Seeing an ex in public. We've all been there.
- You begin your day with no thought of your ex in mind.
It's an idle Wednesday morning. You wake up at 10 a.m., go grab coffee, and binge watch "Orange is the New Black" until 7 p.m. This is the perfect day. What are my responsibilities? I don't even know. Is Qdoba open at this time? Do I even have food in my house? Eh, I'll wait till tomorrow to care.
- It's time to get your life together. You prepare for your night out like you always do, drink a shower beer, pregame in 15 minutes, and are en route to going out.
You're looking pretty damn good. Your intuition is telling you that you should've worn your leather leggings rather than your skinny jeans, but you predict it's gonna be a solid night. You could've pregamed more, but you know it's Wild Wednesday at The Horse, so it's whatever.
- Drink in hand, you're having a good time. The air is energetic and you're excited to see what the rest of the night holds. You're looking around, enjoying your time, when suddenly, someone catches your eye.
The room starts to turn into a tunnel, and your focus is on this one person. It's your ex. You try not to look, but you can't help it. You position yourself so you're not directly making eye contact, but you have them in your line of vision. You need to look like you don't notice them, but from an angle that makes your butt look good. He is looking good and you can't quite keep your attention on anything else. You develop full paranoia.
- Soon, a brief wave of confidence flows over you.
I got this. I totally got this. I'm happy I decided on the backless shirt. And curling my hair? How much smarter can I get? He keeps looking over here, but I refuse to say hi first. He's going to give in before I do. Because I'm awesome.
- As you peep over at him every couple minutes, you two finally lock eyes, but you look away as fast as you can. You faintly see a silhouette in your peripherals walking towards you.
You don't want to look too soon and have that awkward 'hi' from 20 feet away, but you want to be prepared. It sinks in that this is going to be an awkward conversation that you really don't want to be having 4 shots in... or maybe it's better at four shots in... you can't really decide and it's too late.
- The conversation begins, and you are as self-conscious as ever.
Your body is subtly shaking and your heart beat is racing. You know you should've worn the leather leggings and probably should be chewing on some gum. You know your eye shadow is making that weird clumpy mess in your crease, but you're hoping it goes unnoticed. Sweating profusely is a real possibility at this point, and the music is so loud that you keep having to talk into each other's ears followed by "what?" every other sentence.
- But after a few minutes, it's not going too bad. You both are laughing, catching up on lost time, and enjoying each others' company. You think there may be a chance for you two to reconcile, maybe even *GASP* start dating again.
You begin to imagine you both running out into the night, dating and being merry. You envision telling people how you two got back together, and already start planning one-year anniversary gifts.
- While discussing life, you want to make sure he knows you're available. You say "I'm not seeing anyone right now, I'm kinda just doing my own thing and having fun," trying to play if off like you don't care about the his response.
- But, dreadfully, he's been seeing someone.
- You're temporarily upset, but your semi-developed pre-frontal cortex kicks in, and you begin to understand that the conversation is better this way.
(Because we forget that exes are the ex for a reason, we need this to hear this, no matter how dreadful).
- You actually can't believe you were thinking about trying to to date him two seconds ago, LOL.
- You parts ways, reuniting with your friends, who will be there for you beyond exes. Half-hour later, a cute guy approaches you, and you two begin to talk. You know everything is gonna be OK.
