Apparently there is a trend on this campus that I was unaware of until yesterday. I was catching up with a group of friends at the Village for brunch, and in between pancakes, one of my friends raised her eyebrow and said, “Don’t tell anyone, but…I’m hooking up with my ex.”

While this statement alone would have been surprising enough, when it was seconded and then thirded by the other members of my table, I nearly choked.

WHAT?

Let’s not lie to ourselves—each and every one of us who has ever had to deal with a broken heart has certainly thought about this. We all secretly believe that we are “the one that got away,” and deep down, that ex still wants us. At least, this is what we hope in between pints of Ben & Jerry’s and watching “The Notebook” and John Cusack movies until the DVD player burns out. Heartache makes us border on insanity.

But once you’ve been apart from that person for a while, and everything has had a little time to heal, we have to ask ourselves: is ex territory something that we should return to? Or should we keep looking for greener pastures?

When I mentioned to my mother what was going on with my friends, she immediately screeched, “You better not be thinking of getting back together with that jerk!” And then she proceeded to point out all of the reasons why I shouldn’t get back with my most recent ex: He hurt me, he wasn’t totally honest, and he didn’t fit in with my family.

She gave me perfectly legitimate and wonderful reasons why I should never even speak to him again. And, chances are, your friends or parents could probably provide you with a similar laundry list explaining why your ex should stay your ex.

But when I asked my friends what had inspired their blasts from the past, I received equally convincing arguments. “It’s comfortable.” “He knows me so well.” “He does that thing that I really like where he…”

Is it really so wrong for us to want to return to the familiar? Sometimes it just feels so good to fall into arms that we have already been in, to kiss someone who already knows exactly how we like to be kissed. There is something about having that history that just makes everything a little bit more intimate. And the fact that it’s not supposed to be happening makes it a whole lot hotter.

I’m not saying you should go booty call your most recent ex, but I do think that returning to familiar ground isn’t always a bad thing—after all, we are encouraged to recycle. And maybe there’s something there that you overlooked the first time. My only advice, dear readers, is go into it with your guard up—I’ve heard it hurts twice as much the second time around.

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Tags: Romance 101

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Romance 101, Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through this feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.