If there is but one thing with which you can console anyone going through a breakup, it is this: The ex always comes back. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow--in fact, absolutely not until you have forgotten about that person--but eventually and for the rest of ... well, at least for a while.
Whatever initially lit the spark between two people--that witty banter, that smile, that tequila--inevitably returns, whereas whatever put it out--the lack of emotional connection, the sub-par hookups, the neediness--fades away into that place in our minds where we store how to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs, never to be found again.
An ex, particularly when they appear to be happy and moved on, becomes a romantic ideal that must be revisited, if not recaptured. Only the strongest among us, the Will Willimon's, can completely avoid the temptation.
Moreover, in true Duke flood-drought fashion, exes come back in waves. Perhaps taking a cue from the Duke academic schedule, which allows for weeks of WaDuking Wednesdays followed by a week of Gothic Reading Room Everydays, exes return in cycles. It's not just one, it's not just two, it's "What was your name again?" Perhaps they are even controlled by the moon.
Or maybe the resurgence of attention isn't about them, but about you.
After one particularly dry post-breakup phase, which had Sidney convinced that she had grown a hunchback that no one had the heart to tell her about, everything changed faster than Jay Williams' career. Literally every guy she had dated in the last two years either began to call her (or IM, which by the way is not a suitable media for relationships), stop by her apartment regularly, e-mail confessions of once dormant love (read: lust) or repeatedly attempt to initiate a game of tongue wrestling on the dance floor.
"It's unbelievable," Sidney said to Ashley, her head cocked in genuine blonde-induced confusion. "I haven't heard from some of these guys in...." She honestly wasn't even sure how to finish that sentence. "And then suddenly, like they came together in a Terrible People Sidney's Dated Anonymous meeting, they all are suddenly interested in me again. I bet they are all having a Carl Franks dating season."
"Maybe it's the yoga," Ashley offered. Or maybe Ashley should have been born blonde too, Sidney thought. Or... maybe she was on to something!
"Maybe it is that I look better or something, back in single-girl shape, but maybe it's just that they can tell I've totally stopped caring."
While "patienc" and "time" are the psychobabble you are supposed to spout at friends suffering from a breakup, "apathy" may be more appropriate advice. The trump card you have as an ex is the status change from something your ex used to have--feminists don't jump down my throat here--to something that is taken away. But during the mourning period of a relationship, there is still a special bond. When that is over, you become something lost, something your ex can no longer have.
The transition from the mourning period to the dating period is the key. Your ex stops being on the top of your buddy list, your call logs and even your mind. You stop wearing black and buy more pink. You get back in single shape (spending less time eating pancakes and adopting an exercise regimen more extensive than hooking up three times a week). You start going out more and even flirting. And suddenly your ex remembers why you were such a hot commodity in the first place.
After breaking up with him over the summer, Meredith came back to the Nerdy Wonderland and realized how much she missed Ryan. But Ryan was not ready to forgive, forget and forge a new relationship so quickly. At first, Meredith waited and begged, and then she decided to move on, asking someone else to her date function and even accepting a real live date. All her friends were telling her to wait it out, that Ryan would get his senses back, but Meredith was finally convinced it was over. Ironically, seeing Meredith move on was more than Ryan could handle, and now they are happily reunited.
But is the assurance of a returning ex always a consolation, or is it more of a looming threat?
Like that "senior" who remembers Phi Psi and even House CC, you can never truly get rid of an ex, no matter how much you want to. Sometime the return of an ex can seem more like the attack of the ex (horror movie-esque, do-do-do-do).
When Ashley and Jim broke up, any gambler worth his weight in Froyo would have said they would never even speak again. Jim acted like Ashley was the last thing on his mind, even behind Mt. Olive Pickles--that is until a year later when it became completely clear how happy Ashley was with her new man. He suddenly began calling more than in their heyday, asking her to lunch, wanting to get together to talk, because he really "missed her." Ashley, on the other hand, really missed Jim leaving her alone, and in typical Yankee fashion, told him as much. Jim since has become something that resembles a stalker.
Even when the revisit is welcome, though, it is often just an abbreviated version of the initial go-round. Both parties know the logistics and can at least be more efficient in reevaluating and ending it if necessary. There is a reason your "ex" no longer has an "s" as a prefix to his title. Something did not work out that first time. Sure, confounding factors like timing, another person or distance may have legitimately caused the breakup, but chances are it was more like irreparable differences or nasty facial hair.
Sidney and Ted had tried to resume a relationship that had never really gotten off the ground a few years before, only to see it thud again.
"When we got back together, I kept thinking that maybe I just wasn't letting myself like you again, and then I realized I just didn't like you," Ted explained. Ouch, but okay. "I mean you are great and I love talking to you, but it's just not there."
Indeed, the same reason they never worked out before prevented them from working out this time. But this time they both seemed to absorb why, and now they could become friends, concluding the ex-cycle.
Duke students are, after all, just slow Pavlovian dogs.
Whitney Beckett is a Trinity senior. Her column appears every other Friday.
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