I have tasted my own medicine and it is bitter!

I borrowed that line from Phoebe on the sitcom Friends because it is the most appropriate thing I could imagine in this moment.

I had a long talk with one of my exes tonight. She's the one I call "The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come". Long history with her and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.

So, back to the subject of this post. I've had a 'texting friendship' with gocytc for a year or so now. Only once have we actually talked on the phone and we have exchanged only a handful of emails. Since both of us were single I found a few opportunities to flirt a bit with her through text and then she made a phone call appointment with me for tonight. Said she wanted to clear up a few things.

On the phone she admitted something really big to me. She said she doesn't feel that she has ever gotten over me.

Wow.

That was so out of left field all I could do was stare at the telephone while she was talking. From how she has behaved the past few months I had no idea she had any leftover feelings for me at all. I blithely discussed my love life dramas and various women I had dated and had no idea that each time I did she was hurt by it.

Wow.

She also admitted that she has only been with one person sexually since me.

Eeep!

*Forgive me while I go find some tape to wrap around my head to keep it from cracking open.*

Now please note, dear reader, that our short-lived relationship ended in November 2006. Yeah, that's like Jewish miracle kind of torch life.

Thing is, she has certainly stuck in my head for a long time too. Not to the nearly celibate level I seem to have for her but still. Obviously unfinished business. We have made a couple of half-hearted attempts to reconcile and/or date again but it never materialized. The last time I saw her in person was at Michfest a year after we broke up and she wasn't really speaking to me. Well, I don't really blame her. She mistook Camille for my girlfriend and was still floored I managed to be engaged within a few months of us breaking up.

Yeah, that DOES make me sound like a heel- I do know that. But-- me and the gocytc were never a monogamous couple except for a brief couple of weeks where in the end she broke up with me for the 3rd time. I was dating my future fiancee at the same time and everyone knew the score.

Well, everyone but me. I didn't know how much the gocytc was in love with me. I didn't know how I would rebound from her and fall into playing house with the gal with the adorable little kid and I didn't know that several years later I would be still in the same weird pool of no options like I was when all those women dissolved from my life.

OK, back to the whole 'taste of my own medicine' part.

I guess I really truly understood how the gocytc felt when she said things like: "I tried to be your friend and I had never gotten over you". Or "When you mentioned dating or other women I felt hurt, even though you had obviously moved on."

Yeah, I did that to someone for a while. And demonized them for not being in the same place as me. A little distance and clarity- and seeing things from the other side- made me realize how unfair that is. To judge someone based upon feelings you project upon them and to be angry with them for it.

Sorry about that dear reader. You didn't deserve that. I have yet to decide whether I deserve it from the gocytc, but I'll try to be more considerate of her feelings from now on either way.