Bumping into the past

When you date someone, and it all goes a bit haywire, you kind of hope that they’ll get sucked into a vortex, never to be seen again. Or you just wish them bad dating luck and hope their next girlfriend cheats on them!

So when a former date of mine walked into the same bar as me the other week, with another girl, three days after our date, my reaction was of course ‘What the hell???!’ – well that and a sprinkling of embarrassment mixed in for good measure. It’s not that I liked him, in fact there was no chemistry between us – but bumping into anyone who has sort of rejected you is slightly uncomfortable.

Unfortunately for me my ex works at my gym so bumping into him mid-sweat session, when I’m ultimately looking my worst, has become a bit of a habit. I should have known this would be inevitable when I met him there in the first place. But when love comes a knocking we stupidly think it’s a good idea to date a work colleague, your best friends brother or any other sort of inappropriate dating material. Of course sometimes it works out, but most of the time it’s just a road traffic accident waiting to happen.

When you see an ex you want to be looking your very best. You spend hours coming up with scenarios where you’ll just happen to bump into them. You want it to be when you’re wearing that new figure hugging dress or you’ve just come back from your holiday – all tanned and looking radiant, and of course they’ll wonder why the hell they dumped you in the first place. But very rarely does it happen. The reality is you’ll bump into them when you’re having a bad hair day, you’ve just been caught in a downpour or when you’ve drunk one too many tequilas and just projectile vomited over your mates shoes.

A friend of mine dated, then got dumped, by a guy who worked at one of our favourite bars. For ages she would beg us not to go there as bumping into him was probably as much of a highlight of the night as being asked for ID ever is. When we finally badgered her into it, it would have been nice to be discreet about his obvious appearance, but in my drunken haze of course I mentally scarred her by shouting out his name, attempting to call him over for a chat and generally being the worst ever friend I could be.

I suppose that’s one good thing about long distance relationships, if you want to, you can get away with never having to lay eyes on your ex again. Okay so maybe you don’t actually see them when you’re together, but at least you’ll never have that fear of a quick trip to the shops ending in an embarrassing reconciliation when you, or worse they, have their new love interest in tow.

Of course there are situations where couples still have to see each other after a break-up, whether they like it or not. Owning any of the following together, a house, a child, a pet or mutual friends – pretty much means you’ll have to see their face, albeit one you want to smash in, for the foreseeable future. Cue the awkward, irrational or needy ex who just can’t be professional about such matters – honestly!

I suppose the solution for the above is simple – we merely just have to uproot our lives, move across the world, find new friends and most importantly find a new bloody gym. Then again, you’ll probably still manage to find them on facebook.