ExposedNYC

What is it in our body chemistry that makes us eternally affected by the actions of anyone we’ve ever been involved with? It seems like no matter how long it’s been, or how little we want them around, some little piece of us needs them to still be pining for us instead of moving on with their lives.

 

It’s the same feeling of cleaning out your closet. Anyone who has ever done a clothing swap knows the feeling of reluctantly tossing an item you haven’t picked up in months into the pile, and then turning green with envy when you see another person looking radiant in it. You know it wouldn’t do the same for you, or it wouldn’t have ended up in the pile in the first place, but now you have to find a piece that does the same, or you feel like maybe it’s you that’s the problem.

 

Jodie brought up this idea when she texted me the other day. She dated Mr. Wrong a few years back, and broke it off over a lack of attraction, his extreme jealousy, and his desire to get serious too quickly. All perfectly valid reasons and I remember us celebrating at the time. But then she sends me this:

 

“Mr. Wrong just called to tell me that he’s getting married and having a kid. I’m so over him, but why am I crying? I feel like I’ve missed the bus that everyone else seems to be riding.”

 

Try as I might to reassure her that this was not a reflection on her (getting married AND having a kid? Is that the position she wanted to be in right now?), nothing you can say can make someone feel less alone.

 

I settled for convincing her that I understood. I told her about getting a wedding invitation from a guy in my past who really helped to define what I need from men today. He was one of the first men to make me truly feel attractive and desired. We lost touch, and he lives in

California, but we maintained infrequent contact for professional reasons.

 

When it came to the RSVP, I flip-flopped more zealously than a Mexican jumping bean. He held a reception in

New York, and I put off responding to the invitation up until the point that he emailed me to ask if I was coming. Nervous about not knowing anyone else, I apologized and asked if my invitation included a guest, secretly hoping that he would say no.

 

He responded that I could absolutely bring someone, and that they would just need a name for the seating chart. I began to picture actually being there, watching this man whose major role in my adolescence was showering me with attention and compliments doing the same thing to someone else. Not to mention, I wasn’t even sure if I could find a date.

 

So, I chickened out and claimed that we were short staffed at work and there was no way I could find someone to cover for me (not a TOTAL lie). Call it jealousy, call it immaturity, or call it plain old human nature. In the case of the men in our past, I have no problem with them moving on, but I really don’t think that we should have to bear witness to it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 2:19 pm and is filed under Life, Dating, Girlfriends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.