A friend gave me a frantic 3am call this week. She shouted over the phone, “Have you heard yet? No? My ex got engaged. OH MY GOD, I’m going to faint!”

It took me a while to recover from my broken sleep and then from her breaking news update. “The first thing that struck me was – ‘It could have been me instead of her,’” she said.

Getting over it
Getting over ex’s can be difficult, we all know that. But my friend had a particularly tough time moving on in life. So when she told me about her ex’s engagement, I was fearing a relapse – what if she went into sad lover a.k.a Devdas mode?

“No, no. It’s not as if I want him back. I’m happy that he’s found someone to share his life with. Plus, it’s been three years since we broke up. I think there are no feelings left, not even vestigial ones,” she clarified. So what was all the melodrama about?

Re-evaluation
“Arey yaar, you don’t know how it feels when your ex gets settled for good. You start reflecting on what’s going on in your life. And all this re-evaluation is distressing,” my friend said. She added that she was facing an existential crisis.

“What am I doing anyway? I see that he’s moved ahead and found someone whom he’s sure of spending the rest of his life with. That is a significant achievement. In that sense, I am nowhere close to competing with him,” she stressed.

Competition
I found it a bit odd – competing with your ex in finding a life partner! “It sounds retarded, I know! But I am just in that phase. I have spent a sleepless night. He seems happy with his girl. So happy that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. And can I say that about me and my guy? NO!”

But that’s fine. Relationships grow and mature at their own pace and what if she was taking longer than her ex to settle down with her new love? “You know, I wasn’t even thinking in terms of settling down until I heard the news. It just shook me up,” she said.

Over-reaction
I thought my friend was over-reacting. She’s only 25, why is she fretting? “You know, every day, I log on to Facebook, I see at least one friend’s wedding album in my news feed. Someone among my friends is getting married every day,” she said.

“I was dealing with that calmly. I kept telling myself, ‘Ah, I don’t really relate to that friend. Oh, she’s not really my kind.’ But I couldn’t console myself with anything reasonable when I saw his engagement album. I hope it’s just a passing storm and I find my peace soon. I’m taking meditation lessons tomorrow on!” my friend said and hung up.
 

By Gayatri Parameswaran
Photo: Gayatri Parameswaran, © Love Matters/RNW

The views expressed in our blogs don’t necessarily represent those of Love Matters.