How To Survive Class With An Ex

What classifies as an ex? Anyone that you no longer consider an important part of your life. It is someone that you have had history with. Someone who once meant the world to you. It can be an ex-best friend, an ex-boyfriend, an ex-lover, or all of the above.

The first week of school is such a blur that the majority of the time you don't even see all of the people that are in your class. You are so focused on what the professor is saying and contemplating in your head whether or not you actually have to attend this class that you totally do not even notice that an ex of yours is sitting two rows in front of you. It isn't until the second week of school when you are finally beginning to relax in class that the horrific realization hits you square in the face.

At first you just see them from a distance and you pray to yourself that it isn't actually an ex. Then as you stare longer at them you realize that, oh crap, you do actually know this person quite well. Suddenly everything the professor has been saying means absolutely nothing. Every ounce of your attention is on them.

You can't stop staring as you just sit there and watch their every move. You just keep hoping that they haven't noticed you yet. You casually slump down in your seat and try to blend in to the wall behind you as if you're not there. But you know how they say that people can feel you watching them? Well, your ex definitely can.

Of course they immediately spot you and give you that look. The look like I am going to pretend I didn't just see you but of course I just did. Now both of you have blown your cover and you are going to have to sit through the entire class period staring at the back of their head.

Internally you are going to begin to reminisce on all of your history together. If it is an ex-best friend you will think of all the shopping sprees, wine nights, girl talks and random adventures you went on. If it is an ex-lover there is a huge chance you will start daydreaming about the different places you made love and how you wish you could do it again. I mean, who doesn't dream about having sex in a lecture hall? If it is an ex-boyfriend you are going to start thinking about their family, their life and what they are possibly up to. It is going to hit you that you no longer know anything about this person. Maybe that is okay with you and maybe it is not. But no matter what type of ex it is you are going to look at them and think three words.

Suddenly, you are going to question every decision you have ever made. You'll wonder why they aren't sitting in the class next to you, why you no longer keep in touch and why they ever became an ex in the first place. Of course you just had to end up in the same class as them. You were doing just fine until this semester rolled around.

But then, something remarkable will happen. As you are casually wallowing in self pity, you will start to remember all the horrible times you two had together. You will remember the petty cat fights, or the guy who wasn't on the same page as you, or you'll remember your ex boyfriend cheated on you. Sometimes you will just remember that you moved on for bigger and better reasons. Once these memories resurface you won't care that they are in your class anymore. Just like that, you feel strong again and better then ever.

You will start thinking to yourself that you can get through this class. All you have to do is show up, listen to the professor, take notes and ignore their existence. You don't need them anyway. Why waste time on someone who no longer is worth your time? If they're not wasting their breath on you than you shouldn't waste your breath on them.

Deep down you know that you can't look weak. You have to look strong. You don't want your ex to think that you are miserable without them. No. You are fine without them. You are a beautiful, powerful, and smart woman. You don't need anyone that doesn't need you.

Just like that you feel a million times better than you did when you first saw them. They are now just another speck in the three hundred person lecture hall. Any trace of their existence in your mind disappears. On the bright side, this class isn't every day of the week so you don't have to worry about seeing them that often. Now as you look at the clock you realize that you have obsessed over them for the last half hour, but the good news is that that is the last time you will obsess over them again. You spend the rest of class smiling and actually paying attention to your professor. It is almost as if you just dreamed that an entire half hour and none of it ever happened. Suddenly, you don't even remember what you were so worried about in the first place. That is how you know that you are going to survive having class with an ex and that you'll be just fine.