Post-traumatic Strauss disorder: realizing when to move on


Last Thursday evening, approaching midnight, I was pacing back and forth in my apartment. I was listening to a 1971 recording of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier played by the Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Leonard Bernstein and starring Christa Ludwig and Gwyneth Jones. This recording, a jewel that I found very recently at a secondhand shop in Los Feliz, is one that I soon found myself listening to over and over again. The richness and complexity of Strauss’ late-Romantic orchestrations provided a pleasant distraction from my current predicament; it was also on this night that I decided to break things off with Roland.

“Hey, we need to talk. Can you call me?” I wrote.

Roland is a guy — rather, the guy — whom I have been casually dating since last August; the same guy that doesn’t seem to want any emotional intimacy beyond the casualness of our already informal encounters. And for a while, I didn’t necessarily mind this uninterested demeanor because I was also uncertain of what  I wanted as well. However, after the fourth month of dating, I began to notice his adamant resistance against taking our relationship to the next level. It seemed that for every step I was trying to take forward, he was taking two steps back  from me.

It’s been about six months since Roland and I first started seeing each other, and it wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I realized how much he was holding me back. For one, he has been so emotionally unavailable that I began to wonder how seriously he even took our relationship. He also held me back from allowing myself to explore more intimate relationships with other people. Though there was nothing preventing me from seeing other guys — which I did, from time to time — I still felt the need to stick around with Roland, mostly because I just didn’t want to be alone.

To be frank, the sole reason I didn’t end things with Roland sooner was because subconsciously, I would rather have what I had with Roland than to have nothing at all. I am always the one who advocates for self-love and independence outside of a romantic relationship, and I realized I wasn’t following my own advice. But if there is one thing I know about human nature, it’s that seldom do we practice what we preach. Once my subconscious began to surface, I knew it was time to pull the plug.

After I sent that text, Roland called me almost right away. I’m not sure exactly what he thought we were going to discuss, but he seemed surprised when I told him I thought we should part ways. I explained that it was  clear we’re both looking for something different, and there wasn’t really any point to continue what we had going on if there wasn’t going to be some sort of rewarding future between us. He said he was disappointed but also understood. Things ended civilly with no feelings hurt, and we agreed that there would be no hard feelings between us. Things would be well.

I’m not going to lie — I did take some sort of pride in being the heartbreaker versus the heartbroken, as it was a situation that I was not accustomed to. Usually, I’m the one who is broken up with and left wailing in my room with Wagner’s “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde playing on loop. But following the breakup, I didn’t waste my time wallowing or feeling sad over the situation.

Though I wouldn’t call what Roland and I shared to have been especially rewarding, I wouldn’t call it a waste either; though I definitely prolonged my decision to end things sooner, the situation as a whole allowed me not to resent my own loneliness. This time around, I don’t necessarily feel the overwhelming pain of heartbreak but rather a sense of freedom to dictate the course of my own relationships and not compromise my own happiness to avoid solitude. And if there is one thing I’ve taken away from Der Rosenkavalier,  it is far better to bow out gracefully than to continue unhappily.

Arya Roshanian is a senior majoring in music. He is also a lifestyle editor at the Daily Trojan. His column, “From the Top” runs on Tuesdays.