Inherent or Inevitable?

I walked into the room, girlfriend on my arm, smiling…she was cute and I was debonair; it was a beautiful day.  We arrived at the celebration with everyone in a festive mood, laughing, dancing, and enjoying some good food.  I looked forward to a good night, and all the elements were there right?

The host, a close family friend, pulled me aside, me hesitating to leave my lovely lady lonely, eventually walked away and asked, “What’s up?”  He asks, “Is that your new girl?”  I smiled while looking in her direction and said, “Yes.”  He responded with, “Oh…”

“Oh”?!?

Have you ever walked into a store with purpose determined to buy something without hesitating expecting the sliding doors to open when you’re less than two feet away and then come to an abrupt halt as the doors fail to slide open in time for you to walk through?  Neither have I (or at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!).  But as you can imagine, all that momentum you had was turned on you and you’re damn well stopped in your tracks dazed and confused wondering what the hell just happened!

That feeling right there is exactly what I felt.  Let me learn you right quick: There is no quicker way to f--- up a fella’s feelings for a female than his friend(s) saying some f---ery like that!

Then the fool (yes, he went from family friend to fool friggin’ fast!) walks away to have fun at his celebration.  When I tell you that pissed me off, I mean it PISSED me off to high hell!  And because he had to host his little shindig, he couldn’t talk.  Please believe the lady and I left a short time after (within 40 minutes) with her confused beyond belief since moments before we were all smiles.

The anger festered for a few days until the fool decided to return my call.  He wanted to chit chat like everything was all copasetic, asking how my day was, how work was, etc.  

There are a few things that annoy me more than this but this ranks right up there in the Top Ten of things to piss me off to high hell; wanting to exchange pleasantries for a few minutes when there’s an obvious issue that needs to be addressed.  My response to him sums up my feelings around that situation and similar situations: “This ain’t sex, f--- foreplay! Let’s get to the issue at hand; what the f--- did you mean by ‘Oh…’ man?”

Essentially, he summed it up like this: If you break up with a girl and start dating a new girl, you need to step up, not down.

That’s nowhere near as poignant a phrase as I thought it was years ago but damnit, those could have been the words of a pastor preaching from the pulpit or a philosophical phrase by Plato himself; it was that deep to me!

In reality, it wasn’t deep at all.  Superficial is the better term because for all intents and purposes, the new girlfriend was in fact a step up…except…aesthetically.  Aesthetics, however, were all that mattered during that point in my life.

Shortly after that conversation, I found a picture the ex and I had taken a year or so earlier.  I compared it to a picture of the next, or rather new, girlfriend and I held them side by side; the relationship was destined for disaster from that day forward. 

More than just a focus on aesthetics (for all those thinking I’m shallow and somewhat stupid) the underlying issue was one of being stuck on the irrelevant allowing that to influence the present.

<<fast forward>> a few years…

In every intimate interaction since that “Oh…” moment, I always find myself dwelling on the good aspects of a relationship gone awry which only serves as a distracter.  The thoughts range from how the ex cooked my favourite meal just the way I liked it, how she delivered dinner after a long day at work, how we spent the 4^th of July, how her summer dress fell ever so delicately over her curves, or how she responded to my touch in just the right way…all of these thoughts while making every effort to establish a new relationship…and all while fully coming to the realization the last relationship ended, as it needed to.

Whether an inherent character flaw to live in the past or an inevitable inability to not compare the ex to the next, take my advice and do as I say rather than I’ve done; do not be the one to clutch onto the past so tightly, you are unable to embrace the present. ^‡

Cheers!

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^‡paraphrased based on the following quotation: “You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.” – Jan Gildewell