The End of a Chapter

Call me shallow, but I happened to have a drink with my former girlfriend, and found great relief in the experience. I haven't seen her in about two and a half years and enough time had gone by where I realized that if I saw her again, I wouldn't fall madly in love with her all over again, as had been the case for the first year and a half after we dated. We had some email contact a few months ago, and decided to grab a drink sometime, and that sometime was yesterday.

It was very good to see her, and though I didn't fall madly in love with her again, I saw clearly again what I had loved about her so much. We filled each other in on our lives, what we had been up to in the long time we hadn't seen each other, and eventually our discussion turned towards relationships. I told her that I had embraced the bachelor life, that I was no longer expecting to be married, and that I was done with dating websites, or even asking anyone out. (Which is true--I'm such an itinerant blogger these days that momentous decisions like that aren't blogged about. Bottom line: I'm tired of looking, so I'm giving it up, and choosing to be single. God will have to speak from a cloud or something for me to get married. The search is a pain in the ass, and I'm done.) Anyway, I asked her if she was still with the guy she had been dating when we last saw each other, and she told me that yes, indeed she was. I have to be honest, that was a bit of salt rubbed into a wound which I thought was completely healed, but the moment passed quickly enough. She then proceeded to tell me that he has been unemployed for two years, and that he was even fired from Barnes and Noble, where they had met, because, in her words, "he makes bad choices," which I interpreted as meaning that he got himself fired. For awhile, he was living with her, because he had nowhere else to go, but now is living with his aunt and uncle. The guy's 39.

I suppose it's a reflection on me that I take some satisfaction in the fact that my replacement is a loser. I had manufactured all kinds of things about this guy in my mind, and none of them are true. She didn't choose an upgrade.

I do find it sad, however, that she hasn't kicked this guy to the curb. It seems in my mind that she doesn't feel she deserves a good man, but all I can do about that is pray for her.