He got the Ex to our Date!

My boyfriend is great friends with all his exes. All of them. And I am not. The difference is as vast as the distance between Antarctica and the Arctic. Yes, we are poles apart, quite figuratively.

This difference does stir a few storms once in awhile. And the biggest bomb he dropped on me was meeting his ex girlfriend. Now let’s get this straight, I don’t talk to my exes. Not because I am a snob, but because I think it’s completely not my cup of tea. I cannot talk to a person like a friend when I was in love with him once upon a time. It’s awkward and really strange. This doesn’t equate to me being disrespectful and very much in contradiction, I do really respect them as individuals.

My boyfriend is a jovial young man who doesn’t harbour any kind of feelings, quite the straight in your face kinda person. So naturally he is super comfortable around everybody including the exes.

So when this random, surprise dinner happened, I was fuming. Quite unimpressed, I decided to maintain poker face, minimal conversation, eat up, pretend to want to leave early for some lame reason and scoot. And of course give hell to the boyfriend for a week or a month. The initial pleasantries and the unnecessarily awkward hug later, we sat facing each other. My boyfriend must have been so confused about the side of the table he needed to be at. He chose mine. Clever.

Side note: We are gonna address the ex as E and the boyfriend as B, to avoid redundancy and because calling her ‘ex’ makes me sound jealous and calling him ‘boyfriend’ makes me sound like I am in high school.

Anyway, B started talking about me and my hobbies to her, to sort of get the conversation between the two of us rolling. How surprising. I was clearly determined to not loosen up to her. And she, I hate to admit, sounded quite sweet. I don’t know why I hate this part. Would I have liked her better if she was nasty? Why am I so weird.

And she spoke about her work space and how she enrolled in some dance class. B was engrossed. I had to steer the conversation to my side. My middle name is not ‘Dramatic’.

Now I was also insecure. I simply loathe this combination. Everything seemed to be stacked against me. Aargh.

At this point my best friend calls me to give me the latest on what we both crack up over, mallu jokes (please don’t take offence fellow Malayalees, because I am as Malayalee as you). By the time she hangs up, I am tearing up having laughed so hard. God bless BFFs.

At this point E is quite fascinated and asks me what that was about, and in the whole sudden joyous mode, I tell her the joke too. Next thing you know, she is ROFLing. Then she bangs the table and tells me a few she knows. We are hysterical, laughing so hard, that we are getting some really judgemental looks from everyone around us. Including B. She isn’t done yet, she starts impersonating a Malayalee in Gelf, and at that minute between her graceful and my hyena laughter, our ice broke. Who ever thought? But I have already begun to like her quite a bit. She has a funny bone and I really like that.

We spent the rest of the evening laughing and having a pleasant time.

The restaurant hated us.

I kinda liked her though.

It is a good first meeting which I could have ended so differently. Shudder.

It really isn’t so bad, you know. Meeting the exes. Because in the end, we are all humans and the moment we find our common, not liking is so hard!