The Ex

I saw her again recently, a couple weeks before Christmas.

She was briefly visiting my city for a couple days, so we met for brunch to catch up. She’s doing well. She’s started dating a new guy. Good for her.

She was my first girlfriend. We dated for roughly five years, but ultimately we just couldn’t make it work. Much of that was due to the fact that during most of the time we were together, we lived in different cities due to our jobs. But we saw each other as much as we could.

We technically broke up a couple years ago, but we’ve still periodically stayed in touch. Hell, we’ve still even fucked a few times since breaking up.

I changed jobs a few months ago, one that had me relocate to the city in which she lived. For a brief period of time, I thought maybe the universe was giving us a second chance at love. I didn’t move for her, but I can’t deny that the move did fill me with hope at reconciling our relationship.

Ironically, she herself got a better job in a different city, moving away just as I moved in. The universe fills me with such hope, only to immediately snatch it all away. Sometimes I wonder that maybe there is a god, and he’s just trolling me at this point.

Fuck ten girls to get over her and then see if you still want her. That’s the common advice I found in the masculinity sphere of the Internet on dealing with a painful breakup. So I did that – and then some. Guess what? I still want her.

Many men develop one-itis for a particular girl because they don’t believe they’re capable of getting another one. But that’s not the case with me. I haven’t involuntarily been without female attention for long since breaking up with my ex.

Since our breakup, I’ve banged girls with bigger tits and girls with smaller tits. Skinnier girls and chubbier girls. Smarter girls and dumber girls. Richer girls and poorer girls. What that’s all taught me – none of those girls were her.

Hell, I’ve technically even had another girlfriend for almost the entire time since our breakup. Which begs the question: if you cheat on your current girlfriend with your ex-girlfriend whom you’re still in love with, which girl is the side chick? But I digress.

Our relationship wasn’t perfect. We had plenty of arguments that devolved into screaming matches. (Well, her screaming at me while I calmly and logically stated my points.) Hell, my car still has a few big scratches on it from where she keyed it after one particularly nasty argument. There actually isn’t any good, logical reason I should still want to be with her. And yet…

Back when we were dating, I used to tell her that she was like a drug to me. I should have thought through exactly what that meant.

I’ve never done heroin, but if heroin makes someone feel anything like the way I feel when I’m with her – then I completely understand why people do heroin. From what I’ve read, heroin is addictive because it makes a person feel so good that everything else afterward is just second-rate.

And that’s exactly how I feel about my ex. I can’t completely articulate why – but no other girl makes me feel the way I do when I’m with her. No other girl makes me laugh like she does. No other girl’s body feels quite right to hold and kiss. Every time some stupid love song comes on the radio, she’s the only girl I think about. Every other girl I date is just me chasing that feeling of being with my ex, trying to replicate it in some fashion. But it never quite works.

Game advice online revolves 99.9% around how to pick up and sleep with attractive women. But there’s nothing out there on what to do when you find that one particular girl that floods your brain with so much dopamine that your reaction to any other girl is just meh.

But I suppose there really isn’t anything you actually can do. I have to accept that that scar will always be there. I’ll keep chasing the dragon. There are plenty of other girls out there, and any one of them would be lucky to have me grace their lives with my presence. So I know I’ll be just fine.

I just have to learn to live with never again feeling more than just fine.