#004: They're Called An Ex Because They No Longer Ex-ist

Growing up, my thoughts on the matter of dealing with exes generally went something like this:

HBO/iheartsexandthecity.tumblr

A year or so ago, my approach to the matter changed when I figured it didn’t hurt to be friendly with my exes. We didn't have to be friends but we could be friendly, right? Why not? After all, this was someone I often spent a significant amount of time with; someone who existed during periods of my life where I grew into the person I am now; someone I truly cared about at one point. I didn’t care to become best friends with them but considering I had long since moved on from the time in my life when we were together and literally had the same emotional attachment to them as I had to an insect, I had no qualms with catching up, seeing how the other was doing, exchanging pleasantries, and wishing each other the best. Life is hard. At the end of the day, we should be adults and do our best to help and support those who are and have been in our life, right?

Wrong.

They’re called ex-es because you’ve ex-ited their life. They’re called ex-es because they no longer ex-ist in your life. They’re called ex-es because they’re ex-actly what you didn’t need. They’re called ex-es because it was ex-hausted. They’re called ex-es because... you get the point.  

I had one such ex in my life. I cut him out of my life because he was a cancerous tumor, growing and metastasizing; a parasite that latched on and sucked me dry, robbing me of emotional strength, time, and everything else that was valuable to me. But despite how things ended, I continued rooting for his success and happiness. My girlfriends rooted for him. I continued to validate and excuse his incredibly shitty behavior because I genuinely felt bad for him and he already had so much going against him without me wishing a wrath of unhappiness and destruction to rain down upon him. I felt a need to protect him in a way, because I knew he was deeply troubled — a broken person who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, self-confidence issues, substance abuse, and depression. Except he wasn’t depressed; he was selfish. These two are often mistaken and confused for the other. He was selfish when we were together, he was selfish when he refused to let me go to live my life, and his selfishness manifested itself, again, when he drunk dialed and texted me despite having a girlfriend; when he tried to once again involve me in his fucked up world of excuses and twisted rationalizations, years later, when all I tried to do was be a friend.

CW

Despite my cynicism in humanity, I’m always trying to find the good in people; always searching for redeeming qualities to prove me otherwise. I suppose the same way an artist picks up pieces of trash and tries to find the beauty in it.

American Beauty/DreamWorks

While I recognize and understand the desire to be a better person, a good person — someone who wants to revive, reclaim, and redeem people — you are allowed to walk away from people who do not respect you. You don't owe anyone an explanation for taking care of yourself. Respect yourself to know you made the right decision in deciding who was not worthy of remaining in your life. Because sometimes, a piece of trash will always be just that — a piece of trash.

someecards.com

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#003: Winning The Breakup: You Can't Win What You've Already Won

“You know how when you break up, it’s not about who’s winning the breakup, but it’s kind of about who’s winning the breakup? And by 'kind of' I mean it is?” my 18-year-old brother asked me the other day. “Yeah, I’m winning.”

What is it about winning breakups that we are all so fixated on? Why is it that we feel the need to feel triumphant and victorious of living a better life than a person we once genuinely liked, possibly loved, and conceivably imagined our future with? Why do so many of our imaginary, triumphant moments revolve around us running into our sad, disheveled exes who are living a pathetic existence alone while we're 10 pounds thinner, look the best we ever have, and have an incredible, gorgeous partner by our side? And it's always a race, isn't it? Who moves on quicker, who dates first, who gets married sooner, who becomes more successful faster. 

Perhaps it stems from our desire to show our exes how smashingly successful we are without them while reveling in our joy and their dismay of seeing how miserable their lives ended up without us. A perfect, eat-your-heart-out, movie moment we can gleefully play over and over in our head. After all, if those single word "hey" texts we receive months and years later are so richly satisfying to screenshot and laugh about with our girlfriends, imagine the incredible high we'll derive from a face-to-face encounter. “Have you met my husband? He’s an English prince and was just featured on Forbes’ Top Five Richest And Most Beautiful And Brilliant Men In The World spread and he’s absolutely crazy about me. We first met at the finish line at the Tel Aviv Marathon and then again on Zuckerberg’s yacht on New Years Eve in Dubai. Oh, you saw my picture on the cover of Time from when I won two Nobel Peace Prizes for simultaneously bringing peace to the Middle East while curing cancer? You live here? On the street? In this box?”

Except, trying to win a breakup is pointless. I’m not saying this because I feel that kind of pettiness is beneath me or because I’m some sort of super human who transcends negativity and wishes peace and happiness upon all. I fucking love winning. In fact, if I came across a magic lamp, one of my three wishes would be to always win — at everything. And winning alone is not good enough for me; everyone else needs to fail, miserably. It’s just that the moment I break up with someone, whether it’s of my own volition or theirs, I’ve already immediately won. I don’t need to do anything better or different to prove otherwise because the scores have been tallied, the verdict is in, and the champion has been chosen: me. The fact that each and every one one of these men will continue to live a life that no longer includes me means they have already lost, permanently. They may meet someone better for them but they will never meet anyone better than me. So I could run into them with greasy hair, no make up on, in my rattiest sweats, unemployed without a boyfriend, and they could be married to a supermodel while running their own successful, multibillion-dollar companies, and I will still have won.

You can’t win what you've already won. Don’t focus on chasing empty moments, despite how great they may feel at the time. They're superficial, serve no purpose, and you have a countless number of ways to better live your life than spend your precious time focusing on “showing him.” You already did that while you were together, remember? Believe me, at some point in their lives, whether it’s weeks, years, or decades later — absent you having treated them like shit or having gone Fatal Attraction on them, and assuming you were sincerely honest and unapologetically you — they will undoubtedly, at least once, think about what it would have been like to live a life with someone who cared so deeply, loved so unconditionally, supported them so fiercely, who pushed, challenged, and propelled them towards greatness while being asked for nothing in return. Each and every time they experience betrayal, disloyalty, or disappointment in their lives they will remember that they willingly decided to bet on the possibility of something and someone better, that they readily discarded someone extraordinary and incredible, and in the greatest gamble of their lives, subsequently lost.

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#002: Be Unapologetically You

10 Dating Rules to Follow! 20 Dos and Don’ts When Dating! How to Find (and Keep) Your Dream Guy! As single women we are constantly bombarded with tips and advice on how to find a significant other. Whether we’re standing in line at the supermarket or scrolling through websites we frequent, or perhaps even seeking it out on our own, “experts” tell us what to wear, what hobbies to take up, when to call back, how to respond to a text, what to say, what not to say, and a million other tidbits. And when you’re in a relationship, it’s the same ordeal except now the advice and opinions are catered to how to get him to stay, 100 Hottest Cosmo Sex Tips!, how to keep the spark alive, how to get him to propose, etc.

This guide isn’t about rules and etiquette to follow when you’re dating. It’s about being unapologetically you. Because you, exactly as you are, are what makes you, you. And you deserve to be with a man who loves you exactly as you are. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Trying to be someone you’re not, acting a way you don’t want, trying to follow “rules” written by someone who knows nothing about who you are will only exhaust and deplete you. You can pretend to be whoever you want to be but ultimately, you can fool others and yourself for so long before you grow tired of the charade and just want to be you.

As Joey Mcintyre taught me in seventh grade, don't you ever wish you were someone else. You were meant to be the way you are exactly. Stay the same. That’s not to say that you should expect a guy, or anyone for that matter, accept shitty behavior on your part. Be polite, be kind to animals, recycle, say please and thank you, call your parents and tell them you love them, give back, pay it forward — be a decent human being. But don’t lose that sparkle that sets you apart from the rest of the world. Be weird, be different, be you. Honestly, openly, unapologetically. The rest will fall into place.

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#001: Fuck The Rules

The worst part of modern dating is all of the rules people are trying to shove down your throat. From books to columns to podcasts to unsolicited advice from friends and family — do this, do that, say this, don’t say that, don’t do this, don’t do that — everybody wants to give you their two cents and more. The way I see it, dating advice is like a personal hangover cure. Everyone swears by what works for them but it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you.

My first guideline to dating? Fuck the rules. Throw out everything you’ve heard or read. Love is a battlefield, and when it comes to war, there are no rules. 

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