Shout Out to my Ex

To this day, my longest relationship has been five years. And there was a time I thought maybe I could come around to the idea of hitching my wagon to his ride. Of course, the very idea that a woman needs to hitch her wagon to anything is absurd. A notion I conveniently remembered after he broke up with me. If I had to say why it didn’t work I’d speculate that he fell out of love with me, because there was a time our union was more passionate than a couple of comely rabbits. Towards the end though, I have suspicions he cheated – and he most definitely dragged it out far longer than he should have. He had a slightly different spin on it, of course. “We were just too young,” he said. Since I dated the other two post-30, I knew this was him. “Were you actually just not that into me?” I asked. “I suppose there was that too... I never saw us getting married.” That’s hard to hear even now. “We had an amazing few years, which I will never forget... and when I think of you I still smile.” Oh, a smile? How quaint. I’d far prefer he thought of me and got a raging unrequited erection, but I don’t suppose I get much of a say in the matter.

This one still sticks under my skin like used chewing gum to the underside of a desk. So much anticipation, so little delivery. We had an ongoing flirtation for years before we even started dating and once we did, my mind would often wander to the ridiculous outfits we’d wear to our wedding. In the end, we only dated for six months but he was definitely the fish that wriggled off his hook; the proverbial one that got away.“Nah, you were cool, I just had a lot going on with work then,” he said. I know, right... it’s an explanation about as original as a Melania Trump convention speech. But here’s the one thing I unequivocally learnt from The Promised Land: if they like you, you’ll know it. If you’re confused, they don’t. Combine that with the mortal awakening you get from a potentially terminal cancer and suddenly you’re cured of your bad-boy fetish. “The sex was great,” he said. “But in the end I didn’t feel the connection. I always had and will have the biggest soft spot for you. But my career just trumped what you, or anyone else, had to offer back then.”

I may have left this little tidbit out earlier, but when I was first diagnosed with the “Big C” I was casually dating someone. And I mean casual in the most modern sense of the word – no labels, no commitments, almost no texts. You know, your average burgeoning 21st-century relationship. When I told him I had cancer, he completely freaked out. Which I understood – it’s a lot to take on, I told him. Then he didn’t stick around long enough to wish me luck for my surgery. I was less understanding after that. “I was still dealing with the fallout from my ex,” he told me. “I thought I was ready for a relationship, but I guess I wasn’t. You wanted something I couldn’t give you.” If by “something” he means a guy who doesn’t immediately walk away from a girl who just got cancer, then I suppose I did. And perhaps it doesn’t take a PhD in Dickology to realise the fear I’d become damaged goods stemmed largely from this incident. It wasn’t his fault exactly, but the confluence of events surrounding our parting was salt in the fresh mastectomy wound.