Stacked Heels

So I recently found an ex-boyfriend on Facebook. And not just any ex-boyfriend, but the one I can definitely say broke my heart. The one I’ve thought about off-and-on for the past five years out of pure habit; a habit I formed when we first got together, although back then it was more like a-pack-a-day. And for anyone out there who’s heart I broke, bruised or treated with less care than I should have, it may give you some satisfaction to know that payback was a bitch. 

I was never one for the bad boys or the jocks; all the ‘bad boys’ I’d known growing up were into drugs which just weren’t my scene, and the only jocks in my little town were hockey players (and if you know anything about hockey ina small town, you could infer that the ‘bad boys’ and the ‘jocks’ were some of the same people). I tended to end up with the sweet, nice, geeky boys who I knew liked me more than I liked them.

So he wasn’t a bad boy and he wasn’t the dorky-type that I usually dated – he was a really cool guy. And no matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t believe he’d picked me!

And he was subtle – apparently he was trying to get with me for a few weeks before I even noticed! I met him while playing beach volleyball during one of the hottest summers I ever spent in Toronto and he even bought me a drink without letting on (okay, yes, you can infer that I was somewhat naïve at this point. It was probably my undoing in this story, too). When I finally did notice, though, hooo-boy, was I in trouble. I fell hard and fast for him for sure.

The night we got together is such an embarrassing story for me, I hesitate to publish it, but it’s part of the reason I ended up in such a twist over him. We worked for the same company and were at a work function. We were talking and having a fantastic conversation and I was in the middle of trying to figure out how to get him to ask for my phone number when another girl came up to him and demanded to know if a rumour she had heard was true – that he was quitting the agency in a few weeks and going back to school in the fall. He confirmed that it was and he was going to a school very far away. My heart just sank. We kept talking throughout the night (and I kept drinking, too…) and by the time we hit the dance floor, we were all over each other. For the first time in my life (so far, ha ha), I was kicked out of a bar: the bouncer kicked us off the dance floor and told us to get a room! So we stumbled out of the bar, into a cab and back to his place. It’s not one of my proudest moments because I think we had a really amazing night that night, but I barely remember it. To my utter shame and disgust with myself, I do remember having to get from his room to his bathroom to be sick in nothing but a towel ‘cuz we’d already torn each other’s clothes off. And his roommate was home. God.

The next morning I opened one eye and I realized I had three immediate problems: 1) I had to be at work in an hour and a half for a meeting, 2) I had no idea where I was, and 3) I was hungover as all hell. Nevermind that I’d just spent the night with a guy I barely knew. He was pretty great about it, though – as I got dressed, he told me where I was and gave me directions on how to get to the subway station, laughing at me all the while because I was so flustered. He kissed me goodbye and wished me a good day. He did not, however, ask for my phone number, which mortified me even more. I did the clichéd walk of shame to the bus stop and kept my sunglasses on the entire ride back to my house.

And then I spent the whole day in total agony from my hangover and shame over what had happened. I knew I really liked him already, but I thought for sure he’d never want to see me again. He wasn’t working that day so I didn’t hear from him. I had look up his name in the company directory to find out his last name.

Three days later, he gave me one of the most romantic moments of my life. The agency put on an annual formal, black-tie Ball that Saturday. I had seminars to go to beforehand and had very little time to race home, get dressed and get back to the Ball. Of course, I was late. I managed to find my table with the rest of the people from my shop, but the room was huge and the ceremonies had started already so it was dark and I didn’t know how I’d find his table. I barely listened to the speeches; I was busy trying to find where he was sitting. Toward the end of the presentations, someone told a joke and I swear I heard him laugh nearby. I turned around and discovered he was at the table right next to ours. I felt just awful – I thought for sure he’d seen me come in since I was late, and then I appeared to have ignored him all night!

Finally the speeches ended and before I could even catch his eye to smile at him or say hi or anything, I saw him get up from his table – and come sit right next to me! I think I knew I was in love with him right that second. We chatted the rest of the night and he barely left my side. We ended up back at a hotel to continue the party with his friends from his shop and once we got the room to ourselves, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other again…

The rest of that summer was just dreamy. We spent every moment we could together. We spent a day at a big amusement park just riding roller coasters, we went dancing at a club one night and they played this really cool song and he whispered in my ear that we should play that song at our wedding…and there was me, swooning. Once he went away to school, I was distraught thinking that all we’d had was a summer fling, but we stayed together and it worked for a while – hell, I was ready to marry him, so a little temporary long-distance was no big deal for me. We saw each other for a few days over the holidays and we were just as good as ever. I thought.

In the spring, we took a few days off and went on a road trip for his break, but it was clear something had changed for him. He was distant and uncommunicative. We didn’t fight, but there was just no passion from him; he seemed completely uninterested in me all of a sudden and I had no idea why. The worst part was that I didn’t want to even bring it up since we already had so little time together and the last thing I wanted to do was fight. So I became a total wreck and a dishrag who couldn’t even make a decision for fear he wouldn’t like my opinion. I don’t even blame him for that – I should have just started a damn fight to make him talk. I hated that I was such a doormat around him. In hindsight, however, I suspect he may have already found another girlfriend up at school and was trying to figure out how to get me freaked out enough to break up with him so he wouldn’t have to do it. I have no proof of it, but I suspect that’s what was happening.

We did break up shortly thereafter. First he sent me an e-mail saying he wanted to ‘take a break’ and we broke up later that week over the phone. He e-mailed me a few times after that, claiming he still wanted to be friends, but that just made it hurt more. I didn’t want to be his friend; I wanted to be his girlfriend. I recognized that I needed time to heal and couldn’t do that if we were ‘friends’.

There was much I still wanted to say to him, but I forced myself to not go there, at least for a while. Curiosity got the better of me eventually, though, and I broke down and e-mailed him. He was surprised to hear from me he said, but not unpleasantly. We corresponded for a few weeks before I indirectly found out that he had a new girlfriend. That was a big realization for me – obviously I still cared about him too much to ‘just be friends’ and obviously he didn’t care about me at all anymore, so I told him as much. He was surprised at how upset I was, but instead of letting him have it and telling him everything I wanted to say, I just let it go. It was too humiliating to go back into and none of it seemed to matter anymore anyway. I never contacted him again and I haven’t heard from him since.

Of course, it did all happen for the best – I already had someone new in my life. I’d met Homer by then and although I still felt broken and unsure if I was ready to jump back into another relationship, I also knew that hurting Homer would be even more painful for me. Besides, I couldn’t help but compare them at first, and Homer was just more attractive. Sure, he was more the ‘sweet, geeky guy’ than the ‘cool, jock guy’, but he was infinitely more mature and responsible, which was something I never realized I was missing before. I tell Homer often and myself every day how lucky I am to have found him, because I know that I am. I’m terrified of what would have happened to me if he hadn’t come into my life and been so perfect for me.

But now thanks to the Facebook phenomenon, I find myself trying to decide whether or not to contact him again. Surely enough time has passed that it wouldn’t matter who contacted whom, but still it kind of matters to me. And I just can’t bring myself to do it.