An Embarassing Encounter
Friday, July 18th, 2008The other day I had an encounter with an “ex” that proved to be most embarassing. I use the term “ex” loosely as Kyle and I had only dated briefly, going out several times over the course of a few months . When I knew Kyle, he was a sweet shy, bespecticled intellectual, with a scaggelly beard and tweed jacket. He would talk on endlessly about e.e. cummings and Kurosawa films. His cerebral approach to life was quirky but charming. Nothing serious developed out of the relationship. Calls and get togethers became less and less frequent and slowly we drifted apart without any animosity or drama. Then the other day I saw him again for the first time in almost a year. I was on my way to the laundry mat, wearing sweats, hair in a scruntch, toting a bag of dirty clothes (i.e. looking HORRIBLE) when he passed me on the street. If he hadn’t stopped and said hello I would have never recognized him. He looked TOTALLY different!! Gone were the glasses and scruffy beard, his long messy of hair now trimmer very short and neat. The natty tweed/corduroy academia look was replaced with trendy active wear. Most suprising was his new physique. Clearly Kyle had taken to the gym building up his once thin frame with toned defined muscles. To make matters worse he was with a new girl, a skanky blonde in a mini skirt with a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. The whole time I felt terribly uncomfortable and self consious of my appearance. Our brief conversation was akward but friendly. As we parted and headed off in different directions I overheard the blonde say “You used to date HER?” I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
I’m not exactly sure why this was so upsetting for me. Like I said our relationship never develop into anything serious and when we stopped seeing each other I can honestly say I didn’t miss him very much. If he is happy with his new look and new life then so what. Why should it bother me? Still seeing how radically he changed AFTER knowing me makes me a little crazy. The Kyle I once knew and the guy I ran into were like two different people. He seemed happy, confident and enjoying his new life. I guess that’s just the way it is with an “ex”. Even if you part on good terms and wish them well you never want them to be “too happy” without you around. I know this is very pathedic and weird but I can’t help but wonder if our relationship had anything to do with his decision to remake himself? Was there something about being with me that made him want to change? Or did all of this happen as a result of us drifting apart? May be it had nothing to do with me at all. Was he thinking of doing this when we were together?. I just don’t know.
I can’t help but wonder if he had taken on this new persona when we were dating would we still be together today? What would our relationship be like? I don’t even know if I like the new Kyle. He’s become kind of superfical and showy, not my type really. Would I have dumped him? Or would he have dumped me for a skanky blonde????
These sort of questions really have no answer and just make me a little loopy.The other night I even had a dream about Kyle- one of “those” dreams. Totally embarassing!!! I have to put it behind me and get on with my life and try not to obsess over it.