1st
Hey “Lost,” I Think I’m Breaking Up With You
Your season by season episode guide and thinly veiled allegory all in one:
Season 1 - Spring:
He was the crazy transfer student who materialized out of nowhere and before you knew it the two of you were playing hooky and taking long walks on the beach. He hit you like a train (or even plane — ahem) wreck, except that it felt kinda good.
And then it got better. In fact, you just danced around the idea of sex and didn’t really notice when it never happened because so much other stuff was going down. There were scavenger hunts in the woods, and rumor had it that he even had a pet polar bear.
You had no idea who he really was or where this whole crazy thing was going, but, well, what did it matter when there was an underlying sense of a transcendent force driving everything? You may not understand all of his mysteries but you sensed that he was leading you somewhere grand.
If you were one of those other girls you may even say that things seemed, well, rather fated.
Season 2 -
Summer envelopes you in its supernatural haze. You are spending every week together now, climbing trees and chasing rabbit holes. He introduces you to philosopher kings and an incestuous crowd where everyone goes way, way back. And they move so fast that you can’t keep track of whose coming and going.
But somehow when you feel that first, mid-August chill you almost admit to yourself that — as fucked up as that beach scene is — the view is starting to feel a little bit mundane.
Season 3 - Fall:
You thought you’d realize you were crazy for doubting but then you see him that first day of school and wonder how you never noticed his mullet and spray-on tan before. The two of you had it so good together though that you’re willing to try absolutely anything to keep it going. You even push it so far as to have sex for the first time in a cage (and on video — with Others watching) but somehow that just makes everything that much worse.
Season 4 - Winter:
It’s that holidaze again so you can’t break up, and besides, things almost look the way they once had. Except that they’re not. You’ve cooled down on the coitus to recapture the magic but this time — even though things are just as bizarre as they were at the beginning — you sense that your boy is a sphinx without a secret.
Season 5 - Spring:
He knows that you’re leaving. That you suspect him now of the worst possible crime that he could fathom — that of being boring and meaningless. So he’s going to tell you Everything. (Almost.)
You are surprised, even pleased, by his revelations. They are better than what you had expected, but they come in a burst of climaxes — one may even say flashes — rather than building up the anticipatory momentum that you had felt that first spring.
You finally realize you can have him if you want him. That this story might be going somewhere.
“But it’s just a little too much, too late,” you explain to a friend who thought you had fallen off the radar forever. “And besides, I think this Wednesday night we should go out to a bar, have a few beers and meet some real guys.”
