek. I won’t even start describing her posterior because my father and aunts read this paper. 

Anyway, she was a year younger than me, which meant she was blossoming into this gorgeous woman, this heartbreak machine. We were celibate – rather, she was. We would kiss at dusk in a dark corner of the estate – a sloppy kiss (on my part, I assure you) – and she would walk me to the bus stage as we held hands under the lovely starlit sky (when you are in love the sky can only be starlit) whereupon we would stand there for hours promising that I would get into the next matatu.

As a randy 19-year-old, I begged her for sex numerous times but she would always say she was not ready to go to the next level. I used to say, “It’s not another level. We are just on the same level. If this was the first floor, I’m not saying we go to the second floor, all I’m saying is we stay on this floor but we move to a different part of the floor! See? No next level.” She would laugh and say, “You are cute.” I hated that.

That’s how I knew that when a woman says you are ‘cute’, what she means is that she doesn’t want to sleep with you because you remind her of a puppy. Or kitten. Cute is bad, gentlemen. You can be many things, but you don’t want to be cute. 

Anyway, if you are a mother reading this you will be happy to learn that she left me. She left me for this 27-year-old doctor guy who wore terrible shoes and had a moustache that resembled a centipede. He had a house of his own and sometimes I wished everything in that house would burn and leave only his dreadful shoes.

VITAL LESSONS

Oh, and he was a gynaecologist. How dreadful is that? “Oh so is he giving you free consultations now?” I moaned at the time of the break up. “You refuse to sleep with me but then this guy with clown shoes shows up with a spatula and all of a sudden you are jumping ship?” I was pathetic.

I was seven years away from discovering writing so I didn’t know how to escape. I remember never leaving the house after the break up. I’d sleep in the whole day and night, eating next to nothing, and walking over to the telephone booth at 6pm to call their house and hear her say “Hello?” without saying a word, just standing there with the receiver pressed to my ear, breathing into the mouthpiece like a psychopath.

My heart hurt insanely and I thought I’d die from heartbreak. I really did. At 19 years you think your life is over when you break up with a woman. At that point you cannot imagine that you will ever meet anyone like her. And true, I have never dated anyone with a gap between her teeth. But there have been quite a number of lovely hips, you will be happy to know.

Miraculously, I didn’t die. In fact, I turned out alright. My heart is stronger than it has ever been. I do 15km runs on a good Saturday morning. Ms Heartbreak didn’t last with the doctor guy, either. However, I still despise doctors – not as individuals but as a cluster. These days I see the doctors on strike on the news and mumble righteously, “Yeah, the Universe does not forget injustices. It’s your turn to weep.”

I know my son will go through that sort of heartache one day. My poor, jolly son with lovely eyes and an innocent soul. It breaks my heart to know his day will come but it’s necessary. It’s vital. Once he’s had his heart broken in that terrible fashion, nothing else will ever faze him.

When you grow up you meet all sorts of women; women who steal from you, women who are religious, some who are not. You meet pretenders and posers and women who cast themselves as righteous or beyond fault, and women who wear masks of puritans and some who will constantly lie through their teeth or are deluded by self-importance. But then you also meet some really good ones. Those are very rare.

What you learn for sure is that you are no longer surprised by them or by who they quickly turn into, which is who they have always been: deceitful, manipulative, or fake. Your heart that was broken at 19 is ready to meet such distasteful characters. And so you spring back. You walk away. The greatest gift of heartbreak in your teenage is the ability to easily walk away in your adulthood. And chances are you will be better for it. Much better for it.