exes

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So, my ex has been texting me. The ex who helped me with the badger. The ex who was the first person to really, really tie me up.

And I know him well enough to know by the tone of his texts that he may be looking for uh, you know, something. They’re not sketchy or sexual, but they don’t need to be with him.

And my inner moron is somehow convinced that might work. Because my friend texted me the other day to say she ran into him and he looked “damn good”. And I know he’s single, blah blah.

The immature, needy, hedonistic part of me is thinking there’s nobody else in this one-pony town, he knows what I’m into and what I like, and guys I’m just plain horny, okay? Really. I’m just horny.

But, then the grown up, mature, logical me is thinking:

Seriously. Before I do something stupid.

And, now, something completely different.

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Driving in my hometown today, I noticed a badger coming off of the sidewalk. I had literally no time to get myself out of the way of this thing. 

Long story short: I swerved to avoid hitting a badger and still wound up hitting a badger.

Long story long: It was in front of my ex’s house. I haven’t mentioned him on my tumblr much specifically, but he’s the first person to have tied me up. There’s still a lot of hurt there. We really don’t talk, but we’re at a place where there’s no animosity. 

Long story longer: I sort of had a little bit of a panic attack over hitting this badger. I literally felt this thing under the wheel. I didn’t look back, but I am fairly sure I killed the badger. And, at that moment, I was fairly sure it was stuck in the wheel like those crazy hit-and-run victim cases you hear about.

And so I took my phone out and called him in a panic. He seemed kind of surprised to hear from me when I answered the phone and proceeded to start spewing nonsense about badgers and wheels and the tiny life that had perished under my car.

You have to understand, tumblr, I did animal rights advocacy for years. I swerved my car to try to avoid killing a badger. And now I was having a panic attack about it.

And so he came right outside and tried not to laugh too hard when I told him what was going on. He checked under my car for any badger remains, he made sure I was okay, he asked me how I was otherwise. It’s funny how he calmed me down, there were those vague remnants of how he used to act when he was dominating me. I’m not saying he was trying to dom me or get me back, just that the dynamic worked because, yeah, it worked. Tried and true.

“I have to admit,” he said, “when you called, I figured I was in trouble for something.” That had basically summed us up pretty well. I was the whistleblower, he was the troublemaker. 

I’m not sure why I’m posting about this. I guess I should say something cheesy about not forgetting the first person to dominate you, blah blah. But I guess also to say that there is so much of other people that you carry with you that you’ll always have some compassion for them.

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One of my exes likes to inform me of how well his current relationship is going. Which is, okay, great for him. Congratulations. That’s wonderful. 

We’re good enough friends that I guess it’s okay for him to tell me stuff. I care about him and I love him very dearly on another level than what was sort of previously appropriate. So, fine, he’s entitled.

But I’m really never totally sure how to respond. What the heck is the appropriate thing to say to someone in this sort of situation?

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I got together with an ex the other night as friends. At first, the entire get-together seemed just fine. We shared some laughs, we caught each other up, we really just enjoyed each other’s company on a purely platonic level. We got high and I was seriously feeling great until I realized that there seemed to be an expectation for something physical lingering in the air. And it was terribly uncomfortable.

In the past, I’ve created a lot of problems for myself in blurring the lines between friend and something else. I had made a pact with myself to really exercise more caution when getting to that level with friends and to, unless the case was very promising, keep things platonic. 

Not to mention this person is my ex. I was really, really hurt on repeated occasions and I really fought to try to keep interaction peaceful and platonic, both of which were made nearly impossible for me by the other party. This situation is just one of many. And then it’s almost always turned back to me and made to feel like my fault.

This time, I rejected the advances and I was almost automatically shut out. Not physically, but certainly on every other level. Things got terribly uncomfortable. I kept asking if I should leave and got defensive responses each time. I was dropped off at my house soon after in near-complete silence. I felt awful.

I’m proud of myself for the decision I made and the restraint I exercised. But, by the same token, I realize how easy the other choice could have been and how much instant gratification I could get out of it. But, I am really trying to change the ways I make choices about certain people and situations, however difficult it proves to be.