I suppose it’s only fitting that it all fell apart because of a plant.

A plant, and a magazine article.

Before everything went to hell, before the angry messages, and the hurt feelings, it was just me, my cozy apartment, and a girl. A girl with deep brown eyes and sandy hair, and a nose that wrinkled when she laughed.

Her name was Steph.

She was cute. She was fun. She was my first real success. And, most surprising and novel of all, she was actually into me. Naturally, I was suspicious at first, since I’d only been at this dating thing for a little over a month, but at the same time, the attention was intoxicating.

The first few weeks of a new relationship are often the most exciting. Your sense of infatuation with the other person is so intense, so complete, that it tends to eclipse other less important needs, such as food, sleep, or gainful employment. They are some heinous narcotic, a phantasm that dominates one’s every waking thought.

Will she call me?

Does she still like me?

Is she still attracted to me?

Did I blow it?

One spends nearly as much time in the grip of complete anxiety as in the throes of lust.

It was perfect while it lasted. Such a shame it didn’t last for long.

Weeks had passed since my blowout with DJ StrangeLove.

I’d heard little from him in that time, save for a single, terse email which read: “So often, our lives are just a collection of the same few stupid mistakes. Learn from yours,” which I summarily ignored.

I’d also refused to submit a chapter to the magazine for close to a month.

I attended several meetings (and ditched out on several more) with the Dependent editors, to discuss shutting down the Single Guy series altogether.

“Maybe I could write about what it’s like to be in a committed relationship,” I suggested, but could tell from the dark looks in their eyes that the confessions of a guy who was neither lonely nor single was about as popular as a history of the hubcap.

It was just as well, really. I didn’t want to write about my relationship. I didn’t want to write about our sex-life, or what we did on Fridays, or how often we saw each other. All I wanted was for the whole thing to just go away. I simply couldn’t reconcile seeing Steph with continuing the piece. Maybe we’d move in together one day, I thought. Share an apartment. Perhaps buy a few plants. Certainly that was enough.

So, I told them, as politely as I possibly could, that Confessions was over, or at least on indefinite hiatus.

“Have you told her you’re writing these, yet?” one of them asked.

“Uh, no.”

He snorted.

“You might want to. If she finds out on her own, she’ll be pissed.”

I agreed, and then promptly changed the subject.

*******

The following afternoon, I decided to clean my apartment.

Which is why, in a final gesture of emancipation from Maggie, I threw away the Ponytail Palm.

Which is how I wrecked my back.

The plan to remove it was perfect. Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned on the fact that plant and pot collectively weighed roughly eighteen billion pounds. That, along with the fact that the aforementioned back tends to go out at the slightest provocation, like, say, opening the refrigerator, or finishing a sentence, combined to make certain I spent a good portion of the next few days on the couch.

Steph, bless her heart, ministered to me in my pain. She brought soup, food, painkillers, general words of encouragement. And, on one particular visit, in the midst of her ministrations, she caught a glance of my computer screen.

“The Dependent? What’s this?” she asked.

I gagged quietly.

As it turned out, in my near-paralytic state, I’d attempted to do some work for the site, and then, too doped-up on leftover soup and painkillers, had completely forgotten to sign out afterward.

“Oh, uh, nothing,” I replied, “I do a little work for an online magazine.”

“Oh,” she replied, ”I didn’t know that. I should check it out.”

In that moment, I weighed my options.

It certainly seemed a good time to come clean. I’d been close to telling her on several other occasions, but had always, terrified of the fallout, lost my nerve. And, naturally, the longer I went without confessing, the more difficult it became to bring up. If I told her now, she would break up with me. There was no question in my mind. We’d been seeing each other for more than a month. If there had been a time to have that conversation, I’d already pussied out and missed it long ago.

So, I did my best to brush it off, dismiss it, and then silently hoped to God she wouldn’t follow it up.

The week stretched on, and soon enough, I was back on my feet. Working. Writing. Having beers with Leon.

“So, have you told her yet?” he asked.

“Uh, no.”

“If she finds out on her own, she’ll be pissed.”

“That seems to be the consensus.”

“Is it just me,” Leon mused, “or does Steph kind of remind you of Maggie?”

At the time, I ignored him, but later in the evening, as I trundled home on my bicycle, I began to wonder.

Was she really that much like Maggie? Was I stuck in some kind of dating pattern that I was doomed to repeat for all eternity? Did we all just choose the same people over and over again, or let them choose us?

I spent the night mired in anxiety.

The whole thing- the articles, the approaches, the training- it had all been borne out of a desire for personal growth. For weeks, I’d gone against my own beliefs; for weeks, I’d made a fool of myself in front of scores of women and hundreds of internet readers in the hopes that, I would eventually have something to show for it. But what use were the sacrifices I’d made if there was no growth? If I was still doing the same thing I always did?

So often, our lives are just a collection of the same mistakes.

But, was personal growth a good enough reason to call off a perfectly good relationship? In spite of it all, I still liked this girl.

Later on, as one does when faced with problems one has no hope of solving, I called my mother.

“I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, honey,” she said, “after all, your ideals have always been something you’re committed to, even when you’re afraid.”

Under the circumstances, this made me feel entirely rotten, but I emerged from that phone-call with a new sense of priorities:

I would call Steph, and confess the truth. Even if it meant it was over. Even if it meant she’d never speak to me again. She deserved that much. I could no longer let fear stand in the way of my progress. I would do the right thing, and let the chips fall where they may.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried.

By this point, it was out of my hands anyway.

*********

The following morning, I was awoken by a phone-call:

I threw the sheets from the bed, grabbed my nearby laptop, and sure enough, there it was; a comment, plain as hate, at the bottom of Chapter 10:

“Wow, thanks for at least not using my real name in your stories. Super glad to see that I aided you in your social experiment… you’re an asshole.”

The rest of the day was spent with eyes bulging and heart pounding; trying to get ahold of her by phone, email, text-message.

Nothing.

Nothing, save for a single response, several hours later which read: “Never speak to me again.”

I was wracked with guilt.

And, as much as I wanted to blame The Dependent, or DJ StrangeLove, or Maggie, or practically anybody else I could think of (Stephen Harper came to mind a few times, but I couldn’t make it stick), in the end, I knew that the blame sat squarely on my shoulders. I’d known what I was doing. I had been dishonest from the beginning. I had entered into the relationship under false pretenses, betrayed my own principles, and, in the end, this was nobody’s fault but my own.

I wondered if she was okay.

I wondered how long it would be before she trusted a man again, or whether she’d spend the rest of her life looking for Ian Hannons and DJ StrangeLoves around every corner.

The only thing worse than the knowledge that another person hates you is the knowledge that you deserve it.

For more than a week, I stewed in my wrongdoing.

I didn’t go out.

I didn’t see my friends.

I wrote long, eloquent apology emails, and never sent them.

Then, I simply opened up my laptop, gritted my teeth, and watched the fallout unfold: Steph, a few anonymous commenters, someone calling themselves Edward Morales. In a laughable turn of events, even mediocre LA Pickup Teacher and professional slimeball David D’Angelo (or one of his roughly 80 internet marketers) weighed in, declaring DJ StrangeLove and I sociopaths, which might have even been insulting if it hadn’t seemed like such a desperate attempt at market presence.

So often, our lives are just a collection of the same few stupid mistakes. Learn from yours.

So, after nearly a month of noncommunication, I called The Dependent editors.

“It’s me,” I said, flatly, “ I’m back in.”

I paused for a moment, before adding: “But from now on, we’re doing this my way.”