An ex post

legally stolen from freda's livejournal enjoy!!


Erika RambergThe Ex-Factor: Moving on from Converse All Stars and my Russell Crowe look-alike

So it's an average weekday afternoon when I return home from class. I'm anticipating an exciting evening filled with "TRL," "Fear Factor" and "Average Joe: Hawaii." Yet the second I step off my bike, the front door to our apartment swings open. "Erika," my roommate says, exasperated, "Get in the car. We're going shopping."
Apparently, my roommate's ex-boyfriend (whom she had not seen in months) was having a party that evening, and she had absolutely nothing to wear. And it was essential that, this evening, she look utterly fabulous.
Now, this might seem silly for a number of reasons. First, my roommate has a closet that even Paris Hilton would be jealous of. Second, she would still manage to look sexy in a pair of MC Hammer pants, and third (and most interesting of all), this was her ex-boyfriend we were so concerned about.
She assured me she was over him, and I believed her. She had hoards of new boys chasing after her and several other relationship options. So why did she still care? Why do we all continue to care, long after the breakup has taken place? How can someone we've supposedly moved on from still hold so much power over us? Enter the mystery of the Ex-Factor.
The power of the ex is especially strong if the person in question was a first true love. Thus, this person might have been a first great kiss, someone who ate dinner with your family four nights a week, the first person you finally opened up to, maybe even the first person you ever slept with. This person becomes more than a person. He or she becomes your history and takes on an even greater significance.
Re-enter scenario with roommate. Our shopping trip was successful (rightfully so, for it was a painstaking mission) and she undoubtedly looked fabulous that night. And I could tell, she drove her ex-boyfriend wild. Mission completed. And maybe that's all we need — just to know that somehow, in some way, they still care. It is my belief that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. We know we've moved on once we stop caring. But do we ever really stop?
My roommate expressed this thought perfectly when reflecting on her breakup.
"It isn't that I miss him so much, that isn't what makes it the hardest. It's that I miss what we had: I miss the stability, the us," she said.
Perhaps as singles, we're swirling around in a world of uncertainty and loneliness, and sometimes we'll cling to something to hold us down, even if deep down we know that something isn't necessarily right for us.
My roommate knows her ex-boyfriend was wrong for her.
"We broke up for a reason," she said.
Yet it seems that no matter what, that ex-boyfriend still has the power to hurt her.
Since the infamous ex party, my roommate has started dating again. And no, she is no longer hung up on the ex-boyfriend, but she hasn't forgotten him. In fact, several of her friends have pointed out that the new man even looks like her ex-boyfriend in certain ways: same dark, tousled hair, black blazers, Converse All Stars.
It's almost as if an ex has the ability to morph from being a person into an object, a relic, even an archetype.
Even I find myself attracted to certain people who resemble my ex-boyfriend in specific characteristics. After we broke up, I became obsessed with Russell Crowe (even the pale, jowly, 50-pound-overweight, "The Insider" Russell Crowe) because everybody told me that he looked like him.
So even when you think you're finally over someone, it's rare that apathy ever fully sets in. You see his or her car parked outside Starbucks and feel a pang. Flipping through the channels, you come across a movie you once saw together, and can't bring yourself to watch it. Perhaps most horribly, you find out through the grapevine that your ex has moved on, met another and is now happy in his or her new relationship. Without you.
And as much as I hate to say it, this might be ultimately inevitable. Your ex will meet someone else. You might still be harboring the hope that he or she will come crawling back, but how beneficial is hope, really? Perhaps it is actually this hope that keeps us from letting go, keeps us from moving on.
We fall back on hope, for in it, we don't have to live in today, but instead we dwell in the possibilities of the future. It is my belief that if a couple breaks up, at one point, there was probably a pretty good reason for it.
I am by no means sitting here on my high horse and telling you to get over your ex. I am not calling you pathetic (well, not most of you). I simply recognize the power of the ex and suggest that you learn not to let it hold you back. Perhaps it's not realistic to strive for complete apathy, but instead, to discover a new world without exes in it.
Since the breakup, my roommate has become a whole new person. It's as if all the energy she was putting into her relationship has exploded into a new world of creativity. She's more artistic, more outgoing and genuinely happier with herself. However, she'll be the first to admit, "I'll always be a sucker for a guy in black Converse."

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i'll comment on this a little bit later...
for now everyone enjoy