mX Column: I Can't Believe I Went Out With You

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mX Column: I Can’t Believe I Went Out With You

By Emma ⋅ September 15, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment

Just the other day, I just had one of the greatest moments of clarity available to a person who has had their heart broken.

Thank heavens for the internet. It allows us to virtually and remotely drop in on our exes and see what they’re up to.

From the safety of your computer screen, they can’t see your tears if you get a bit worked up. You don’t have to put on a brave smile when you meet the new love in their life. And yet, you can still satisfy your curiosity about where they are and what they’re doing.

Usually, having that kind of access to information is a bad thing. Especially if you’re mid-break up or still getting over them.

“Checking up on an ex is destructive,” says tweet-friend J “It never makes you feel good in the long run.”

Except when it does.

If, say, the entire Atlantic Ocean has passed under your romantic bridge, it can be lovely to drop past your ex’s online identity to see what’s going on in their lives.

Perhaps they’re engaged, married, or they have a baby. Or they’re discovering themselves in Europe somewhere.

Even better, maybe they’ve gained a couple of kilos, lost some hair. All these things help with closure (Who am I kidding, the worse off they are the better we feel for it. There’s even a drinking game based on Googling your exes.).

And then there’s that golden, shining moment like the one I had last week when I stumbled across my ex in a YouTube video.

This is the one (everyone has one) who devastated me.

Left me pathetic and whiny (Think Bella in New Moon after Edward left. Yeah… I wish I was joking.) after ripping out my heart and running a herd of elephants over it.

I saw the video thumbnail and hesitated for a minute. Was I really ready to see him?

We broke up a long, long time ago and I’ve moved on in every sense of the word.

But every now and then my heart-strings still twinge at the memory of the ego-bruising he readily and consistently managed to deliver throughout our long, drawn-out break up.

When you remember The One Who Broke Your Heart, it’s easy to cast a rosy glow over it.

Sure, your friends may have hated them, they may have done awful things with your feelings, cheated, lied… But still, you can’t help but remember the better times. And sometimes, let’s be honest, you wonder ‘what if?’ (What if, for example, they didn’t turn out to be a cheating lying, bastard?).

To my absolute glee, about 30 seconds into the video I realised I wasn’t suddenly pining to see him again. In fact the first burning thought that popped into my head was – What. A. Wanker.

In the immortal words of Ralph Wiggum, who I heard clear as a bell in my head right that second: “I can’t believe I went out with you.”

A revelation. And if that’s not true closure, I don’t know what is.