Let’s talk about EX, baby!

I’ve written so much about my exes…mournful ramblings, sorrowful poetry and nasty comments in between posts. Now here’s a post dedicated to the people who were once close to me. After all, I keep making snide references to them as an undesirable species but well…some of them were human….almost.

There is family that you are born to and can’t do a damn thing about. There are friends you choose of your own will and discard or grow away from. And there are those your heart beats for (or more likely your hormones delude you with) and whom you rip your life away from. Ah….the world of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends.

I think friendships apart, a person who has shared something with you romantically/sexually, has known you in a way that others just haven’t. Everyone who has ever been through a break-up knows just what a mix-up of emotions it leaves behind. But of course. How can you suddenly become indifferent to someone you have been really close to? It is hardest to forgive people you have loved; it is also toughest to forget them.

My first-ever boyfriend is friends with me today. We meet for a coffee every few months, catch up on each others’ lives and laugh over silly things. Today I can say that he is a great guy. Well, I’m a great girl too. Its just that we’re great as friends and not anything else. And it has taken us five years to get to this point. But I’m so glad we did. It is a long way to stop feeling bad and then another ardous journey to get to where you can actually feel good about the other person.

Then there’s the boyfriend from hell who is now thankfully the ‘ex-boyfriend-and-hope-he’s-in-hell’. I’d lie if I said that I don’t think of him. I have several fantasies about him, none of which involve him being happy. *smirk smirk* Well, I never thought of myself as vindictive or vicious. Ah, I have so much to learn….and experience is a bloody good teacher.

And not all exes need have been officially designated ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’. In these years there are several people who have swung alarmingly close and then for various reasons just faded out of sight. It isn’t necessary to sleep with a person or have a long-term relationship, for them to impact your life in a way that is different from the way your friends do.

The other day one of my friends told me that one of the guys I had dated had got married. I wasn’t sure how to react for a minute. I wasn’t jealous…not even the faintest bit. What I was, was mighty curious…about what sort of a hare-brained girl would want to do more than just idle with this guy, let alone actually marry him. With some people you just can’t help being absolutely vile and this guy was one of them. I rationalize my own cold-heartedness saying that he was a creep anyway. Still, I think he cared for me more than I ever cared for him and so with some lingering guilt I hope he has a happy life (just so long as it doesn’t cross mine!) Indifference is a novel experience for me…one that I could use some more of.

Then there was this funny situation in my last relationship. His friends liked me and I got along like a house on fire with them. I don’t even know what all of us were doing with a character like this guy….for all purposes he was just the common link between people who bonded at a certain level that didn’t include him. Of course he hated it but that’s a different story. I suspect that half the time I enjoyed hanging out with him because his crowd was so much fun…it felt more like my crowd than his. He tried quite a bit to fit in with them (us?) but somehow he stood out while I blended right in. I think what I was doing then was akin to a guy who likes women who challenge him but somehow still prefers a partner who is less in some way. Possibly the only difference between me and a male chauvinist is that I’m female.

I mostly like meeting someone who I’ve been close to this way, once upon a time. There is a savage delight in seeing that you’ve done better than the other and that he’s thinking of words like ‘comeback’. But I jest of course….there is more to it than that.

There are the jarring experiences, the ones where if you never saw the person again, it wouldn’t be a day too soon for you. But mostly, I guess people are just people. Time is a healer and once the initial fireworks subside and you are able to look at the bigger picture of life, it is even a good thing to catch up with a person who has known you so intimately and then hasn’t been around for awhile. It gives you perspective. I was 24 before I realized that my unpredictable mood swings are not so much my vulnerability as they are a reason for people to be a little scared of me. I’ve had good friends all my life and I always thought they didn’t understand me completely. People in my life who care enough are possibly reluctant to ‘rock the boat’ with the unvarnished truth. Only someone who had lost me for good but still had some sentimentality left could point this out to me. And that someone indeed was an ex-boyfriend.

There is closure too. Sometimes you don’t even realize how much baggage you are carrying until you meet the person who gave you all that garbage to tote around in the first place. Then you realize that you may as well put both him and your memories back where they belong….in the past. Occasionally, very occasionally you might realize that there are more ways than one that a person can be a part of you life. That is rare. But you never know. You just might get lucky. In a different way from when you were dating.

I have come a good, long way. For all my tomboyishness I had a naive fairytale dream of meeting my one and only true love and settling down with him in the suburbs and having 2.5 kids. Well there have been more than one, hardly any of them true and none I suspect, were love. I don’t think it is a bad thing anymore, no matter how it sounds. Each one of them has been an experience, a learning about myself and about life. How many would-be feminists realize that they’re almost worse than the men they battle? How often does a strong person realize how weak he is? Or a weak person, how strong she is?

My heart is a scrap-book of mixed memories.