dead girlfriends


someone was giving some friends of mine a piece of experiential advice this week after those friends had just witnessed the birth of their beautiful baby girl. the someone congratulated the new parents, warned them of the hardness of the journey to come and then reminded them that the kid would, in fact, come with an instruction manual... "several thousand years old and god breathed" or something like that.

i smiled to myself and thought, "yeah, right."

i've had the pleasure of being responsible for three daughters in my life, and I honestly can't think of one time that the bible helped me with anything other than perspective in their rearing.

maybe that's all the friend of my friends had in mind. maybe not.

either way, what interested me more was my reaction to her good intentions.

when the news of manti te'o broke last week, i soaked up every morsel of information available for several days straight. one of two to three overriding narratives of the entire college football season was the notre dame linebacker and his ability to get past and through the tragedy of losing his beloved grandmother and inspirational girlfriend on the same day in september. what a story! what a guy! what a...

hoax?!

the dead girlfriend never existed. she was manufactured, just like te'o's story. manufactured and perpetuated every time notre dame won a game and continued their march towards an unexpected, undefeated regular season.

when the story hit the fan last wednesday, i couldn't find enough warm bodies to tell. my fellow gm buddies up in louisville and i laughed and laughed and laughed as we wrapped our head around what had to be the most awesome thing to happen to us all week. we daydreamed memes. we made fun of the notre dame linebacker. we reveled in how terrible a performance he had versus alabama, and as we deconstructed the fallacy that was his fictional college football season, we felt good about it all.

we ripped a fellow human apart. with very little shame. with very little concern.

now the story is over a week old. and i couldn't give a shit.

that's how these things work. something bigger may not come along, but something newer always will.

there's always a new target. a new player to pull down from the mythical pedestal espn or i put him on.

and so, in sneaks the shame.

now that it's no longer fun to make fun of manti te'o, i ask myself why i ever did it in the first place.

am i that dark-hearted? am i just that cynical? am i that much of a lemming?

maybe.

probably.

so, what?

i don't know, man.

we all have our dead girlfriends. white lies or white wishes that we allow to become black lies that we then allow to define us.

not doing anything of real world value today? fuck it. make up a story about yourself and roll with it.

it's easier that way.

the world tells us we are not worthwhile enough to just try. to just play baseball. to just enjoy watching hockey. to just participate. to just love someone you've never met.

no, we've got to do more than try. we've got to be the fucking best we can, man. we better have made at least one all-star team. we better skate better than that other club hockey schmo. we better have a real, live, beautiful girlfriend that is attractive, smart and loves sports. otherwise, you suck.

so says the world.

and so we build these lies around ourselves.

"i'm good enough. i'm smart enough. and doggone it. people like me."

fuck you, stuart! did you cure cancer!

there's this pervasive attitude going around that merely observing and participating in life isn't good enough. it's the same attitude that at some point turns into hating people on welfare.

and i'm part of the problem.

i have said out loud that the reason i got all hot and bothered about the dead girlfriend story was because i was offended at it being shoved down my sports-swallowing throat for four months and it ending up all being a lie. to be fair, there is some truth to that.

moreso, though, after giving it more than a few days worth of thought, i think i loved it because it made me feel better about myself.

i've never had a fake, dead girlfriend that i never met face to face. i'm more awesome at life than an all-american notre dame linebacker!

what an incredible douche that guy is!

i bet he's gay and just afraid to say it!

i'm such an asshole.

if someone wants to have an internet relationship with someone he's never seen, who cares?

if someone wants to just play some soccer and not be great at it, isn't that awesome, too?

if someone digs pawn stars a little harder than feels right, cool, yeah?

we all have our dead girlfriends.