saw my ex with another girl and didn't care...

[shadowplay]

I think this shows how much progress I've made since he dumped me five months ago. I saw him in town on what was clearly a date with another girl. I felt the slightest twinge of pain, but for the most part didn't care.

 

The only sadness attached to this encounter was that somebody I loved a short time ago could become a stranger I'm indifferent to (and I'm sure he feels the same way about me). This is one of the hardest learned lessons of life. It's something I only really experienced first hand with this relationship.

 

All I know is if I can get here, anyone can, because I was truly devastated when our relationship ended.

[redmelon]

it's wonderful that you felt indifferent, what a relief it must be to not have that overwhelming feeling of pain anymore.

 

I still go into panic attack mode and am fearful of running into my ex, and it's been well over a year...you are doing great!

 

I get what you are saying about it being sad that you are strangers, but unfortunately, that's what needed to happen in this case. Did he see you?

[shadowplay]

it's wonderful that you felt indifferent, what a relief it must be to not have that overwhelming feeling of pain anymore.

 

I still go into panic attack mode and am fearful of running into my ex, and it's been well over a year...you are doing great!

 

I get what you are saying about it being sad that you are strangers, but unfortunately, that's what needed to happen in this case. Did he see you?

 

No, he didn't. He was standing at a distance, and I was behind him.

 

Thanks!

 

Yeah, it's a relief. But I'm realizing now, as I write this, how much sadness is attached to us becoming strangers. I guess I've had this nihilistic feeling ever since he cut off contact with me about love.

[redmelon]

I know what you mean, it is weird. It's like you know this person very well, their quirks, their passions, their insecurities,but you are not privy to their actual life experiences anymore. It does feel strange. It's just one of those things that will fade with time, as much as I hate to say that...

[pandagirl]

Thanks!

Yeah, it's a relief. But I'm realizing now, as I write this, how much sadness is attached to us becoming strangers. I guess I've had this nihilistic feeling ever since he cut off contact with me about love.

 

This is the worst part of breaking up. You go from being the closest/most important person in each other's lives, to being a stranger.

 

No matter how much I know it's for the best or that we ultimately weren't right for each other, this is the thing that really breaks my heart.

[shadowplay]

This is the worst part of breaking up. You go from being the closest/most important person in each other's lives, to being a stranger.

 

No matter how much I know it's for the best or that we ultimately weren't right for each other, this is the thing that really breaks my heart.

 

Yes, me too. I can't seem to accept this understanding of love without totally breaking from any idealism in my heart and accepting a very cynical view of the world.

[shadowplay]

I'll paste a passage from the end of 1984 that I feel perfectly captures this brutal change:

 

He had seen her; he had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it. He knew as though instinctively that they now took almost no interest in his doings. He could have arranged to meet her a second time if either of them had wanted to. Actually it was by chance that they had met. It was in the Park, on a vile, biting day in March, when the earth was like iron and all the grass seemed dead and there was not a bud anywhere except a few crocuses which had pushed themselves up to be dismembered by the wind. He was hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her not ten metres away from him. It struck him at once that she had changed in some ill-defined way. They almost passed one another without a sign, then he turned and followed her, not very eagerly. He knew that there was no danger, nobody would take any interest in him. She did not speak. She walked obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of him, then seemed to resign herself to having him at her side. Presently they were in among a clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for concealment or as protection from the wind. They halted. It was vilely cold. The wind whistled through the twigs and fretted the occasional, dirty-looking crocuses. He put his arm round her waist.

 

There was no telescreen, but there must be hidden microphones: besides, they could be seen. It did not matter, nothing mattered. They could have lain down on the ground and done that if they had wanted to. His flesh froze with horror at the thought of it. She made no response whatever to the clasp of his arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. He knew now what had changed in her. Her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across her forehead and temple; but that was not the change. It was that her waist had grown thicker, and, in a surprising way, had stiffened. He remembered how once, after the explosion of a rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and had been astonished not only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle, which made it seem more like stone than flesh. Her body felt like that. It occurred to him that the texture of her skin would be quite different from what it had once been.

 

He did not attempt to kiss her, nor did they speak. As they walked back across the grass, she looked directly at him for the first time. It was only a momentary glance, full of contempt and dislike. He wondered whether it was a dislike that came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also by his bloated face and the water that the wind kept squeezing from his eyes. They sat down on two iron chairs, side by side but not too close together. He saw that she was about to speak. She moved her clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately crushed a twig. Her feet seemed to have grown broader, he noticed.

 

'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.

 

'I betrayed you,' he said.

 

She gave him another quick look of dislike.

 

'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something -- something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.'

 

'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.

 

'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any longer.'

 

'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'

 

There did not seem to be anything more to say. The wind plastered their thin overalls against their bodies. Almost at once it became embarrassing to sit there in silence: besides, it was too cold to keep still. She said something about catching her Tube and stood up to go.

 

'We must meet again,' he said.

 

'Yes,' she said, 'we must meet again.'

 

He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace behind her. They did not speak again. She did not actually try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the Tube station, but suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed pointless and unbearable