Tuesday, January 3, 2000

PEOPLE
By Bob Garon
‘Forgetting takes time’

Have you ever met a teenage girl who was madly in love with a guy who suddenly
dropped her like a hot potato? She keeps crying and asking you: “How can I forget him?” And
since you don’t really know what to say, you keep silent. But she keeps coming back with the
same question about “forgetting him.”

Don’t worry, ladies, men are like that too. When a guy is deeply in love with a girl (or
even just feels he is) and she suddenly walks away from him, then you will have a very troubled
young man on your hands who is just as likely going to keep asking the same nagging questions
about “how to forget her.”

If you dig deep enough you will find that the real reason why people in similar
circumstances cannot forget is the obvious fact that they don’t want to forget. Oh, they say they
do till they are blue in the face, but, deep down inside they know they are lying to themselves
and to others.

You can understand why the teener is lying. She doesn’t want to forget because she still
loves the guy who walked away and left her standing there all alone. And because she still loves
him she of course still desires him. But it’s pretty hard to say it openly since the guy has just
indicated that he no longer cares for her, or if he does he cares for someone else a lot more. The
girl would look a little silly to say the least if she kept insisting. And what about her pride?

She doesn’t want to forget because she doesn’t want to believe that it’s all over. And she
doesn’t want to believe that it’s all over because it’s too emotionally painful to do so.
Consequently it’s a common tactic to continue to hope that perhaps things are not so. “Maybe he
still loves me and something will happen and he will come back to me,” the girl thinks to herself.

As long as she there is hope, she doesn’t want to forget. What if it isn’t true? What if he
comes back? What if he still loves me?

Whenever anybody asks me how to “forget,” I always come right back with another
question: “Do you still love him?” If the answer is “yes” as it usually is, then I always say: “You
can’t forget.”

How can you forget someone you love? If you love truly and deeply, you just can’t. It’s
impossible. We say that it takes time to forget because it takes time to fall out of love. It just
doesn’t happen overnight. When you no longer love a person, it’s easy to forget. No problem at
all. He just slips back out of sight behind your mind and heart because he means little or nothing
to you.

But as long as there is still love, you can forget all about forgetting. All you can do is
suffer until your love dies.