The Ex Files

by Rajul Punjabi

It’s been more than two years since I broke up with the only guy I’ve ever been in love with, and I still vividly remember one particular sentence of that tearful, agonizing conversation.

“Rajul, I promise you that you’ll never find someone who is this crazy about you… who treats you like I do,” he said.

“I’m going to find someone who treats me better,” I scoffed.

It wasn’t the most mature conversation from what I recall. But it was accurate and I meant it. Andre—though romantic and passionate—was very manipulative, insecure and downright didn’t trust me, even though throughout the entire duration of our relationship and even months afterwards, I only had eyes for him.

Here I am, two years, two semi-relationships and about 20 guys later, and guess what? Today I realized that he was right. So far, at least. He really knew how to do the boyfriend thing.

I’m talking about midnight phone calls just because he’s thinking of me. Kit Kats in the freezer because that’s how I love them. Rum-punch infused Scrabble tournaments. Curried chicken by candlelight. Pep talks about Pulitzers when I doubted my writing, smiles and laughter and random kisses just because they’re free, and because tomorrow’s never promised.

And tomorrow didn’t exist for him and I for many reasons. Trust me, a couple of frozen Kit Kats doesn’t compare to the misery I saved myself from when we split. I’ve never doubted that but I also never thought he’d be right about no other man being able to love me with the creativity, the originality, and the fire that he did.

This can only mean one thing for me—I can’t have it all. Every man is going to have some type of tragic flaw. The question is, how much am I supposed to compromise? How many tragic flaws is too many?

I whimsically believe that when the connection between two people is strong enough, there’s no such thing as irreconcilable differences. The façade of flaws gets chipped and cracked away eventually to reveal a man who is perfectly imperfect, and fits like a pair of DKNY jeans fresh out of the dryer (yes I’m old school, I still rock with the DKNY jeans).

The truth is, if I was one of those softer women I wouldn’t be in this predicament; I’d be in a relationship. But I’m a little cynical, my heart is playing stellar defense, and I can often see through pretenses that enable men to get into those DKNY’s faster than 007.

So what now? Do I find Andre and in some romantic comedy type of closing scene admit to him that he was always The One?

Hell no. Let me make it very clear that I never have, and never will believe in The One. I really think that there’s a guy out there that will freeze Kit Kats for me, AND trust that when I say I’m going out with the girls, I’m really just going out with the girls.