#24 HOW MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE STELLA ADLER ACADEMY ACTOR CRASHED AND BURNED (LIKE MY TOYOTA CAMRY)
How it all ended – he wasn’t a bad guy, just a terrible fit for me – and I reacted badly
At twenty-three, the breakup seemed out of the blue. At approaching-forty, I see I was a total nightmare to date (for all two of my then-“serious” boyfriends and probably every one of the people who were on a more “casual” basis). Despite the endless clothing matching, not understanding what he was going through, and the myriad of whatever, I now see that we were simply a bad fit. To be fair to Dorian and despite my reminiscences in my previous post, he did have some lovely qualities and overall he was a nice person. He just very much didn’t have his shit together. His timing, however, left a lot to be desired.
How graduate assistantships and teaching assistantships work in the US
In US grad school in the English department (at least where I attended uni), you generally have two paths in the two years you spend doing your Master’s Degree – if your degree is being funded, that is. In your first year, you’re a graduate assistant to various professors, generally ones you already have rapport with. In your second, you may be let loose the first semester to teach English 101 and the second semester to teach English 102, among the foundation courses for every student in the university. Every single student has to take two or three general English courses to matriculate. These English classes are also often the first time that your instructor/professor/whoever knows your name because often the other 101s are taught auditorium-style and you’re just a number in a sea of nameless, non-distinctive faces.
For me, I was the grad assistant to three of the most amazing professors ever. One was Dr J who I admired and wanted to be just like. She was beautiful, clever, and sweet. I assisted her with her classes, leading a couple of lectures, and mostly creating, administering, and grading reading quizzes at the beginning of class, among other duties. She introduced me to writers like Edith Wharton, Louise Erdrich, and Kate Chopin. I was sad when our semester working together came to an end.
Then, I worked with my master’s thesis advisor, Dr Elliott, who I’d never have enough words of praise to describe. (And the fact I’m naming him also shows that no, he was not unprofessional in any way and I didn’t sleep with him but incidentally he was married and then met his stunning second wife at a conference.) The way he taught his classes was eye-opening in my career as a Lit major – as he’d attended Notre Dame (although many of the VSU faculty had attended Ivies and other similar prestigious US and international institutions, actually) – and he taught me my final year of undergrad and my years as a grad student. For him, I did the general class admin stuff, assisted him with his research, and got my first taste of that hashtag editor life! I had the wonderful opportunity to edit his research papers to submit to journals. (We also still periodically work together on his manuscripts and nosy me loves reading his creative non-fiction because he’s a brilliant writer and it gets personal.)
When I was a child growing up in the north of England and a stone’s throw from Brontë country, I’d visited enough factory museums to know that I never wanted to study the Victorians as the period was dull, harsh, and depressing with cotton factories, poor/work houses, and child labour (modern Tory Britain, anyone?). In comes Dr Elliott who teaches none other than Vic Lit and suddenly, I'm game – and no the reason was not only because he was tall, handsome, intelligent, and engaging.
He made the era come alive by introducing me to the school of New Historicist critical theory where you weave in a period’s history, a bit of the author’s life, and the rich tapestry of time, history, and opportunity in order to interpret the literature. Did people fear women’s sexuality? Yep, that’s what Dracula is about. Did Lizzie Bennet marry Mr Darcy for money? Erm, probably as she was only in a room with him for a total of forty-five minutes before she married him (mind blown). He also introduced me to the writer I’d write my master’s thesis on: Elizabeth Gaskell by having us read North and South.
On a side note, I used to get paid (generously) to catsit Dr Elliott’s lovely cat Bartleby, so I got paid to go hang out in his peaceful apartment where I’d fall asleep on the sofa (which was super comfy) with the cat, watch his DVDs, and examine the postcards on the fridge (mostly from his wife, always making sure to put everything back exactly as it was) – and occasionally look through his books, including his PhD dissertation (I actually spent time reading some of it). When tampons started appearing in the bathroom, where incidentally he kept his thousand marathon or triathlon medals hung up, I knew he was seeing someone new. I was a total creeper. This was also the time we all noticed his wedding ring come off and he legit got happier (which we all agreed was a good thing) but that also put a stop to him answering our emails at 3 am because now he was better occupied – and presumably no longer heartbroken in the middle of the night. As students, we were like a Greek chorus, all speculating and commenting on our professor’s private lives.
Over the summer, my shortest assistantship was with Dr D who I just assisted with research projects which consisted mostly of things like compiling annotated bibliographies on one-thousand sources. I got the sense he didn't really want to mentor me or work with me all that closely – but I’d taken a million classes from him in undergrad and some in grad school and had a lot of respect for him even though his field was American lit of the boring variety (think Fennimore Cooper) – although I did enjoy a bit of Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Raymond Chandler in his classes (but definitely not Moby Dick or In the Heart of the Country). Dr J did the more exciting side of American lit where she also taught female and underrepresented authors as did another of my later critical theory professors, Dr B (who was also on my Master’s thesis committee).
The night before I started teaching…
So, here I am about to teach my first English 101 class, and Dorian ends our relationship the night before; it was Sunday, 15 August. I tried to get some sleep and Brittany was worried about me because I emerged from my room with red-rimmed eyes, crying (not often an Elaine trait), and refusing to eat my breakfast (that Brittany generously cooked – scrambled eggs on toast with strawberries and honey on the side, a B special). I felt that kind of heartbroken where you wake from your sleep wondering if it had been a dream but then get a gut punch because it hadn’t been a dream. Where my throat felt like it was closing up and I couldn’t swallow food.
Was I mourning him? In hindsight, probably not. What had been good about our relationship for either of us? I was mourning the idea of this picture-perfect life and still, I’m not sure what in my history made me want the picture without the reality behind it.
I had to reapply my mascara a few times because I kept streaking it down my face, creating tear stains in the twelve layers of blusher I liked to wear. The benefit of every heartbreak was that heartbreak made me eat less and I’d drop 20 lbs in a month and everyone would say how good I looked and then I’d attract the next victim because I looked better…and then I’d eat my feelings again and gain some, if not all, of the weight back.
How we got back together two days later…
Two days later, out of loneliness or maybe because he realised his friend group was now intertwined with mine he told me he’d impulsively broken up with me and he’d been miserable without me. He said he always had the ability to make decisions that fuck up his life. I knew I was going to be okay but he didn’t have a network that wasn’t connected mostly to people he’d met through me.
He said later he hadn’t meant to break up with me before my classes began; he meant to break up with me after Christmas instead…great.
I’m sure the ensuing few weeks together were miserable but I felt “happier” because I was delaying the inevitable pain of the breakup.
Then, he crashed my car.
Next up, the crash tale and how he and HSS formed the unofficial “I hate Elaine” club.
Don’t forget to check out the other twenty-three posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place.
Have you ever kept dating someone because you didn’t want the pain of heartbreak?
