Mr. Zero Knew.....

I had lunch with an old friend from work last week. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year, and I was surprised when our conversation lacked its normal fervor.

Twenty minutes into lunch the news surfaced: his girlfriend of fourteen months had recently opted to exit stage left. One day everything was coming up roses. The next day she was taking a hack-saw to the vine.

What are you gonna do.

His state of affairs reminded me of the scene in When Harry Met Sally when Harry (Billy Crystal) tells his best friend Jess (Bruno Kirby) how he found out that his wife was leaving him.

Harry: So I go to the door, and there were moving men there. Now I start to get suspicious. I say, "Helen when did you call these movers?", and she doesn't say anything. So I asked the movers, "When did this woman book you for this gig?" And they're just standing there. Three huge guys, one of them wearing a T-shirt that says, "Don't fuck with Mr. Zero." So I said, "Helen, when did you make this arrangement?" She says, "A week ago." I said, "You've known for a week and you didn't tell me?" And she says, "I didn't want to ruin your birthday."

Jess: You're saying Mr. Zero knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did?

Harry: Mr. Zero knew.

When it comes to relationships, we think we know what’s going on. In truth, Mr. Zero might be the one with the insider information.

Still, my take on the hack-saw chronicles is probably different than most. Generally, when it comes to relationships, I’ve got the sexes pegged as an optimistic "give someone a chance" lot. The bad news: sometimes optimism is an intermediate stepping stone to personal deconstruction.

Take my friend for example.

I’m confident (to the tune of 100%) that his old girlfriend likes him. I’m also convinced she enjoyed dating him. Still, for the vast majority of their relationship she was concealing a critical piece of information: she was having trouble equating him with forever. She probably liked that idea in theory, but at the same time knew it wasn’t a likely eventuality.

This happens all the time. Unless mutual love is prancing around the hills, Sound of Music style, there’s normally an unspoken, tendered agreement to avoid the subject of love.

I’ve even utilized this tactic.

A few years back I was dating a beautiful, engaging woman. I thoroughly enjoyed dating her. I just didn’t know if I would ever love her. But she was beautiful and 10,000% more likable than most of the women meandering Chicago’s streets. Also, inexplicably, she seemed to like me (shouldn’t be undervalued). So I kept dating her. I might still be dating her except in this type of scenario one of two things always happens.

Either 1) the person patiently waiting for love in the Alps will arrive at their breaking point and ask for a relationship forecast (exactly what happened with me -- over dinner one night she abruptly asked for a barometric reading) or 2) the person who is hesitant to commit will meet someone else and move on.

Both of these scenarios “es no good” if you’re on the short end.

More bad news: I don’t see any way around this pothole. It’s important to stick your next out there. It’s also important to be whole-hearted in doing so. And yet there’s always the chance that you’ll spend next Christmas, not with your special someone, but alone with Billy Bob Thornton: slugging back whiskey and filling in for Bad Santa.

I’m not about to pretend to have the answers. The magazines in grocery aisle eight would advocate for an overdose of feelings (nothing more than feelings). Unfortunately, in the real world, that’s about as easy as going to McDonald’s and ordering a salad.

Each member of the relationship knows what’s at stake. Man and woman also know that having extra time for single friends, like the beer-guzzling artist formerly known as Otter, is big-time overrated. Some relationships continue past their expiration date solely to avoid that quandary (singleness). Others get stuck in the not-so-magical year of wishful thinking.

Either way, eventually reality will surface. And the cinematic version is occasionally correct: reality bites.

But here’s the silver lining: if you are lucky enough to stumble upon your counterpoint -- an undisputed love and best friend wrapped into one -- the reward has to be immense. Immense in the muy, muy grande (we goin' to Sizzler) sense of the word.

So let’s hope “immense” stumbles onto everyone we know sometime soon, if it hasn’t already. We all deserve a companion for life's ballyhoo and lazy Sundays.

Besides, my couch is Ottered out.