He Moved On, You Didn’t, He Sucks

 

I’ve heard that the city in which I live, Chicago, has the most gay people per capita than any other city in America. Then why, I often wonder, despite my living in this vast gay wonderland, do I seemingly run into the same douche bag ex-boyfriend everywhere that I go?

I have never experienced a “good” break up. I have friends who are on speaking terms with their ex’s, and I observe these situations with the same curiosity I’d exhibit were I to stumble upon two aliens having sex. What the hell is going on? How do you do that? Generally, a break up is caused by someone wanting to rid their everyday lives of someone else. Break ups are rarely mutual decisions. What I have never understood is the level of maturity required to forgive someone who has decided that they would rather risk dying alone than contend with you on a daily basis.

I hope for a world that when a person wrongs you, they cease to exist. I don’t want to see their names pop up in my phone. I don’t want to read their Facebook updates. I don’t want to see them walking down the street. I want them to vanish into thin air, destroying all evidence of their having ever existed. This clearly has not happened to my aforementioned ex. I ran into him the day after Valentine’s Day and, in an experience that I can only assume was as comfortable as water boarding, listened to him talk about him and his new boyfriend’s romantic evening together. What did I do for Valentine’s Day? I got blind drunk at a lesbian bar.

Chicago may be big, but it clearly isn’t big enough.

Scientists in Amsterdam have begun experimenting with a common blood pressure medication that has exhibited signs of helping individuals forget trauma and fear, similar to the storyline in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Put me in a cage, feed me cheese, and call me a lab rat. I want in on this research.

Joy washes over me at the thought of living in a world where I have no recollections of this ex or how he ripped out my heart and self-esteem and fed them both to wild dogs. Gone would be the nights when, despite looking and feeling great, I suddenly find myself trying to escape through a bathroom window because he and his new boyfriend were spotted coming into the bar. I could face the world free from this constant fear of seeing him and going from confident and funny to beaten and broken in the blink of an eye.

“Better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” I disagree with that. If I want to learn from my mistakes and grow as a person, I don’t need to be dumped. I can simply revisit some of my fashion choices from the mid 90s. When you’re able to look back on a relationship and realize that you didn’t do anything wrong except openly and honestly love someone, then there’s really not much else to be learned from the experience besides the fact that life is cruel, random, and out to destroy you. That’s not really the type of life lesson I care to learn.

So Chicago’s gay population either needs to get even bigger or I need to jet off to Amsterdam and get in on that study. I’m getting just about as sick of looking at this ex everywhere that I go as, well, he got sick of looking at me.