The Alumni

Exes.  Let’s talk about ’em.

More awkward than an ambiguidate, exes have got to one of the strangest types of human relationships that still technically qualify as being normal.  We enter into a deep, intense relationship with another human being for a long period of time that’s definitionally exclusive.  But then it ends.  And as blogger Musty Man has written, “I never know quite what to do with exes. When a toaster breaks, you just throw it out. When a family member dies, you go to a funeral. When a relationship ends, the object of your affection persists, often in physical and, in this age of social networking, frequently inescapable cyber forms…” We carry on and reconfigure the patterns of lives, but so do our exes.

People love overselling how wonderful their relationships are with their exes.  The Right Answer for what we want for our exes in their lives after us is “I just want her to be happy.”  OK.  Fine.  But let’s get more granular: What type of person do we want our exes to date right after us?  Some may like to answer this one with, “Oh, someone amazing.  Someone perfect for her.”  But these kind of answers always remind me too much of the runner-ups to the Miss America contests who seem just a little too excited that she didn’t win but that girl from Louisiana did.  Or the guiltily delightful multi-screen shots they do at the Oscars when they announce the winners.

(Skip to 2:05.  Anne Hathaway’s undoubtedly rehearsed-to-look-genuine “Yeah!” head pump is kind of amazing.  I wish I could have seen her practice that in the mirror. “Yeah!”)

In my highly rigorous, exceedingly scientific, double-blind placebo study I conducted on this topic (i.e. I asked some friends), how one feels about an ex’s new romantic interest depends a lot on who was the breakupper and who was the breakuppee.  There’s a lot more room to be all magnanimous if you’re the one who ended things.  We could say, “Good for her,” and really mean it.  Someone being insidiously passive aggressive may even signal, “I’m so glad she was able to find someone after the breakup.”  But what if the ex dates down?  Like way down.  Let’s say the next boyfriend or girlfriend is someone who leaves more than a bit to be desired not just in the looks and wit departments, but is also the type of person to steal money from friends.  The kind of person that’d make you say, “Him?  Really? That guy? C’mon!” Whom our exes date after us reflects on ourselves.  We’re members of the same club, and justified or not, it comes with all the guilt brought on by association.

But what if we’re on the other side of things?  How do we feel about the next guy our exes dates if it was a unilateral dumping decision by the ex?  Sure we can say, “I just want her to be happy,” and that’s mostly true.  But isn’t there just a little part of us that doesn’t want our exes to date too well right after us?  Do we really want our exes to date someone who’s better looking, a little cooler, funnier, more successful than us?  Someone that may elicit a “She did way better with her new boyfriend.” If we exaggerate to make a point, what if your girlfriend you’re crazy about breaks up with you and starts dating Tom Brady?  You’d start seeing her in People magazine talking about how perfect they are together.  Maybe you’d want to feel happy for her, but would you truly, deeply feel ecstatic for her?  I’m going to guess “no,” at least not right away.  There’s an entire genre of romantic comedies based on just this premise.

The perfectly rational view of exes is that we should always be rooting for our exes in every situation.  It’s a bit like the BCS ranking system for college football.  If our team, let’s call it “Cal,” gets beaten by USC, we should be rooting for USC in every game they play after us.  The better they do, the better our loss to them looks in comparison.  And it’s equally true if we’re the ones to beat USC; the better they do after us, the more impressive our win.  But this type of thinking falls into that way-too-big category of Things That Are Easy to Say But Hard to Feel.

Time tends to solve things though.  It’s rare to find someone who doesn’t want the best for a long-ago ex.  If you do find one of those, there’s surely a juicy drama-filled story behind it.  For the most part, we evolve into saying “I just want her to be happy” and really mean it.  If my high school girlfriend starts dating Tom Brady tomorrow, I would be truly, deeply ecstatic for her.  Also, it sure would improve my BCS ranking.

(Thanks to the friends who helped me think this through this post.  I’ve kept you guys anonymous to protect you and your exes.  You know who you are.)