Catching Up

Ohhhhhh, I've missed my friends.

Thursday saw me catch up with a good friend from my university circle, the Partner In Breakup. Seated on a bench outside a bar with a very reasonable happy hour cocktail menu, we expanded on eight months of ambiguous Facebook messages.

We gabbled about the success of me and the Boyfriend; as a couple who took a gamble on a fledgling relationship and won. We caught up on get-togethers and break-ups, who's here, who's gone, who's now employed, who's still looking, who's single, who's not, who's married, who isn't any more.

Catching up with university friends has, and always will, lead to inevitable mentions of The Ex. As long as we continue to share the same friends, we will each be privvy to details - however casually mentioned or received - of the other's lives. And so it was that I heard a brief snippet regarding the Ex's current relationship. Specifically, an argument. A snippet that made me cringe and pang slightly - but for entirely different reasons than you'd expect.

Hearing the snippet made me remember. I remembered arguments where the only resolution was me admitting defeat, admitting fault, or apologising. I remembered being on the receiving end of lectures on how I should behave. I remembered all-too-frequent episodes of paranoia. I remembered the losing battles I had with someone who was too stubborn, too confident, too self-assured and - here's the scary bit - so absolutely unafraid of losing me as a result of speaking his mind. I remembered hiding tears behind sunglasses and holding back what I really thought, in case it should spell the end of our relationship.

When I heard the snippet describing the behaviour I once was on the receiving end of, now directed at someone else, it confirmed what I've known for quite a while. That fundamentally, people - be it old friends or ex Boyfriends, those who, for whatever reason, it doesn't work out with - never change.

Then I thought about my Boyfriend, the one I never thought I'd meet, let alone hold the interest or stay together with, the one who waited, the one who flew around the world to be with me, the one who apologises if he's wrong and doesn't lecture me when he's not, the one who has never asked me to change anything unless I've dripped food down it.

I thought about all that, felt a pang of utter relief, then shook my head.

"That poor girl. Good luck to her, she'll need it." and then, without a smidgen of doubt or regret, "Thank fuck it's not me."