Day 11: pushmi–pullyu – The Breakup

The brother: So what do you do when you breakup with her… follow her with afsaneh.golshifteh?

J *gives his brother a meaningful shut-the-f-up look* which I picked up on my peripheral vision.

Me: What afsana… what’s the second word? Gold-something? What does it even mean?

J: Nothing. Just a friend of ours. *kisses me a few minutes*

Child. You can kiss me all you want but this neurodivergent brain remembers unnecessary weird information way easier than important information.

To all men who never got the memo on how ADHD on women work – we can hold 2 Masters degree (in two completely unrelated subjects on first sight but only we can bridge it), look calm and sexy but have mental hyperactivity, anxiety, overwhelm, difficulty regulating attention and emotion, deep empathy, deep sensitivity, can also be very successful entrepreneurs (which we barely have any idea how we do it), creative, intuitive, and a crazy good memory of all things deemed unnecessary. Mix it up with dyslexia in my case – and you have a person who might mix up “b & d” “lose & loose” but if I hear something once (particularly while hyper focusing) it remains fixed in my brain.

Why am I pointing this out? Like the man-child he is… @afsaneh.golshifteh started to diligently stalk me right after my breakup on all my Instagram-stories.

Have you heard the story of “pushmi–pullyu” (Push-Me-Pull-You)? It’s a two-headed cryptid, “rarest animal of all”, descendant of Abyssinian gazelles, Asiatic chamois, and the last of the unicorns. Hugh Lofting wrote in The Story of Doctor Dolittle in 1920:

“They had no tail, but a head at each end, and sharp horns on each head. They were very shy and terribly hard to catch. (…) men get most of their animals by sneaking up behind them while they are not looking. But you could not do this with the pushmi–pullyu — because no matter which way you came towards him, he was always facing you.”

However, there’s another thing about pushmi–pullyu, they are indecisive. They don’t know which way to go. One head pulls them one way while the other the other way. My ex-BF is a pushmi–pullyu.

As a matter of fact, come to think of it, I have only been with a bunch of pushmi–pullyus’! All my ex-s are pushmi–pullyus. I think I have a thing for descendants of Abyssinian gazelles, Asiatic chamois, and the last of the unicorns.

Cause it’s either that or indecisive!

**All I can think of today, after juggling exams, heartbreak, work, and rage – I am looking forward to shooting some targets at the 300m shooting range. Being a Swiss is also the attitude we have towards guns. Safe environment and being under supervision while shooting targets is the best possible meditative release to piled up emotions. Again, nothing like the horrors of USA and American gun culture.**