Relationships: Discussing past experiences and hypothetical situations

There can be few pastimes more

compelling than to ruminate on an ex.

How extraordinary they were, what beauty

they had, what happiness it would bring

to have them back. Thoughts of them can

intrude on new relationships. They

follow us into workplace meetings. They

cause us to cry at certain moments in

films. They come between us and the

beautiful places we've traveled hours to

see. There might be one rather

counterintuitive way of dealing with the

trouble of exes. to take very seriously

the one thought that we have until now

probably been resisting that we could in

fact get them back. This is likely to

sound at first blush entirely

implausible. They said they were done.

There have been months of silence. We

had a rather cold meeting back last

year. They might be with someone else

for all we know. But let's look at

things squarely. Very often, in many

cases, far more than we assume, there

could be a path back. We could show up

at the door and do this properly. lay

out the case, make a giant play for

them, and maybe, just maybe, they'd say

yes. And even if we can't directly

assume this, let's at least allow

ourselves a thought experiment. The key

move is to push our ideas to the next

stage. What then? Not being able to have

someone back prevents us from ever

exploring a truly salient issue. Do we

actually want them back? It prevents us

from analyzing with sufficient energy

and realism whether a return is truly a

good idea. So long as we think a return

impossible, it's safe enough for us to

say a firm yes. There is no cost to our

pained but addictive imaginings. We can

pick out the very best bits of the movie

which almost always lie near the start

of the relationship. That trip to

Athens, the cozy nights in Marrakesh,

the amazing three weeks on the coast in

Wales. But we must direct our syrup

soaked minds elsewhere to the cold light

of dawn. Imagine now they're back. The

person who's grown to mythic proportions

in our mind has returned. We could move

in with them tomorrow. They're with

their bags in the hallway. Their train

is coming this morning. It's not beyond

imagining. And now we must imagine it.

What would it be like? Really like.

We've been picturing them as hazily

beatotific. But think of those cheeks,

those eyes, those hips. Think then of

their character, those habits, those

ways of complaining, those enthusiasms,

those compulsions. Then there's the

history. Given what happened, if they

were here, we'd hate them so much for

what they'd done, the time they'd

wasted, the humiliations they'd meed

out, their clumsiness and shiftiness.

We'd want to shout at them more or less

all the time. We couldn't bear to touch

them. They would be, if we look at the

matter frankly, radioactive.

It's one of these moments when the mind

shows its limitations as a reasoning

machine. We see that it's prone to hold

two entirely contradictory truths

without ever bothering to collide them.

One part of the mind knows full well

that they are putrid. Another insists on

their perfection. We need to make some

introductions to our varied parts. We

need to show the impossibility of the

tormenting dream by making it live as a

possibility in our minds. We stand to

come face to face with a sobering truth.

We don't actually want our ex back. We

want what we had at a certain time when

they were kind, when their complexities

and disappointments hadn't come into

view, when we didn't know them too

fully. That person we loved a lot. But

the person now, the person after the

awful silences and those messages and

the news of the betrayal and that chilly

farewell, no, we couldn't have them.

They would disgust us within minutes.

We're crying at the pain of missing

someone that we would immediately ask to

leave us alone if they showed up. The

route is simple. The best way to get our

exes out of our minds is to think in

pedantic and cleareyed detail about what

it would be like actually to have them

back in our lives.