On Letting Go of Exes

Do you remember my ex Vincent, the short INC guy who cheated on me? Well, after we broke up, the rage monster that I was changed all of the captions of our Instagram photos together, and the whole thing blew up. And, since everyone knew what an asshole he had been to me, there is one part of the story that I never divulged before writing this post: we still got back together after all of that drama.

Yes. He had treated me like shit. I had humiliated him online (he deserved it, though, come on, let's be honest lol). And yet, we still got back together. Why? I cannot give you a good reason for that right now, but back then, past-Anj stupidly felt like that was the thing she had to do.

Was I happy getting back together with him? Definitely not. I couldn't tell my friends we were back together because I had already made him out to be the devil (which he was); so whenever I went out with them, I had to pretend that I was single and free while at the same time lie to Vincent and say I was home. I couldn't tell my family because they knew the story, too; so, when Vincent came over, I had to sneak him in to avoid being judged. We had to meet at weird places to avoid being seen, as well... until one time, he saw his friends nearby and so we decided we had to move our dates to Makati where he worked.

It was a whole lot of effort. It was tiring keeping us a secret. And so not worth it. We also still fought every single day - and about stupid things, too: like about how I had taken up pole dancing without his consent or about how he felt like some random dude was staring at him because he had probably read my Instagram captions.

I don't remember why I put up with it; but at some point, past-Anj finally got fed up and decided to date other guys to see if there were indeed other fish in the sea worth catching. However, while there were some fish nibbling now and then, none of them were remotely interesting enough for me to give up Vincent completely.

And then one day, a wild Julian Carag appeared. And for the first time in a long time, I was smiling. I was laughing. Me! Laughing! My friends noticed the change - welcomed it. I was singing again. I was chuckling to myself a lot. I was ignoring Vincent's texts and calls, and it became surprisingly easy to reply with one-liners and make up excuses not to see him. It also became surprisingly easy to block him on social media and on messaging apps when he wouldn't stop pestering me.

About a month had gone by when Julian surprised me with this Darkseid figure:

It was pretty early on, actually. Although Julian and I had been talking a lot, I think we had only met 3 times in person by the time he got me this, but it made my heart sing. I hadn't gotten a geeky gift from a boyfriend, like, ever. And Julian wasn't even my boyfriend. I wasn't even sure what he was at the time, but I knew that Darkseid had made me happy. Julian had made me happy. 

That same night, when I got home, my maid said I had a gift waiting in my room. It was this:

In it was a Pandora ring from Vincent and a "letter" written on a piece of Starbucks tissue. In it, he said he had bought me the ring for Valentine's Day, which was a week away. Although we hadn't spoken in a long time, he said he still wanted me to have it. The ring was two sizes too big and it had a floral design.

It was such a Vincent thing to give. "Here, have something that I deem appropriate for girls to have and wear." I thought back to all of the things Vincent had ever gotten me: a girly charm bracelet type watch that I never wore coz I'm not girly, perfume that he liked, more perfume that he liked, and more perfume that he liked.

So as I sat there with a Pandora ring in one hand and a Darkseid figure in the other, I realized that I would really much rather spend my Valentine's Day with a stranger I was just getting to know instead of with him.

I chose that stranger because he actually accepted that I'm a non-girly geeky type of girl. I chose that stranger because he didn't care if I was wearing makeup or not when we met up. I chose that stranger because he didn't require me to wear dresses on dates or to comb my hair and powder my face every hour. I chose that stranger because I could just be me around him. I could be geeky. I could be corny. I could be weird. And he would actually laugh at and with me instead of make me feel uncomfortable. 

That's probably the best decision I made in 2016 because now, that stranger is now my boyfriend. But I'll tell you about how he asked me to be his girlfriend another time.