Then it got personal...

There aren't many of my exes I still have tension with. Basically none at all in fact. I'm a firm believer that if you were together for the right reasons in the beginning, then you can be friends again at the end. Ex (my most recent) and I had possibly the messiest breakup in the world. One of those one-side-can't-believe-it's-over break ups that takes 3 months to be resolved, and one of you's moved on, but not really, there's just all these feelings but it won't work out. It was messy. It was painful. We'll never be as close as we were before. But we're still friends.

There is, in fact, only one ex that still makes my stomach turnover whenever we have an unexpected encounter. Sam was young, and pretty... too young for me let's be honest. It was a summer fling with a friend of a friend, that we convinced ourselves was more. For me, I guess it was. It started off that way, and I was surprised when people intimated how hard it would be in a long distance relationship. But it didn't take long to realise that what I was feeling wasn't just lust, or friendship. I was enjoying being around someone who'd known me for a week and could finish my sentences. Someone who understood my relationship with music. Someone who made me feel like I was really wanted.

I should have listened to the LDR people. It crashed and burned quite rapidly, as soon as there were a better selection of eligible young things to choose from.

The problem with friends of friends from uni, is that they tend to continue visiting their friends after they've trodden all over your heart. It's a long way in the past, I'm happy with OtherHalf, and I've watched in a slightly sadistic way as Sam has tried and failed to find someone long term. Yesterday was the first time where I haven't just left the room and avoided the situation. I was surprised to realise that it hasn't been just me avoiding eye contact for the 2 years since this whole thing blew over. (That's right - it took me a few months to be able to talk to Ex... A month-long fling and 2 years over it my stomach turns over. Possibly because I've never had to face it, and live with the day-by-day reality). And to realise that actually every time something made me smile, that nobody else got, the one person in the room still smiling was Sam. I'd forgotten how alike we are really.