Conscious Uncoupling

Love in the time of unilateralism

The Shipwreck/ JMW Turner

Dear Friends, Family & European nobility,

It is with deep regret, shallow patience, and a freshly laminated Life Plan that Sam and I are announcing we will not, in fact, be continuing our engagement. Sam recently completed a new doctrine of living, a sort of vision board with footnotes, and it has surfaced certain… incompatibilities¹.

To be clear: I remain cultured, gracious, and still committed to nuance. I still believe a weekend can be redeemed by a museum visit, a string quartet, and a thoughtful debate about whether the label should say late Renaissance or early Baroque. Sam, meanwhile, has moved on from galleries to cages. When I suggested we spend Saturday at a museum, Sam asked if the museum had a weight class. When I said no, he suggested MMA. It’s more honest, he said. Less whispering, more winning.

I tried to mediate. Could we do both? A museum in the afternoon, then a bout in the evening? Sam stared at me the way one stares at an hors d’oeuvre with tweezers. He has developed a preference for McDonald’s Happy Meals over those tyre-some morsels from French haute cuisine², the kind that arrive looking like a philosophy thesis and leave you hungry enough to annex a bread basket.
I took this in stride. I said I could be flexible. I could even do… burgers. But then I asked if the Happy Meal toy could at least be sustainably sourced, Sam’s eye began to twitch with irritation.

You see, the core issue is not food. It is a worldview. Sam has come to believe that the greatest danger to our ongoing relationship is civilizational erasure.
He said it solemnly, like a man reading his vows… and also like a man who has recently discovered capital letters.
I asked him what exactly he meant by that.
Sam launched into a monologue about how I was becoming unrecognizable, how I was over-regulated, under-confident, and generally too fond of committees that produced feelings instead of outcomes. I pointed out that committees are outcomes. Sometimes they even produced binders. Sam said binders were not the point.

Then came the real fracture: Sam has decided that all his intimate relationships should be refocused on his hemisphere, his backyard. He calls it prioritization. He calls it, with an air of modesty, a corollary. I asked if corollary was a pet name. Sam said it was a boundary.

At this stage, I tried charm. I reminded him of our shared history. Trade, art, ideas, the occasional jazz festival. Sam nodded politely and said he still believed in trade, but only the romantic kind where tariffs are a love language and reciprocal trade agreements are foreplay. I suggested that was an unusual interpretation of intimacy. Sam said intimacy was inefficient.

He then revealed he was looking for someone with good genes.
I assumed this was metaphorical, the way people say they want good energy when they mean someone who doesn’t text in riddles. But no. Sam meant it the way certain ads mean it when they wink hard enough.

Genes, Jeans & other preferences

I reminded him that civilizations are not made of DNA and slogans.
Sam now wants the kind of partner who would look at any real estate he fancies and murmur in agreement when he declares: It’s mine, all mine.
I responded with a sentence that began, Well, historically… and ended with a sigh.

And this is where Masha enters.
Masha is new. Masha is calm. Masha does not suggest museums. Masha suggests maps. Masha speaks softly about stability, about spheres, about how peace is best achieved when everyone knows who gets what and no one gets sentimental about it. She says all this while smiling sweetly. It is… disarming.

Sam is enchanted.

Where I see alliances, Masha sees deals. Where I bring a cheese board, Masha brings a chessboard. When I ask, But is it legal? Masha asks, But is it done?
And in the glow of this new attraction, Sam began to describe me as tiring. He said I talked too much about values. He said I was always asking him to share, to consult, to coordinate. He said I treated sovereignty like a communal sourdough starter.

I stood very still, like a portrait in an old palace that has just been insulted by a man in cargo shorts. Then I did something unexpected.
I laughed.
I said, Sam, you don’t want a partner. You want a mirror. Preferably one that salutes.
Sam did not deny it.

So that is where we are. The wedding is off. The string quartet has been paid. The monogrammed napkins will be repurposed for a smaller, more realistic ceremony involving dignity, neutrality, and a modest cheese plate.

Sam is currently preoccupied with a new toy: a rubber stress ball shaped like a globe. He squeezes it rhythmically during difficult conversations and watches the continents bulge between his fingers. Occasionally he whispers, mine, as if practicing for adulthood.

I will be fine. I will curate. I will host a very tasteful exhibition called Uncoupling: A Retrospective, with a special installation featuring the last remaining crumbs of French haute cuisine, framed and labeled: Tiresome, 2026.

With (un-)regulated affection,

Dame Europa

1. The all new US National Security Strategy

2. The Michelin Guide