The ex factor

For me this is definitely the year of the ex-boyfriend. Ever since the year started — and it’s only been two and a half months — I seem to be running into them boys. First I bumped into this one super-despicable chap, who I do not hate but want nothing to do with as I have, over the years, matured and seen the light. Indeed he is now married and is still pursuing his evil ways, but, thank the lord, his charm (such as it was) wore off years ago.

Then I came across another ex, who I have luckily developed a degree of tolerance for, and the whole time I spoke to him (polite smile on my face) my brain cells kept screaming, “How can you talk to this sexist pig! Remember he had issues with how you wore your hair? You were not allowed to leave it open.” Thank God that relationship ended before I was put into a hijab.  Indeed, I also remember being reprimanded by him for chewing on ice on a rather hot day after playing tennis.  Whereas some men might have found that sexy, my ex wanted to control everything — even my ice cubes! Phew! Thank God I got out of that one.

You could be in a relationship or a marriage, with the ex-relationships done and dusted and consigned to the emotional trash can, but just one run in with an ex and your whole sordid history replays itself like a film.

So is it really over when it’s over? Emotional baggage is like excess luggage that we want to hold on to despite it being well over the weight limit! You can’t shake some exes no matter how hard you try, especially an ex-husband. Because it’s not just him you have to avoid — it’s his family, friends, and social haunts which have to be avoided at all costs. You’re better off moving to a new city or country to avoid all contact. Yes, life must start all over again and anything that vaguely reminds you of the miserable past has to be erased.

God forbid that you should have children with this ex. You see your kids day in and day out, they not only look like him (although you have done all the hard work and raised them single-handedly) but they often act like him too! And it’s always that quirky habit of his that you found endearing/could not stand that they decide to pick up. It may drive you insane, but you just can’t fight genetics.

No matter what your relationship was like, or how horribly it ended, when you do run into your ex, you wish you were 10 pounds lighter or had visited a salon earlier that day just to make him squirm: “Yeah buddy, look what you gave up, huh!” is the message your mind is trying to sear into his frontal lobes. Of course, if his wife or girl friend looks like crapola, your heart dons its leather tights and does a Pussycat Dolls impression: “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me? Don’t ya, don’t ya!”

On the other hand, the wife could also be thinking to herself, “Ha! He married me, not you. Bechari abhi tak single hai.” He too is having a conversation in his mind. The awkward glances your way, the once-familiar body language, all bring back buried memories… much like zombies clawing their way out of a grave. God forbid you’re at a party or gathering where everyone around you watches every reaction and move you make and what you say becomes gossip for a week! Suddenly your car accident on memory lane has attracted a crowd of onlookers.

What about nasty breakups? A girlfriend of mine told me how, after their breakup, her ex-boyfriend sent her a video on email in which Gloria Gaynor was singing the ultimate breakup song “I Will Survive”. The lady is singing the song and walking in a street when a bus comes and crashes into her. Talk about not being able to let go; I guess some people find it extremely hard.

If you’re lucky, some exes end up becoming your friends. And you find, to your surprise, that you are actually better friends than you were lovers. His family, which so disapproved of you, is no longer an issue, and his mother and sisters do not glare at you anymore. Not much, anyway.

The hardest ex to shake off is the one that got away. Yes, that perfect relationship that never materialised into what it should have, leaves you tingling. And meeting him again — excitement, adrenalin and all the potions that revive that old feeling… ’aint nothing like it. You dream it, imagine it, visualise it, regret it. Oh be honest, you know you do!

How do I know? Well, it just happened to me and I tell you neither of us seem to have moved on and so the meeting is devastating! Yes, there is too much unfinished business here. Luckily, I could still be myself and so could he. Had he noticed the 10 pounds I lost? Did he want to be more than just friends?  Alas, you’re suddenly in Rick’s Café in Casablanca and Sam is playing “A Kiss is Just a Kiss”, and Bogart says goodbye to his Bergman. “Here’s looking at you kid.” Yes, the ultimate love story of sacrifice. Bergman could never love her husband the way she loved Bogart, we all know that, so he becomes the ultimate ex-boyfriend.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 13^th, 2011.