No Winner. No Loser.

The moment...Obviously, I've spent some time thinking about the moment, the moment of that first meeting/sighting of my ex. And yes, a few weeks ago at the gym I actually wished it would happen after having achieved the perfect, never thought possible without the help of a makeup crew, sweaty hotness where my skin was glowing with fresh dew and my hair was just messy enough that it begged to be messed up some more by an indiscreet romp at the nearest acceptable or unacceptable location.

I hoped this would be the moment. Not as I had originally planned, looking my best with my just stepped out of a salon hair, the right coat and sunglasses on and my new and improved boyfriend by my side....No. Not like that but alone, strong and capable and dripping in sweat, releasing irresistible pheromones into the atmosphere that no man could ignore.

A few days later, back at the gym, as I walked up my man made hill of 10.0, I was looking out the window - the window with a clear view of his front door and wondered. I wondered what that meeting would really be like if he walked out and saw me. Would he wave? Would I? I'd probably pretend not to have seen him and try, with all the concentration I could gather at a moment like that (barely any), to focus on the rotating information on my treadmill display while thinking, “don't look at the window, don't look at the window”, until...I couldn't stand not looking anymore. By that time I'd probably see his back turning the corner only to be followed by the swinging of his arm as it held on to the briefcase I got him for Christmas last year.

If the encounter were more face to face, in the gym, would we speak? I can't say for sure but I think that we'd just acknowledge each other with a perfunctory nod followed by a reluctant and surely uncomfortable smile and that would be that. I hung on that thought until it became devastatingly clear that all the moments I had imagined are probably much better than the moment will actually be...I proved myself right.

It happened. The moment happened. The moment where I saw my ex and where, I think, he saw me. I was on the subway platform waiting for the train when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a form walking briskly in my direction with a hurried purpose about him. Only one person I know rushes to get to the end of a platform of a train that's not even close to arriving. That just happens to be his way- being in a perpetual state of late for something.

"I know that body language," I thought to myself. I stole a glance to be sure and...sure enough, there he was. Instinctively, my head turned towards the other direction. This wasn't how I had planned it. The veritably unnoticeable bump (I can't even call it a pimple) left of center of my eyebrows that had formed the night before, had been freshly picked at a few moments prior under the magnifying mirrors and bright lights at Sephora. It had become what looked like a now noticeably misplaced Bindi which I did successfully cover up but still... I knew it was there.

“Don't look at him. DON'T look at him," I said to myself with all the concentration I could gather at a moment like that- even less than barely any. How could I not though? As surreptitiously as possible, I stole another and as he passed behind the stairwell that separates the B and D trains from the F and the V, he saw me. Though our eyes never actually met, I know he did. I felt it. Then, just like that, the moment was gone; as ephemeral as love itself.

It's an odd unsettling feeling to have just noticed someone you loved...still love in some small recess of your heart though you have no good reason to, and pretend that he never existed. Even odder? To believe that the man, who just a few short months ago was asking you to move in and telling you you're the one, has just done the same, whether he still loves you or not.

The moment I had been waiting for...over in an instant. So much less satisfying than I could have ever imagined and more painful than the ones I envisioned where we actually say hello or with the new girlfriend I've created for him in my mind hanging on his arm.

No winner. No loser. Just a moment.

Fuckably Lancome

Now, I don't have much experience in the ad world but I do know that the current Lancome ad showing a beautiful Anne Hathaway holding Magnifique perfume like a hand weight doesn't achieve, what I assume, it set out to do. Does this perfume make you stronger? Specifically in the tricept area? If I thought it did, I might buy it. No one likes a chicken wing underarm. But, what I do know about perfume ads is, primarily, that using any perfume is supposed to make the opposite sex fall at your feet as you've instantly become fuckably transformed. Perhaps it makes you fuckably refined or even fuckably innocent. Whatever it is, if it isn't selling sex, it doesn't work. And, though Anne Hathaway is fuckably Anne Hathaway, I find her pose quite distracting-and not in a good way. Who picks up a bottle of perfume that way? Maybe she's fuckably angry and about to hit her lover over the head with it. If I were her...I'd hit the art director.

The Button That Should Have Been

So I have one very important bone to pick with the Facebook designer regarding what I believe to be a terrible flaw in the program. Where's the Fuck Off button? You know, the one that should be an option when someone sends you a friend request.

The two options, confirm or ignore, would be sufficient if the person sending the request actually got a request ignored notification saying, "Sally ignored your friend request and wants you to fuck off and die tomorrow." But they don't do that. They get notified if someone accepts-why not when someone ignores?

Today, I got a friend request from my ex. I didn't know what to think except...ah..."Fuck Off". Well...that and "You've got to be kidding me". No note attached either; just "Jimmy has added you as a friend on Facebook". Really? Really? As if Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler couldn't have a field day with that.

Did he want to be my friend? Did he want to be able to file our relationship status under amicable? Was he reaching out hoping I'd write saying "Let's get together soon for coffee and talk?".

I called a friend, "Oh-my-God, you'll never guess who just friended me on Facebook."...She guessed and then went into her account...."Oh-my-God, he friended me too...".

Now, you see, I knew something was wrong. I knew he'd never intentionally friend her due to a falling out they'd had over a year ago and considering she fell ill and had chemo and he never reached out, I doubt finding her on FB was at the top of his to do list. Then an office mate said, "You know, he probably just sent it out to everyone in his email address book".

WHAT?...You can do that?... He would do that and not make certain edits? YES...and, well...YES.

So, friending me wasn't a deliberate act, which honestly hurts more than if it were. Is there a bigger statement of "I don't even care enough about your feelings to edit you from the invite list" possible? He had to have known I was in his email list....along with the other jilted friends and ex lovers.

I wonder what they're all thinking. I wonder if they wish there was a Fuck Off button too.

The Truth Of It Is...

I have amazing friends. They pretty much tell it like it is and fatigue and alcohol don't soften the blow.

At 2:10am, after a prolonged valentine's dinner with some of the best friends in the world (see Jessie's menu below) I was re-applying a bit of blush and gloss for the cold walk home. I explained that, you know, I could run into the ex on the way.

New York is the world's largest smallest city. Indeed, six months could pass without ever seeing your neighbor's face. But, having been a student of psychology forced to take statistics to fulfill my math requirement, I knew that, given the laws of probability, that was one stat that, as a newly ex-ed couple where the only thing that separates us other than the vast difference in our personalities is ONE square New York City block, I just wasn't willing to bet on. What I was willing to bet on was that the ride home to Manhattan from City Island, fondly referred to as Shitty Island- though not by me, I love it there, was going to be a long one.

Luckily, Holly and her fiance Michael were with me. Holly happens to have been a marriage and family therapist in a former life and usually has sound advice. The key word here being usually. As she watches me primp, the way most NYC women do in the subway cars, for an event that most likely is not about to take place, she turns to me, and in the truth that has lost it's tenderness with one too many drinks says, "You know, it's over, thank God, and you don't need to waste one more minute thinking about him. It's upsetting".

I should mention that Holly is know for prefacing most statements with, "The truth of it is", and I have to admit, the truth of it is...she was right. However...I couldn't let that be the end of it. There is, yes is in bold and italics, going to be that inevitable moment where we'll see each other again; preferably when he's just come back from an extended stay at Betty Ford and I've finished principal shooting on the screenplay I recently had optioned, but who's keeping score? That day will come and when it does, I intend to be ready.

So, after the final application, I pointed the gloss wand right at her and said, "You know what, you'd do the same thing if you were me". The truth of it is...I was right.

Jessie's Menu: (worth travelling to City Island for...)
Greeted at the door with Champagne and sat down by the fireplace to a wonderful cheese plate
First Course: Roasted Red Pepper Soup (red for valentine's day of course)
Second Course: Short Ribs in a Hoisin Sauce on top of Girts, that's right...Grits, and a side of Broccolini
Dessert: Pot au Chocolat topped with Creme Fraiche
Other drinks on hand, various Cabernets, Veuve Clicquot and Knappogue Castle single malt Irish Whiskey (my favorite)

The One

Sure. The internet and social networking/utility tools have done wonders for connecting people with information and well, with people. But, what it doesn't do? It doesn't make it any easier to get over someone. Especially when said someone has created a Face Book group and you get notices that your friends, who may not even really be friends, joined. Even if you stop getting notices, you know the group is there....a platform for said ex to unleash musings and writings on pertinent topics of interest to all in the industry he's a part of. I must admit, it's compelling stuff. Always has been and I'd be lying if I said I didn't log on to this, can be viewed by anyone page, to see what he's got going-on.

Here's the thing, even though you know you're better off and sometimes it may even feel like it, most of the time, in the early stages of post breakup heart ache that ebbs and flows, you can't help but stay up until 4:30 in the morning pouring over websites with information...creating unlikely scenarios of how much happier he is without you that you're ego can't handle.

You see, you've lost your better judgment...that voice of reason that's supposed to say, "Hey, idiot. Why are you blaming yourself? You know people don't change and you know that the patterns he had with you are the patterns he's had with those before you and will have with those after you." Unfortunately, you can't hear that over the noise your crushed ego is making from the pain of just not having been able to be the one. You know, the one to save him and change him and make him love you the way you wanted and needed. No, the need to be loved is stronger than any logic.

So you search...then swear it off like the bad habit it is and you're fine; until about a week later, on any given week night, when you remember that you would have been cuddling on the couch watching the msnbc rebroadcasts of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show, and so...to fill the void you call some friends, try to write and oh...just one peek....and there it is; his face on the internet, smug and arrogant as ever but still oh so lovable because you know that man. You know his fears, his weaknesses and inadequacies and you accepted them.

One of Those Women...

I've become one of those women. You know, the ones who wear makeup at the gym. Not a lot but enough so that my skin glows with the inner beauty we women naturally possess. In reality, however, when I'm at the gym, my face turns beet red after 10 minutes of serious cardio and I can't have my ex boyfriend see me like that now that he's my ex can I?

Did I mention I happened to move into an apartment a block away from my now ex-boyfriend and a week before the move...ah...yeah, we broke up. In the month that I've been there I have yet to run into him and...ah...yeah, we go to the same gym. So now that that's all cleared up...

I've become one of them. On the pro side- it forces me to look my best at any given moment. On the con side- IT'S EXHAUSTING. Even as I sit here at this quaint cafe, I look in...well, I'm not even sure what kind of, anticipation. Is it...he? Is this the moment we've both most likely, at least in some way, thought about since the day of the split?

You know the moment. That first meeting where you see who wins. Not who wins the war. That can only be determined years later when either one of you has won an Oscar, the lottery or ends up with a terminal illness or a semi-manageable drinking problem. No, this is about who wins the battle of firsts. The one who looks the best the first time you meet, the first to be involved again with an even more fabulous, never knew love could be so good, person who sends the ex running home to lick his/her wounds and call all their friends to discuss how he/she couldn't possibly be happier with that shell of a human hanging on his/her arm.

And let's face it, it's rather ironic that we all go to the gym to look our best but while we're there, we actually look our worst. I was rather pleased with my total body conditioning class last Saturday. Not only did I kick ass in a class that usually kicks mine but more importantly, I had obtained that fuck me I'm sweaty and hot glow and actually hoped I'd run into him. I'd run into him and I'd win.

I had even taken to wearing my hair down on the treadmill which sometimes works well for that post workout sex appeal. Unfortunately, even though I'm fit, my face usually turns ten shades of red when I run and I don't think I've ever been less attractive.

Of course, he's seen me that way before; after a year and a half together he's seen me at my worst. But we all know, when you see your ex for the first time and he/she really looks good, better than you remembered, that's the permanent image you have of the ex in your head and it drives you crazy that you got the worst of it and someone else, said shell of a human, is going to get the best of it.

It may be, admittedly, totally unfounded, but the heart doesn't usually listen to reason. And then I started thinking about all those women wearing makeup to the gym. Maybe they're just waiting for that moment when they run into their exes too.