After a pleasant dinner, my date, Sonya, and I headed to a comedy show. The person taking tickets looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember how I knew him. Not wanting to insult him, I acted generically friendly, figuring his name would pop into my head shortly.
“It’s great to see you, buddy,” I said. “How are you?”
“Um, good,” he mumbled. As he took my hand his eyes widened and his smile sagged a bit. This subtle fear response jogged my memory. I was shaking hands with Kelly’s new boyfriend.
Three months after Kelly and I broke up, I stumbled upon (actively sought out) her Facebook page and saw she was “In a Relationship” with a guy named Ryan. Being “In a Relationship” on Facebook doesn’t mean you’ve had a single date or gone out for a couple weeks—it means you’re committed and exclusive. People say “I love you” more readily than they change that status. If Kelly had updated Facebook that quickly, it meant the new relationship must have started right after we split. Or even before.
Ryan was a part of the group of new friends Kelly often stayed out with all night toward the end of our relationship. Though he was more Kelly’s friend than mine, I did know him and we’d even performed improv together on a few occasions.
One night during that period, when I tried to catch up with her after work, she was slow to respond to text messages, vague about where she was, and not answering calls. She seemed to be avoiding me. Finally, after I’d spent an hour eating alone in a diner, I’d gotten an address from her.
I’d expected to find a group at the bar, but it was only her and Ryan. They were sitting close together at a table and laughing loudly at a “bit” they were doing. They tried to describe the joke, but explanation always ruins humor, so I was Matteson, Destroyer of Laughter.
The loud music prevented me from hearing much from across the table, but I could tell from their body language the conversation was going really well. About halfway through my second drink a thought occurred to me—I am crashing my girlfriend’s date. Despite being the boyfriend, I was the third wheel. Amazingly, my initial feeling was guilt. I felt bad for interrupting. These crazy kids were having fun before I rained on their parade!
When we got back home, I asked Kelly if anything was going on between her and Ryan. She denied it, saying they were just friends.
“Then why did I feel like I was interrupting a date?”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“A guy and a girl go out for dinner and drinks. That’s what a date is. You were on a date.”
“I was hanging out with a friend. Don’t be so controlling. The way you were acting at the bar was embarrassing.”
Our relationship should have ended that night. I should have pushed harder to find out what was going on with Ryan and, more important, us. This would have led to the truth about our crumbling relationship and we would have broken up. That’s what should have happened. Instead, I immediately retreated from my position and apologized. Controlling, embarrassing, jealous? That’s not me. I wasn’t some chauvinist who wouldn’t let his girlfriend have male friends. No, I was the Nice Guy who always understood and never made a fuss. Instead of standing up for my real feelings, I shoved them under an apology and our relationship carried on for another miserable month.
When I saw that Relationship Status update, I felt vindicated. I WAS RIGHT—there had been something going on! I wasn’t a crazy, paranoid, controlling boyfriend; I had reacted appropriately to a weird social situation. The silver lining was thin, though, and I quickly became bummed. While our relationship was failing, Kelly had been forming a new one with Ryan. And I couldn’t say it surprised me. After all, we’d gotten together the same way, our relationship blooming as her previous one decayed.
I was halfway through the second pump of the handshake before I realized what was going on. Oh, wait, I shouldn’t be shaking hands with this person. I hate this person and this is super awkward!
I pulled my hand away and an uncomfortable silence followed as Ryan and I sized each other up. To break the tension, he turned to a coworker and said, “This is Matteson. We used to do improv together.”
Yeah, that’s the connection between us, that we did improv together, not that you’re FUCKING MY EX-GIRLFRIEND.
Ryan tore our tickets and Sonya and I headed upstairs to the theater. Once we were out of earshot, I told her what had happened.
“I thought he was a friend of yours, you seemed so happy to see him,” Sonya said.
“I didn’t fully recognize him until after we were already shaking hands.”
“Well, the good thing is you look like a total badass now.”
She was right. I, the spurned former lover, hadn’t cowered when I ran into the new boyfriend. No, I’d greeted him with the smile and handshake of a game-show host. I was a live-and-let-live guy, too happy in life to hate my ex’s new dude. Sure, I’d behaved this way because of a faulty memory, but neither Ryan nor Kelly would know, which meant I’d earn a few points in my battle to “win” the breakup. (I was still WAY behind.)
Sonya and I were sipping wine at the refreshment table when my phone buzzed with a text from Kelly: Ryan told me you’re at the show. I was already planning on going and I’m on my way. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.
“So, you know how that guy was my ex’s new boyfriend?” I said to Sonya. “Well, my ex texted. She’s going to be here too.”
“At least you showed up with a girl, right?”
“Very true.”
I’m sure meeting my ex-girlfriend wasn’t what Sonya had envisioned for our first date. We’d met online, but not through online dating. I’d heard her as a guest on a podcast and a Google search had revealed her to be as cute as her adorable voice implied. Via Twitter I learned she lived in Chicago, but would be working in Los Angeles for a few months, so I sent her a tweet telling her I loved her on the show and followed up with this: I see you’re going to be in Los Angeles. If you’d like someone to show you around, I’d love to play tour guide.
I immediately regretted sending the message. Making the offer in a public forum was dumb. If anything happened to Sonya in the next six months, the authorities would search her social media accounts and I’d become a prime suspect. I might as well have sent this message: I see you’re going to be in Los Angeles. If you’d like to spend some time kidnapped and living in a pit I’ve dug in my basement, I’d love to play your kidnapper. Can’t wait to smell you!
Just as Bridget had surprised me with a yes, so too did Sonya. This asking-girls-out thing wasn’t as hard as I thought. Sonya did warn me that her friends and family, and possibly a few mob hit men, knew who I was and where I lived, so there would be retribution if I turned out to be a cannibal. If she’d known she was going to meet my ex-girlfriend on our first date she might have preferred to be made into a lamp shade.
A few minutes after the show started I saw Kelly slip into a chair across the room. I pulled the front of my shirt in and out, fanning my chest, trying to battle the heat suddenly churning in my stomach. The feeling of nausea was not dissimilar to the one that occurs at the beginning of a courtship. How poetic of my body to bookend our relationship with queasiness.
During intermission Kelly approached and said hello. She nervously twisted her wineglass as we spoke, which made me happy. I introduced Sonya and the two of them fell into “hey-so-nice-to-meet-you” patter, their voices getting higher and higher as they strove to prove who was the friendliest. Luckily, the break wasn’t long, so we didn’t have a chance to discuss much more than Murray. Thank God for the dog or we’d have nothing to talk about.
“I decided I don’t like her,” Sonya said once we were back in our seats.
I decided I liked Sonya.
When the show ended, we headed toward the exit. Kelly was having a conversation across the room so we’d escape without the awkward goodbye. But we couldn’t evade Ryan, who stood by the exit holding a garbage bag. I didn’t want to talk to him, but at least this was a best-case scenario; it’s impossible to feel threatened by a man wearing a name tag and holding a trash receptacle.
“It was great to see you,” he said. “Been performing any improv lately?”
My inadvertent friendliness at the beginning of the night had caused him to think we were “cool.” But we weren’t “cool.” While Ryan and I hadn’t been close friends, we were at least friendly acquaintances, and you don’t move in on the girlfriend of a friendly acquaintance (Section 4.2 of the Geneva Accords). Maybe nothing physical happened between Kelly and Ryan until after we’d broken up, but something was going on, and even if there were a dozen other reasons Kelly and I split, what he’d done still wasn’t okay with me.
I wanted to say You knew me, man. You KNEW me. And you did it anyway. I wanted to see the noxious gas of guilt rise from his belly and putrefy his smile. I wanted to see in his eyes that he understood we weren’t “cool.” My relationship with Kelly may have started the same way, but at least I didn’t think I was “cool” with her ex. Have a little decorum, Ryan, we’re not cool!
But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I told him about a couple shows I’d done recently and said a polite good night. I wish I took the high road because of a Zen-like compassion for all living things, but really, I just didn’t want to make a scene.
I did send a little message as I walked away, though. Get this—I threw my cup in the garbage harder than necessary, hoping some wine would splash on his khakis. It didn’t, but still, what a rush!
“Thanks for making me look good in front of my ex,” I said to Sonya outside.
“My pleasure,” she said. “It was fun to be the hot new piece.”
We smiled at each other. The night’s drama had made us into a little team, bonding us more than a normal first date would have. I’d kept my cool in front of Sonya, my ex had seen me with a pretty new girl, and I’d been calm and confident in front of the boyfriend. Lots of points scored in my quest to win the breakup, and even if this was purely accidental, they were points nonetheless.
After dropping Sonya off at a large house in the hills above Los Angeles where she was renting a room, I headed home. Instead of cutting over to the freeway, the fastest route, I took Mulholland Drive, the windy vehicular spine of the Hollywood Hills, and enjoyed the warm night with the windows down and my music loud. The lights of LA jumped in and out of view as I navigated the famous curves. Stretched out below me was a city full of women.