5 Things That Will Make You Miss Your Ex

MUSIC

Music is great but it can be a little bitch sometimes, can’t it? The other day I was cleaning my apartment when a song came on that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a little slice of heavenly dream pop by Washed Out that I used to play whenever this boy I was seeing came over to my apartment. Even though I stopped listening to it around the time we broke up and kind of forgot about it, I started to become overwhelmed with this sense of nostalgia. I immediately thought of winter, the way he smelled, and all of that other cheesy shit everyone is too embarrassed to talk about. I was temporarily stunned, which was confusing because the relationship itself was pretty unremarkable. But music is crazy like that. It can bring dormant feelings to the surface and before you know it, you’re texting your ex who you don’t even really think about something like, “just heard that song we always used to listen to. miss ya!” When you’re released from the song’s spell, you quickly come to your senses and delete it from your iTunes library.

THE INTERNET

Thanks to the internet, there are a myriad of different ways you can miss your ex. You can go on Facebook and lurk their life without you. Oh look, there’s a picture of them at a party looking completely normal and happy. And oh my god, they’re writing cute and clever things on someone else’s wall. How are they able to do that? They’ve learned how to do these things without you—how to be happy and how to exist. Oh dear. You were hoping for solemn song lyrics on a status update, a new photo album titled, “I’M DEPRESSED.” But nope. You got nice and normal instead. If you feel like you haven’t suffered enough, you can always read old Gchats or Facebook messages between the two of you. Or you can look at pictures of you two laying in bed on your old blog. Choose your own sad adventure!

YOUR CURRENT SIGNIFICANT OTHER

Admit it. Sometimes you look at your current BF/GF and compare them to your ex. It’s only natural! They’re your point of reference and sometimes your mind can’t resist connecting the dots. “Weird. My ex didn’t usually make that face when they were brushing their teeth. What does it all mean? Have I chosen the wrong relationship?!” When something is dissatisfying you in your current relationship, you tend to romanticize your past. “Sure my ex was completely wrong for me and treated me like crap daily but they did this really cute thing one time and maybe we should still be together?!” Whoa there, horsey. Slow down. Missing a bad relationship is like coming down with a temporary case of amnesia. You’re Michelle Tanner in Full House and you’ve fallen off that damn horse! It’s important to recognize that these thoughts are just a by-product of your insanity and to push them out of your mind ASAP.

BEING SINGLE AND NOT READY 2 MINGLE

Remember when someone wanted to have sex with you all of the time? Sigh. Those were the days. If you have a prolonged period of singledom after a relationship, you tend to miss your ex quite a bit. I mean, this might be kind of gross to say but sometimes the best way to get over an ex is to get under someone else. A person needs to fuck your ex out of you. “Get out! You don’t belong here anymore!” Think of the post-relationship fuck as an exorcism, and if you go too long without “calling an exorcist”, stuff can get real #dark.

WHEN YOUR EX GETS INTO A NEW RELATIONSHIP

Jealousy is an evil gross thing. I have broken up with boys before without having any regrets until they got involved with someone else. I go from, “Can you leave?” to “Where’d you go? I miss you! Cum back!” It’s an unfortunate character flaw—wanting something simply because you can’t have it—but I take solace in knowing that many others suffer from this as well. A lot of us are nuts when it comes to our exes. Yay!