Sterile Words

I was back on my barstool contemplating my reflection in the mirror behind the bar, when I noticed the guy next to me staring into his beer and sighing deeply.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked boldly.

He turned his head to look at me and said:

“I just ended or we just ended…” Then his voice cracked.

“Ended what?”

“We ended a relationship.”

“A relationship?”

“Yeah. She broke off our relationship.”

“I hate the word relationship,” I said.

My stool mate just stared at me.

“It’s a sterile word used by sociologists. It’s impersonal and so digital era.”

“What should I say then?” He queried.

“How about a broken romance or the end of a love affair.”

He nodded his head.

“What kind of love songs would we have with the word “relationship”, it just doesn’t work.”

What songs are you thinking of?”

“How about, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s a relationship”—see it sounds terrible.”

He looked blankly at me and said:

“Well, okay, we broke off our love affair, and I lost my “significant other.”

“Now, there you go again, using a sterile word to substitute for girlfriend, lover or sweetheart.”

“You’re confusing me,” he said.

“Can you imagine the heart-rendering song:

“Let me call you significant other”. Isn’t that romantic?”

“No, it sounds funny.”

My barstool friend shook his head and left.

I forgot to ask him:

When his Significant Other ended their Relationship, did she at least Osculate him goodbye?

4 thoughts on “Sterile Words

  1. You almost have to be a golden oldie to remember the lyrics to those songs. I think you need to find a way to incorporate these clever vignettes into a novel.

  2. Larry Primak said:
    Dave Wise’s latest blog finds him at words with a fictional bar patron. The bar stool-mate cries in his beer over a recent break up with his girlfriend. The blog is a funny exercise in euphemisms, especially the word, “relationship”.

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