Don’t Go Back! by Katy Horwood

Experts’ Corner welcomes back the fabulous Katy Horwood, of All Sweetness & Life, and she has a bitter lesson for you!

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx

Recently I received a call from an ex-boyfriend. It was a call out of the blue asking how I was and whether I would like to meet up for a drink. I was tempted, being the kind of girl that foolishly welcomes drama into her life on a frequent basis, I was drawn to the idea of re-kindling contact with a man who was, by all accounts, a selfish prick with no consideration for anyone else but himself. I mean, who wouldn’t?! However, a few years older and supposedly wiser I decided that it might be a refreshing change to decline his offer of wine (read: sex) and pass on meeting up.

Naturally when one is single, it is tempting to say yes to offers such as this, working on the ‘Oh what’s one drink?’ premise and believing that, having no one to answer to, there is little to loose. Added to which, the familiarity of an old flame is tempting. Regardless of how shit-fully he treated you in the past, it’s easy street.  You know there’s chemistry, it beats another night in front of the TV and it’s been like, oh I don’t know, 4 months since you’ve got laid (random figure plucked out of the air)!  So yes, for these reasons meeting up with an ex-arsehole is a great thing to do.

Strength, self- respect and personal development are all highly over-rated are they not?

HOWEVER. There are also reasons not to do this, which you will be happy (or slightly disappointed, if you’ve just bought a new outfit and spent the last 2 hours plucking/waxing/ grooming yourself into oblivion) to hear are far more conducive to a happy self in the long run.

Your ex-boyfriend is an ex for a reason. Regardless of who dumped who, and I can only presume you we’re the dumped but the sheer fact you are considering to meet up, an ex- boyfriend should be a thing of the past. Like Rubix Cubes and Global Hyper Colour T-shirts, they had a place at the time and no doubt enriched your life at that time, but would you wear a pair of purple Wallabies now or buy a BROS album? No, I thought not. Leave them all in the past.

Your ex doesn’t give a shit about how you are. If he gave a shit he wouldn’t have dumped you or at the very least he’d have dumped you then stayed in regular contact. He is calling you because he has just broken up with the girl he left you for/is having a bit of a sexual dry spell and wants a booty call. At the very best he has realised the grass isn’t greener on the other side.

But you are not a lawn, do not act as such.

Change is good. You do not need a Facebook mantra to remind you that ‘The beauty of life is its ever changing cycle’ or some such nonsense. Or to paraphrase, development is good, moving on and not looking back is f***ing awesome. Yes, you here of occasional situations where couples reunite, or even re-marry and live happily ever after, but 99.9% of the time this never works. Too much water under the bridge … and to keep the theme environmental you are not a lake either so move on.

But I know him so well! He understands me! We have a connection! Wise up girlfriend. You had a relationship and got to know someone. This doesn’t make them your soulmate or your ‘missing piece’ it makes them a bloke you spent a few months/years with who you felt comfortable enough to fart in front of. To glamourise your ex is to not only ridiculous and unrealistic it will keep you stuck in a place where, if you’re not careful, booty calls become ‘We might get back together, I think he likes me again’ moments of madness. Emotionally you will totally regress to the snivelling heap he left you in and will end up giving away all of the control and self-respect you have worked so hard to build up again.Do not do it.

And finally doors, you know, those sliding ones. Now I like to think of myself as about as spiritual and ‘woo woo’ as a mid Iraq war meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush but when it comes to fate I will say one thing – in order to let amazing exciting new things into your life you must make space, clear out the clutter and the debris. Letting an ex back into your life is the emotional equivalent of filling your flat with 3 tonnes of concrete. Negative, heavy and potentially bloody hard to shift.

Nothing good comes from re-kindling contact with BROS albums, 80’s footwear and ex-boyfriends. And, my friends, let this be our mantra forthwith.

 

Katy Horwood writes an award winning blog, All Sweetness and Life, focusing predominantly on dating, sex & relationships. Besides her blog, she writes for The Huffington Post, along with a number of other well respected sites and runs a successful London based dating agencyhttp://www.four-letter-word.co.uk/ 

In her spare time, Katy flirts outrageously in the name of research, over-shares on Twitter, has been know to run the odd Marathon and is a complete liability after a few Dirty Martinis. 

@katy_red