Meeting an Ex

My friend told me she was sending me a picture of her ex with his cow. My sleep addled brain processed that literally - that Mr M was milking his cow and wiping his sweaty brow with a towel. I didn’t know he owned a dairy! 

When she sent me the picture, it was of a shirtless man with a towel wrapped around his ample waistline, and his weighty wife. And his ‘cow’ had her arm around him possessively. When my friend had accidentally bumped into them at the Club, Mrs M glared at her as if she were a Menaka incarnate, come to lure away her Vishwamitra!

It cheered up my friend no end.It reinforced her belief that no matter what her problems in life, atleast she is not Mrs M.  (Thank god! Coz my friend is married to a great, good looking guy and in her 40s, she looks like a million bucks! And frankly Mr M was never good looking to start with (or a great person), and he is so sad-looking now).

I get her feelings totally.

If I had to see my ex again, and see a paunchy, balding man , my heart would break. And if his wife looked insecure, it would make me gag. I mean, if we did not end up together then, when we were young and beautiful, why in God’s name would  I want that oaf in my life now? And if he looked as good as he did in the past, well, I knew that guy already, and knew why he was absolutely the wrong guy for me. Leopards don’t change their spots! I would still not want him and neither would I envy his wife.

Suddenly I felt tremendously relieved that I have no clue where my ex might be. I don’t know where he lives, what he does for a living, what he looks like, who he is married to, how many kids he has, how his house looks like and how his life turned out to be. 

I would keep it that way. I don’t want to meet him and get the feeling,‘This?  This is what I loved/liked in my past? What a loser I am!’ (Ofcourse, my dear husband will say that the guy will take one look at me and think the exact same thing!)

It is so much better to retain bittersweet memories of people you may have shared a past with. A bitter fall-out or not, over the years you mellow down, let go of the anger and think of it as a rite of passage into adulthood. It is nicer to remember them young as you knew them, and were briefly part of each other's journeys. It is nicer to create a story in your mind about what-ifs and how-nots, instead of facing their sad truth in the present.

There is a reason that some people from your past did not make it to your present . Leave the intrigue and the drama right there - in the past!