A New Home For Your Relationship Memorabilia
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It has been a hard couple of weeks. How were any of us to know that just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, all we had to do was wait about six hours. On the plus side, you may have seen your partner’s true colors shine through in a Facebook or Twitter fight and you’ve finally decided to kick that piece of garbage to the curb and move forward with you life. Congratulations! Have you thought about what you’re going to do with all the stuff that reminds you of them? Have you thought about turning that stuff into a piece of art?
A few weeks ago a very interesting museum opened in Los Angeles. It’s called the Museum of Broken Relationships and it contains exactly what you think it would. It’s a new branch of a Croatian museum housing the detritus of broken hearts. A lawyer (because why not) helmed the expansion in LA, and it seems pretty great.
The museum’s contents are community sourced, and anonymous. It’s shocking something like this just opened, as it’s such a good idea. We’re surrounded by so many objects that passively absorb life and meaning. How many terrible secrets does your coffee table hold? How many awful memories were made in your formerly favorite sweater? What happens to the fancy frames that once held your wedding photos? You donate, refurbish or burn them obviously, but how neat would it be to be part of an art exhibit instead?
In lieu of worrying about the country, the world, and the future while staring out into middle distance with Sharon Van Etten playing on repeat, I give you my suggestions for what should be added to the Museum of Broken Relationships. And if you’ve got something personal to add, please donate to the museum!
Tattered Copy Of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
- Relationship Length: Fall Semester Sophomore Year - Spring Semester Sophomore Year
- Location: Any College Campus, USA
Every girl on every campus across this great land dated an insufferable know-it-all whose favorite writer was David Foster Wallace. The know-it-all pushed Infinite Jest on his short-lived love, and lent her his copy that had notes written all over the margins. All of his shallow observations were scribbled next to tedious paragraphs, begging the reader to notice his brilliance. Boy did he know just everything about life! He was pre-med for one semester so he could brazenly diagnose anyone using medical jargon he definitely picked up from Grey’s Anatomy. He knew everything about intersectional feminism, so he could really explain what to women what they were doing wrong and how they were betraying the cause. He went camping once when he was twelve, but let him tell you about how he could survive in the wilderness for six to nine months, no problem at all. His entire personality was compensation for a crippling lack of self esteem and feelings of inferiority. You know the type! Anyway he forgot to ask for his beat up copy of Infinite Jest back after dumping the girl in the cafeteria, in front of everyone, explaining she wasn’t “into philosophy enough” and things were getting “a bit tepid.” When he asked for the book back several weeks later, she ignored all his texts and blanked him whenever they passed each other on campus, out of spite.
Object: Minnesota Twins Jersey
- Relationship Length: Season 2 - Later Season 2, A Bit Season 4 and 5
- Location: Beverly Hills, California (90210)
Brandon and Emily fell for each other quickly but Emily had some deep issues Brandon couldn’t solve. Then Emily slipped Brandon MDMA without his knowledge and it was really messed up. Brandon had to break up with her for that. She did not take it well! She stalked him and called a million times and sent threatening letters from her old timey typewriter. Then she poured gasoline on the Homecoming float the gang worked so hard on, and threatened to kill herself. She went away after that, I assume to an inpatient program. Brandon and Emily met up a couple times, years later, but it just wouldn’t work. It was a high school romance doomed from the start, a love that could never be, and all that’s left is the Minnesota Twins jersey Emily basically stole from Brandon.
Object: 1500 Bound Pages Of PR invoices
- Relationship Length: Summer 2016 - Later Summer 2016 (?)
- Location: Everywhere in the World
Summer 2016 was full of news, but no story was greater than the very fishy fairytale Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston were living. They were “spotted” (photographed by every major news outlet as if they were all tipped off beforehand) canoodling by the water in Rhode Island, in Nashville, in Rome, in England, in Australia, and in nine other places by the time this piece gets published. So weird they got together so soon after Taylor and Calvin Harris broke up and so conveniently timed around Tom’s James Bond campaign. Is it a real relationship? Is it all a ruse in order to make a Lemonade style video? Is it all to make Tom more famous in America? Is their love real? Is any love real? Are chemtrails real? I don’t know but I’m sure this will implode in on itself soon, and the truth has got to be out there.
Object: Fake Medical Report From A Noncologist
- Relationship Length: Season 7 - Season 10
- Location: Orange County, California
An insurance broker got divorced and fell in love with a swindler who didn’t seem to have a job or a home. She moved him into her house and her family fell apart. Everyone warned her this guy was no good, but she didn’t listen because he gave her heartfelt Hallmark cards all the time and her love tank was full. Then the swindler got very, very sick and the insurance broker needed her friends’ support and most importantly, casseroles. The friends got concerned when the swindler was trying to cure his dire illness with juice cleanses and harnessing energy from the earth. The friends poked around some, and more and more holes appeared in the swindler’s story. Turns out the swindler was indeed quite a swindler. The insurance broker probably knew all along, but the relationship ended anyway due to the deep embarrassment surrounding the situation. If you press a shell from the Pacific up to your ear and listen closely, you can hear her whining about casseroles to this day.
Object: Starbucks Cup With Ashleigh Spelled “Ashley”
- Relationship Length: 2:00pm Sunday - 2:15pm Sunday
- Location: The Starbucks Near My Home
Ashleigh and Tim met on Tinder and set up a date for Sunday afternoon at their/my local Starbucks. Tim was excited because he thought Ashleigh was really pretty and they had a nice chat on the app. Ashleigh was excited to get out into the dating world again after her rough breakup. She spent an extra ten minutes making her hair perfect and Tim bought a new shirt for the occasion. Tim arrived first, got a drink, sat down and waited. Ashleigh came in, got in line and Tim recognized her instantly. Ashleigh picked up her drink and locked eyes with Tim. She took a seat at the table and said “Oh hi, so nice to meet you, can you hang on a second I have to take a picture of this cup.” The cup had “Ashley” written on it. Ashleigh thought this was hilarious, I mean how could they spell it wrong? Tim was like, “Well I guess A-s-h-l-e-y is the more common spelling.” Ashleigh didn’t get it. Her name was A-s-h-l-e-i-g-h, it’s totally different. Not totally different, Tim explained. Actually it was quite similar and her spelling was not that common, Tim explained further. Ashleigh took offense at this. They sat in silence for four minutes, which is a very long time if you think about it. Tim spoke first. “This isn’t going to work. It’s your name on a cup, how could you possibly care about this?” Ashleigh responded “I just think it’s important to get people’s names right.” “But it’s a just a cup,” Tim implored, incredulously. They argued some more and I got the hell out of there. A cup with a misspelled name is all that remains of this short-lived romance.
Object: $27.00 Check Made Out To Bernie Sanders
- Relationship Length: April 30, 2015 - July 12, 2016
- Location: Gentrified Urban Neighborhoods, USA
What a love story! Passionate young men across the nation with little to no political, financial or historical knowledge banded together to teach the rest of us a thing or two about a thing or two. Whatever liberal rebellion you went through in college, it was nothing like this. These boys knew way more about the world than you ever did. They get corruption, ok? They see the whole big picture, ok? They know voting is only worth it if you believe 1000000% percent in the person you’re voting for, with no wavering at all, otherwise, stay home in protest. You may have encountered them in your Facebook feed or aggressively canvassing on your street or even in your apartment building because the neighbor you hate buzzed them in for some inexplicable reason. They organized rallies, traveled far and wide to see Bernie speak, trolled you on Twitter when you said something innocuous about big dreams needing big plans. Then Clinton won enough delegates and for a few days there were peeps from the Bernie Bros about the system being rigged, and protestations about super delegates, and promises to abstain from voting altogether unless they got their way. Then things were quiet for a few weeks until Bernie officially endorsed (sort of, that speech was weird) Clinton and the Bros’ hearts were demolished. They quit politics forever because they didn’t get their way but they found new things to focus on like telling you why the new Ghostbusters is actually sexist if you really think about it.