Ex-Men

This post is brought to you by new my new laptop. Yes, dear reader, I had to get a new one. Sadly my poor old Toshi netbook bit the dust. The day after my last post actually. It was as if it knew what I had written and was determined to prevent me from following through with my new plan to write every day. Damn technology...! So here I sit with my shiny new ruby red Toshi, while the BF watches Spain vs Italy, which I find odd. Why watch a match between two teams you don't support? Some strange form of man-ness that I will probably never get my head around. Speaking of strange forms of man-ness, I had a weird encounter yesterday with an ex of mine. I consider myself fairly fortunate that I never come across any of my exes, for various reasons. Mostly, they don't live around here, which is good. And I don't have them on Facebook. Anyway, he came into my place of enslavement and proceeded to chat to me as if we're some kind of talking buddies. I broke up with him four years ago. It was a mutual thing, and we even stayed in contact for a while. I hadn't seen him in two years, when I went to his work, (new BF in tow), to return his Star Trek dvds. We had an awkward five minute conversation during which my BF flexed his muscles and looked imposingly at my ex. It was hilarious. (The ex is considerably skinnier than the BF, who has the most enormous guns. And earrings. And tattoos. I think the ex thought I was dating a Hell's Angel or something!) I digress... In fact during this brief meeting yesterday, I was forced to re-assess my entire relationship with the ex. For one thing, I didn't see him when he came in so he spoke to one of the girls and I heard him say, "I'd like my usual person to serve me please". I recognised the voice and thought 'usual person'?! What the f*** does that mean?! We haven't been anything in four years, let alone 'usual'! Then I checked myself and remembered that is exactly typical of the sort of social blunder he would make. Then he rambled on about where he's living now and something about a parrot he's looking after. I hate parrots. They freak me out, I don't like the way they stare at you. It's creepy, like they're working out how best to kill you. My GBF's grandad had a pet parrot and I think this is where my dislike of parrots began. It was a particularly scary bird with steely grey eyes. *shudder* Ok, back to the subject. After the parrot talk, he said "see you around" and left. I was quite relieved. It can be so tiresome to have to make small talk with a person you used to date. I was speaking to someone about it later in the day and he said, but you must have loved him back then? And I honestly don't know if I did. Is that dreadful? I was with him for four years and I'm not sure I ever loved him. I thought then that I did, but now... I don't think so. I could never have lived with him. He had habits that were beyond annoying. When I went over to his place, he spent so much time playing Halo, I sometimes wondered why I was there. He once told me that my 'habit' of making the bed was annoying. When I first went over to his, he had no duvet cover or pillowcases, so maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by that revelation. When we went on holiday, it was always to the same place in the New Forest for the same three days over Easter. Three days was honestly about my limit. I think perhaps I always knew that he wasn't the long term guy. He was younger than me, I was his first real relationship. There's no way it would have lasted, and maybe it's surprising it lasted as long as it did. I bear him no ill-will; we just have nothing to talk about any more. Relationships run their course and become a memory. Sure there were good times, but really, we were nothing serious. The one good thing I take from that experience is the knowledge that it taught me what I didn't want from a man. And that I wanted a man, not a boy pretending to be a man. What I have now is a proper, functioning relationship with someone who shares my ideals in life, that I can live with easily and spend days on end with, without getting annoyed. He doesn't make social faux pas, talks easily with my family, fits in with my friends (they love him), has a brilliant sense of humour and a nice bum. These are things I find important. This is what love is. Also he likes cats :-) The only ex I have contact with is my GBF. We worked hard on that though. It was a long road to friendship, not back, but forwards to a new kind of relationship. We're fortunate that my BF and his new husband are accepting of us and the history we have. That's why they're the good ones :-) No man who hasn't been able to accept us has stuck around, and really, why would we have wanted them to?! We're planning a short break in Cardiff soon - the four of us - and I'm sure it will be a fun time. I think that the ex expected us to have a relationship like I have with GBF. He idolised him in lots of ways. But it could never have happened, and really I never wanted it to. He hung around us for ages after we broke up, tagging along on nights out, when he never wanted to before. It was a forced friendship, always uneasy and often the result of him inviting himself to our nights out. I was rather pleased when we cut all contact. The only ex I want around is my GBF - he isn't competing for my attention with the BF, I could always talk to him about man problems (pre-BF of course!) and we share a love of Sex and the City, Kylie and shoes! Boyfriends (including exes) never understand those things ;-)