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A bare stage will suffice; this script is appropriate for an open mic event.

Repetition is intentional; the characters are intended as archetypes.

 

ACT ONE 

His

I cringe now to recall my outrageous hubris, what I said when we first got together. I actually said—repeatedly— to her—to everyone—that it would be a “crime against nature” for us to be ever parted. I actually used those very words.

Those very wince-worthy words. I seriously considered our bond to be on a par with such sacred ties as that between mother and child—never, ever, in the natural order of things, to be torn asunder.

I suppose what I meant was that she and I were, as would be called in more common parlance, “Soul-Mates.” That tired term had always seemed so sappy, so syrupy—which is what lead me to coin my very unfortunate replacement phrase. As if substituting sugar for Aunt Jemima’s finest would yield a more nutritionally substantial sticky bun.

Wrong. If anything, my own creation was more cloying—if for no other reason that it pretentiously purported to be above and beyond the easy-to-brush-off, barely-there-in-the-first-place platitude. “Soul-Mates”: everyone says it, so nobody notices it. As akin to: “How-are-you-Fine-thank-you” when Ask-er couldn’t care less and if Ask-ee has terminal cancer.

Because I had to be Mr. Wise Guy and go conjure a clever phrase, I risked it being thrown back mockingly in my face. Which is indeed what happened after she and I parted ways. “But didn’t you used to say,” my “friends” would inquire, disingenuously, “that for you two to split up would be a Crime-Against-Na—”

I soon grew adept at cutting off the question so as to nip it off after “Crime-A—” and have by now got it down to just “Cri—” But it still sticks in my craw, it really does.

It was barely a year. Just one year since we fell in love, glorious LOVE, fabulous LOVE, and now it’s … over. Just … over.

“Why?” you ask. Beats me. Nothing happened. Or perhaps I should say nothing happened. Maybe that’s it. Maybe when we’re IN LOVE we expect something to happen.

Something magical. To ourselves, to our lives. And when it doesn’t, well …then, when we have to chill up, to cool down, to the cold fact that we’re not in some sense “charmed” or “special”, well ... then maybe, we think … that perhaps she’s not so special either …

Is that what it boils down to? Is that it? I can’t believe that. Really. I cannot believe that. I mean that I literally will not believe that.

I don’t know who put those thoughts in my head. I must have read that claptrap in some pop psych mag or seen it on Dr. Phil or Oprah while I was channel surfing. Because, really, really, I cannot-for-one-second believe that drivel I just wrote, about chasing love simply as some sort of fruitless attempt to escape from Mundane City and fly off to Forever-Magic Kingdom.

So, forget I said that. Just forget it. I’m not Peter Pan for Chrissake. I have my faults, I confess, but I’m a grown man, not some flitter-fly out chasing fantasy females Somewhere-Over-the-Rainbow. We need not swallow a throat-load of pseudo-psychoanalysis just because that’s how those TV shrinks make their millions.

So, OK, you really want to know why it ended? Why? Well, I guess I finally realized, much as I hate to admit it, that I must have made a mistake somewhere, somehow.

I can’t put my finger on it, but—what else can I say?—on some level I must have known that, for some reason, whatever reason, she just wasn’t The One after all.

Yes, that’s it. That’s got to be it. Plain and simple: She just wasn’t The One.


 

ACT TWO


Hers

I cringe now to recall his outrageous hubris, what he said when we first got together. He actually said—repeatedly— to me—to everyone—that it that it would be a “crime against nature” for us to be ever parted. He actually used those very words.

And me? Sad to say, as the song goes: “I(‘d) Second that Emotion.” Past tense now. Now I sing a very different song: “Oh, What a Fool Am I.”

Segue to the infamous: “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” Allow me to indulge in a tautology: Because We’re Fools, That’s Why!

Do I hear any arguments? I didn’t think so! We’ve all been there. And back. And back agaaaain. Why? Why do we women—we pathetic women—fall for it every single time?

It pisses me off. It really does. You’d have thought I’d have learned my lesson after the last timessss, but noooo!

It was barely a year. Just one year since we fell in love, glorious LOVE, fabulous LOVE, and now it’s … over. Just … over.

“Why?” you ask. Wish I could tell you why. Wish I could tell you who, for that matter. As in who broke up with whom. They all asked me—still ask me—and I didn’t—don’t—have an answer. I wasn’t being evasive—I simply had no answer to give.

He just … I just … we just didn’t call each other one day. And the next day…before I knew it a week had gone by … another week … a month … and just … nothing.

The most demoralizing thing is: I wasn’t even thinking about why he wasn’t calling, or should-I-shouldn’t-I call him … truth to tell, all that time I wasn’t even thinking about him at all … about us.

US. There is no “US”. I won’t even say that “WE” “broke up”. Note the separate sets of quotes. As I said, there was no act of breaking up, just a passive drifting away. And there is no “WE” to be spoken of.

Hard to imagine that there ever was “WE.” Was there? Was there really? I certainly thought there was. He certainly thought there was. He had to go run his insipid mouth all over town, as if we were the Love Story to trump all past, present, and future pretenders to the title.

And I went right along with it, I admit it. The very force of his certainty imbued me with a tremendous sense of security. I floated around for a year, in a cozy cocoon, nestled nice and comfy on Cloud Nine to the power of ten.

Thump. Back to planet earth. Wish I could say I feel grounded, at last, but I don’t. Why don’t I—why can’t I, for Chrissake—stand on my own two feet?

I wonder. Could I still be unwittingly subscribing to the whole Cinderella Complex thing? That book came out 30-plus years ago! Could it really be that today’s woman—this woman, me—is still playing Helpless Female Seeking Knight in Shining Armor, such as the author cautions against? And quite poignantly details with excruciatingly relatable examples.

Am I just another pathetic woman, perpetually seeking some sort of superman that doesn’t exist? And thus, doomed to suffer serial disenchantment all the while?

Is that what it boils down to? Is that it? I can’t believe that. Really. I cannot believe that. I mean that I literally will not believe that. I don’t know who put those thoughts in my head.

I mean really, I read that book ages ago. Ages ago. Why am I even thinking about that now? I must have seen or heard some such sop discussed recently, maybe some celebrity in People who’s getting divorced for the fourth-freaking time or something.

Or maybe somebody who was interviewed on some talk show, or NPR. Because, really, really, I cannot-for-one-second believe that drivel I just wrote, about desperately chasing men simply as some sort of fruitless attempt to escape from Dangerville into Forever-Safe Town.

So, forget I said that. Just forget it. I’m not Cinderella for Chrissake. I have my faults, I confess, but I’m a grown woman, not some hapless female passively waiting for Prince Perfect to slipper me to Safely-Ever-After. We need not swallow a throat-load of pseudo-psychoanalysis just because that’s how those TV shrinks make their millions.

So, OK, you really want to know why it ended? Why? Well, I guess I finally realized that, much as I hate to admit it, I must have made a mistake, somewhere, somehow.

I can’t put my finger on it, but—what else can I say?—on some level I must have known that, for some reason, whatever reason, he just wasn’t The One after all.

Yes, that’s it. That’s got to be it. Plain and simple: He just wasn’t The One.

 

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This monologue pair is contrived to convey the trite expressions, expectations, and disappointments of romantic yearning common to both men and women. The apparent blatant plagiarism is neither HIS fault nor HERS; the parroting of phrases between the actors is entirely by my direction.