Blast From the (Brokenhearted) Past

When one envisions the city of Los Angeles, two words typically come to mind: enormous and overcrowded. It’s a city with a very impersonal vibe; you have no idea who your neighbors are, you don’t spend much time interacting with people due to most of your day being spent cursing alone in your car while stuck in traffic, and you hardly run into the same person twice unless you specifically make plans to do so. On any given day you find yourself surrounded by hundreds of people that you’ll probably never see again. So how is possible that in a city boasting a population of almost 4 million, you could come across the same ex-boyfriend six times in six months, in the most random of places? And what are the odds that the ex-boyfriend you keep running into would just happen to be the one that caused the most damage?

A. and I met during my first year in graduate school. I stumbled upon his profile on an online dating site, discovered that he was a fellow UCLA grad student, and made arrangements to meet him over dinner following several hours of phone conversation. I discovered that he and I both grew up in small towns on the central coast, and that his younger sister was married to a guy that I went to high school with. We both possessed the same dry sense of humor, and our flirting was loaded with sarcasm. Aside from being intelligent and hilarious, he was also shy and pretty awkward, which interestingly enough only added to his appeal. And, wonder of wonders, he seemed find me attractive, which was unheard of for me, being that I weighed just over 200 pounds. He looked right past the extra weight, instead talking about how comfortable he felt spending time with me. After that night, not a day passed in which we didn’t talk to each other—most nights, we would spend hours on the phone talking about nothing and everything. We made ourselves at home in each other’s apartments, and every Friday we would have date night, where we would go out for dinner followed by an evening of relaxing together at my apartment and unwinding from a stressful week of papers, projects, and exams.

Over the next year, I fell—hard. It was an experience akin to jumping from a plane without a parachute, and unfortunately, the relationship eventually ended that way. For over a year following our breakup, my emotions were splattered all over the asphalt. What made the experience particularly excruciating was the fact that I was completely unprepared for it. We had become very close, A. and I. I knew things about him that he had never told anyone. He always knew how to make me laugh after a particularly hellish day. A few weeks after offhandedly mentioning that he would never introduce a girl to his family unless he was serious about her, he invited me to spend a weekend in his family’s home. Knowing that he cared about me enough to introduce me to his parents was elating, and I was blindsided when he came to my home a few weeks later and told me that it was over.

He and I were having dinner at my apartment on a warm summer night in August, following a splendid date at the Getty Center the day before. After clearing his plate, he abruptly started crying, and said that he didn’t think he and I should continue being romantically involved with one another. Well, at least he brought his appetite beforehand.

He didn’t really offer much of an explanation, other than “I’m just not sure how I feel about you.” He had a difficult time letting me go, and insisted that he and I remain friends. Assuming that he was just experiencing some momentary cold feet, I agreed; I was sure that within a few weeks he would come to his senses and correct his mistake. We remained “friends” for 6 months, carrying on our nightly phone conversations and spending several evenings a week together; oftentimes I would catch him staring at me as I washed dishes, did homework, or watched the funny vedeos he would show me on YouTube. Some nights he would cry, saying that he missed me and that he wished he could find his way out of the storm of confusion brewing in his head.

The following February, things came to a sudden end, this time for good. I found out that he had been quietly dating someone else, which was both heartbreaking and enlightening. I learned that he wasn’t “unsure”—he just wasn’t interested. After that fateful phone conversation, during which I discovered that the girl he was now seeing was a longtime friend and fellow lab geek from his graduate program, we never spoke again.

Following that devastating experience, I was a disaster. I would spend hours on the couch each day, crying and watching reruns. I would Facebook-stalk him and his girlfriend endlessly, which led to me accidentally sharing one of her photo albums of their romantic trip to San Francisco on my profile. And, to my dismay, I ran into him EVERYWHERE. I would see him on campus, bumping into him in the quad at the court of sciences, or at the student health center. Then, I started running into him in the most strangest of places, like crossing Santa Monica Boulevard. One day, I even came face-to-face with his girlfriend at Nordstrom. I was looking at handbags on sale, and when I looked up, she was right in front of me, eyeing a purse similar to the one that was in my hand. I was intrigued by this girl. What did she have that I didn’t have? Did she have an incredible personality? Was she a freak in bed? Did she have a vagina made of gold? I trailed her around the first floor of Nordstrom, obsessed with discovering why she was the one he had chosen. I hid in the accessories department, watching her from behind a display of floppy sun hats. An employee came over to ask me if she could be of any assistance. “No!” I snarled. The poor woman scampered away, and I resumed my obsessive investigation, eyeing her clothes, her haircut, her handbag. I noted that she appeared cockeyed and frumpy, which brought me intense satisfaction. Petty, and definitely not my finest hour.

The situation blew up the following month, when I had joined a group of girlfriends for champagne brunch. As the waitress was taking our orders, he walked in with his girlfriend and seated himself at a table across the restaurant. He didn’t see me, and I proceeded to get rip-roaring drunk. We didn’t come face to face until I ran into him in front of the restroom after finishing almost an entire bottle of champagne. He was paying the bill, and I had to squeeze past him to get to the ladies’ room. I, being piss-drunk and ill-tempered, loudly hissed at him in front of a waitress and several restaurant patrons. He was humiliated, and couldn’t seem to make eye contact with anything but his shoes. Was it because he was feeling embarrassed about the way he had treated me, leading me to believe for so many months that there was hope for the two of us? Or was he embarrassed for me, due to my childish behavior? As he walked out of the restaurant with his girlfriend, I verbally abused him, loudly enough to ensure that he heard every word I said. A loyal (and drunk) friend of mine even gave a hearty “Boooo!!!” as he walked out the door. Once again, not my finest hour. But we had broken up six months earlier, and I had already run into him and his girlfriend six times. I had hit my limit. When would it end?

I didn’t see him again for almost three years…until just a few days ago. I was alone, Christmas shopping in Santa Monica. As I walked past the shops, a young man up ahead caught my eye. A young man that looked suspiciously like A. As I got closer, I realized that it was A. I was tempted to duck into Forever 21, especially following my drunken performance at brunch nearly 3 years ago, which was the last time we had come face-to-face. I bravely decided to walk on and face the music. I wondered if he had spotted me, as I was about to pass him on the sidewalk; we were only inches away from one another. Would he be surprised to see me? Would he get that panicked, overwhelmed expression that he typically wore when he ran into me unexpectedly? I had lost 80 pounds since we had last seen each other. Would he even recognize me?

I guess the answer was no. He walked right by me, oblivious and fashion-challenged. He did not wear that expression of sheer horror. He didn’t even seem to know who the hell I was. In a way, I take satisfaction in that. I look better than I have in years. I wear a size six, I only have one chin, and I walk with my head held high, possessing a confidence that I had forgotten I once had. That’s what he didn’t recognize…and if that’s true, then it’s not a bad thing.

I wonder if I’ll run into him again. If I do, I wonder if I’ll have the nerve to say hello. Sometimes these things come in waves, so I may encounter him again at the supermarket, the gas station, and the mall. Apparently, repeatedly running into the man that broke your heart in a city of 4 million isn’t unheard of. And apparently, the enormous city of Los Angeles isn’t nearly big enough.