Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend recently broke up with me. She gave many reasons but it all came down to, “It’s not you it’s me.” She talked about how she needed to find herself and meet new people. She also said she’s leaving it for fate to decide if we are supposed to be together. She kept saying how she’s still in love with me and that I was always perfect to her but she really has to find what she’s looking for.
I told her I’d wait for a while to see if anything happens. But then it got complicated. Someone I had gone to school with came back into my life. We flirted a bit and I ended up getting her phone number. What do I do? How long do I wait?
— Trying to Do the Right Thing
I hate to sound callous, but —
Right. Who am I kidding.
When she left things up to “fate,” your girlfriend invited the possibility that fate might assume the form of an old schoolmate and flirt with you something fierce.
And that you might want to flirt back.
Granted, you did promise to wait a while. And you should — but for your sake. Love-hopping tends to blur the lines between you and your various loves.
But being yourself, calling this new girl and waiting for the ex to find herself don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can call as soon as you feel like calling, and go out, and explore. Just show restraint, at least until your “while” is up.
How long is that? As long as it takes for you to feel as comfortable alone as you did with your ex.
Think of it this way. Your girlfriend is testing her feelings for you by seeing how she feels out on her own, among new people. You are not only fully entitled to do the same, but also, arguably, under a moral obligation to.
My business card does read, “Will rationalize for food.”
With good cause, too. If your feelings for your ex-girlfriend buckled under the weight of the first post-breakup flirtation, what would that say? You’d owe it to her to quash any notion of your meant-to-be-ness, at least for now.
Likewise, if your feelings don’t buckle, and if this and future flirtations lead nowhere, you’ll know that much more about yourself and your standards for companionship — regardless of which companion fate lobs your way. Call whomever you’d like.
Dear Carolyn: What do you say to people when they’re worried they’ll end up alone, so they stay in a relationship in which they’re not completely happy? Isn’t there some truth to their defense that it’s worse to be lonely for the rest of your life than to be in a mediocre relationship?
— Washington
I’d say, alone and lonely aren’t the same thing.
I’d say, I’d rather have my own company, “Law & Order” reruns, some family, a friend or two and the promise of great than the surety of blah ever after.
I’d say, what can possibly be lonelier than feeling unfulfilled with someone?
I’d say these things, except people are entitled to feel how they feel. Besides, the “truth” in their defense sounds like fear and resignation, which always seem to drown out everything else.
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