What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories

What Was I Thinking? is a collection of personal essays written by women describing that moment in a relationship when, no matter how much you think it should work or want it to work or need it to work, it becomes clear to you that it’s not going to work. It can be anything—a word used incorrectly, an insensitive comment, a glimpse of bad personal hygiene or moral weakness or breathtaking selfishness, or just an ugly sweater. In any case, the genie of disillusionment bursts out of the bottle, and there’s no putting it back in. Which is to say, this is not necessarily the moment of the actual breakup. Rather, these stories describe the instant when logic, common sense, and simple self-respect triumph over the human need to be loved—or, at least, the need to be in a relationship. The relationship may not last beyond lunch, or it may linger for weeks or even longer. But inside, you know: He’s going to be an ex. Using the Internet as our global watercooler, we put the word out through Craigslist, Facebook, and MySpace. We contacted writing programs and talked it up at cocktail parties. We found that our community was the size of the world—and that everyone had a story. And then another interesting thing happened. The stories that started coming in were not aren’t-guys-stupid? stories or are-men-necessary? stories that might conclude, however wistfully, with “No, they’re not.” Rather, they were stories about women looking back at themselves—poignantly, humorously, maybe sometimes in disbelief—to see how and why they got involved with the guy in the awful sweater in the first place.