Ex-Relationships

Throughout the day today, my mom was sporadically watching this movie about a couple who met on a blind date. It was clear that the couple in this movie had chemistry during the first date, but what proved even more interesting was their main point of relatability — the fact that they both couldn’t get over their exes. During this one particular part of the movie, the girl, after seeing the guy for a couple weeks, decides to visit him unexpectedly and catches him at the house with his ex-wife. Shirtless.

Crushed, the girl tries to flee the scene in embarassment. The guy, trying to salvage their budding relationship, tells her his ex-wife just came to drop something off. The girl sees through his lie and calls his bluff. He finally admits to it. He then starts to defend himself by asking her if she can really blame him. He says that the love someone has for a long time partner never completely disappears and asks her if he’s supposed to put a halt on those feelings for someone he’s just started to see. This rubbed me the wrong way which led me to writing this blog post. The way that it had me feeling was anger. In fact, it was the type of anger that had me wanting to engorge my fist right through this guy’s fucking eye.

Granted, I am biased when it comes to this issue. I myself was also involved with a girl who…drumroll… had an ex. To be fair, the girl in question IS less scummy than this fuck-wad, but it evoked the same kind of anger and emotional displeasure I imagine the girl in the movie might’ve felt.

First I’ll start by elaborating on my relationship to said girl in my story. Our relationship was one that was never been officiated as really anything. It was just me and her hanging out a lot. “That’s ridiculous and stupid then,” you might say, given that I had such an adverse reaction to her reconnecting with her ex. The thing is, although I never really said anything, I firmly believe this girl did know I had an interest in her and it felt like she may have had an interest in me too.

Because of particular circumstances, formally asking her out at the time would be inconvenient for the both of us and so our relationship was what it was. Now let me tell you about the extent of her relationship to her ex and how that affected me.

As I said before I’m 90% sure this girl knew I liked her, and for that, whenever she was busy on any given weekend she would spare me the specifics of any plans that prevented us from meeting. If it weren’t for me pressing on, I probably wouldn’t have come to find out that those weekends were spent resolving issues with her ex-boyfriend. It was only when I pushed a while into our relationship did she reluctantly tell me where she would go. Where this reluctance came from? I’m not sure.

The reluctance could’ve came from the fear of losing a friend who could act as a stand-in boyfriend, it could have stemmed from the fact that she liked me, or it could’ve been because there was an omnipotent presence following her around everywhere threatening to shorten her life by a day every time she mentioned her ex-boyfriend. My guess is the first option because it’s the most pessimistically probable answer I can think of, and in terms of potential contingencies, I usually like to imagine the worst-case scenario.

After more pushing, I learned my ‘friend’ was staying over certain weekends at his house, and I was not ecstatic to know the truth which I long suspected. After that I kept my distance, although we still somehow talk to this day. Either I’m very bad at letting things go, or she is…a musing for another blog post. Anyway, this whole story has been built up to go through my emotions and why I might’ve felt them, not her emotions. With no due respect, fuck her emotions(or at least that’s the ideology I wish I could adopt).

The question now becomes, why was I frustrated and angry at the situation? Why do I think the girl in the movie had a right to be angry? Why do I think she has a bigger right to be angry than I was (although I’m a fairly angry person in general). I think it’s partly because when you form a dating relationship with someone else, end up liking them, and start assuming that they like you too, you start to feel special. Like “this amazing person I met, also thinks I’m amazing,” or some shit. Now when said person goes back to their ex, a new thought arises: “Shit, I was so unexceptional that they felt they needed to go back to a relationship that was so bad they broke it off? How horrible must I have been to make her reassess her previously discarded options?”

There were also other thoughts that went through my head like “I like her so much that I just want to see her happy even if it means some heartbreak for me,” but that’s some pussy ass shit, so I try and get those thoughts out of my mind. Plus those thoughts are too focused on her own well-being. Fuck her well-being. This post is about ME.

Anyway, as lame as you may think my reasons may be, I felt for the girl in the movie. The guy got her hooked on to his dick early on just so he can say he feels like they’re moving too fast when she starts to reciprocate his affection. That’s a power move if I’ve ever seen one. Through the beginning of the movie, he was the one really trying to make things work which makes it suck even more when he cops out after she reciprocates that sincerity. Like I said, it did hit close to home which is why I thought it necessary to project my thoughts onto this blog post.