ex-vasion

I came up with a whole list of topics to write about in my blog last night, now that it isn't only jew-related. I've decided on three themes that will probably give me enough blogging material for at least the rest of the summer. They are "moments in my life that seemed insignificant at the time but that in retrospect totally changed the direction my life was taking," "crazy dudes I've gone on dates with," and "crazy stories that are just begging to be told."

I was also thinking of a 4th category of "crazy drugs I may or may not have done and the crazy things that may or may not have happened while I was or was not on them" but since this is a public blog, I'm probably going to skip that one.

But instead of starting on all that today, I have something else to rant about today. The ex-vasion of my music scene.

See, after me and the ex broke up, I started going to see jam bands on a regular basis. That summer I went to my first music festival and now, 5 years later, I go to festival and ruined the whole festival for everyone.

Anyways, that was two years ago, and he hadn't gone to fests since then. At least not any fests I was at. Until this year. In mid-May he shows up at a fest I'm working at, and our mutual friend and him set up camp right next to where I had set up camp the day before (as a festival volunteer I got to come a day early, chill with the other volunteers, and nab some prime camping space). During the course of this festival, the ex has the 'brilliant' idea of vending some kind of food product his wife makes (trying not to be so specific here) at the next major festival of the summer. The festival that is a week from tomorrow, that is my favorite festival of the year (this will be the 4th year in a row I will be going to it). If that goes well, he may start doing this on a regular basis! His wife may or may not be coming!

Oh, his wife. Did I not mention? 3 weeks after he broke off our engagement, he started dating this girl that he had mysteriously visited the weekend before he broke off our engagement. A week after he broke off our engagement, she mysteriously broke off HER engagement with some other dude. A little over a year later, THEY were married.

Our mutual friend is fond of saying "Oh but you guys were HORRIBLE for each other" whenever I bitch about the ex. And he's right. We were horrible for each other. However, whenever this mutual friend says that, I get pissed off to no end. Cause what mutual friend seems to be saying is "oh, you were horrible for each other, so why should it bother you that this dude is now ex-vading your social life?" What this mutual friend doesn't seem to understand is that while I'm over the relationship (indeed, 5 years later I can barely remember our 4 year relationship), I am not over the break-up.

Folks, there are good ways and bad ways to break up with someone. Here's an example of a bad way:

Date someone for 4 years, get engaged to them, have a huge engagement party with family and friends, start making plans for a wedding, finalize those plans for the most part by 4 months after the engagement, including money deposits and everything.

Then, go visit a high school (female) friend for a weekend (a female friend who had come to your engagement party), come back, and act super weird for a week or so. Come visit one day and start getting it on, but can't finish. Tell your fiance that it's you, that you're feeling kind of sick. During this week, consult with rabbis and your fiance's parents about whether or not you should marry her after all. Do NOT consult with your fiance about your doubts, so she is totally in the dark, and has no idea what is coming, and no chance to talk about what is bothering you. Then, a week and a half after this trip, Call your fiance up randomly and say something mysterious like "We need to talk, I'll be at your place in an hour." Let your fiance worry during that hour that since you had visited a doctor for your 'sickness' that morning (that was most likely anxiety in retrospect), that your doctor had told you you were dying of some mysterious disease, cause it doesn't cross her mind that 'we need to talk' actually could have meant "we need to talk about how I'm breaking up with you" as it usually does.

Then show up at your dorm, tell your fiance you're calling off the wedding and can you have the ring back, and disappear back into the night HALF AN HOUR later. Leave your now-ex-fiance to deal with canceling wedding plans, returning the insane amount of engagement gifts you got (including writing checks to people who had given us money...man that was painful in a way that had nothing to do with the monetary aspect), and telling most of your mutual friends that the wedding was called off. Oh and then 3 weeks later start dating that girl you mysteriously visited a week and a half before you dumped your fiance, IM your ex and hint at how excited you are to be dating someone new, but leave it to the grapevine to tell her exactly who it is. All this while your ex is such a puddle of hurt that she can barely get out of bed, and is eating out of vending machines cause she can't bring herself to go to the grocery store.

Ok, maybe you get the idea.

It wasn't the break up itself. In retrospect, that break up was the best thing that's ever happened to me, and one of those "moments in my life that seemed insignificant at the time but that in retrospect totally changed the direction my life was taking," and in an awesome way. We WERE terrible for each other, as our mutual friend is so annoyingly fond of saying.

It was the method of the break up. Calling off an engagement and a 4 year relationship in half an hour. Consulting rabbis and MY parents (who didn't say anything to me, and that may have been the straw that broke the camel's relationship with her parents), but not saying a word to me. So that the whole thing totally came out of left field. Like being shot in the gut by the guy you thought was your best friend. And then afterwards, leaving me to pick up the pieces and deal with all the official wedding canceling stuff. Going on his merry way with a new girl (with whom I will never know if he cheated on me with during that mysterious weekend visit) barely 3 weeks later, while I was still incapable of getting out of bed.

That's not the way you break up with your fiance. That's the way you break up with your middle school girlfriend.

While the break up was a good thing, the method still has reverberations in my relationships with other people. For instance, there's a reason I'm not making a big deal out of the fact that me and B are planning on getting married. And that reason is there is no way in hell I'm going through the pain of telling a bunch of people I'm not getting married AGAIN if this engagement also goes south. That's also why me and B are getting married at city hall, cause there's also no way in hell I'm going through planning a wedding again. I definitely have some trust issues. In that I don't trust people not to suddenly leave me one day out of the blue. After we broke up I didn't date anyone (in any sort of serious fashion, I did go on many first dates) for a year and a half, and I didn't have a real relationship again until B, three and a half years later. I dated 2 other guys for about 6 weeks each in the interim, but broke up with both of them when things started getting more serious. I couldn't resist B though. :)

Meanwhile, I'm sure you, my dear readers, are not surprised that I am not so much looking forward to the ex-vasion of my favorite festival. I can hang out near him, and even talk to him when other people leave (so no more awkwardness?) and B is coming with me, so I have that buffer. But I'd just rather he wasn't there. He's like an ink stain on your jeans that you can live with, but you just wish wasn't there. I just have no desire to ever hang out near or with him again. But there's also no way in hell I'm giving up MY favorite festival and MY music scene cause he's decided to invade it.