The year that we were broken up was the year he attended at least one of my DJ gigs per week. He said it was only because his new girlfriend dragged him, that he didn’t really like having to deal with the drama of seeing me all the time. I didn’t believe him.

Secretly, I wanted him inside that Hollywood Boulevard club as much as I knew he wanted to be there. The official story was that I had something to prove, that I wanted him to know I was kicking serious ass behind the turntables and that I had dated more guys post-breakup than I did during the first twenty-one years of my life. Official stories are rarely true.

I wanted him to show up without her. She was a slobbering lush in mod clothing living under the delusion that she was the reincarnation of Mrs. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Along the way she sort of forgot that our former first lady had enough class to avoid things like getting kicked out of the club and then arguing with security because her “best friend” was the DJ.

With post-breakup vengeance schemes on my mind and several crates of records at my disposal, I created Liz’s Triple Threat, a three-song set that I would play whenever I saw them enter the club. It started with New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle,” second only to “Blue Monday” in terms of post-Joy Division floor-packers. The title of the song alone said everything. We were three points of a geometrical figure connected by a string of events that could, at best, only be described as bizarre. Next was “Always on My Mind” as covered by Pet Shop Boys, played to remind him that I was in the booth, hovering above like a spectral reminder of a relationship that neither of us could shake. The set concluded with Kon Kan’s sample-heavy “I Beg Your Pardon (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden),” all sappy lyrics and beats that pulsated through the floor like a telltale heart.

I played this set no less than once a week for a full year. I thought that maybe, somewhere along the line, someone (and by someone, I mean him) would notice the repetition and ask me about it. However, given that I received no fewer than ten requests for Blur’s hit “Girls and Boys” every week, most of which came after I already played the song, it’s safe to say that no one (and by no one, I also mean him) noticed.

Eventually we got back together and, six years later, remain a couple. Meanwhile, she disappeared, hopefully falling prey to a quicksand-like pit of mothball-scented secondhand clothes. After the reunion, it no longer seemed necessary to play the set. I still would drop those three songs, but never in that order.

A few months ago, I played an 80s-heavy gig and decided to work in Liz’s Triple Threat, and I told him the meaning behind its inclusion in the playlist. He laughed and said he had never even realized that I had played that set week after week during the breakup. My sublime mix of cunning and immaturity had gone completely over his head. Liz’s Triple Threat is now permanently retired.