Personal Space

How much time is enough time before you're ready to see your ex?

Usually you can use the basic equation of half the time you date = the amount of time needed to gain enough time before you can see the person and really be okay.

I broke the rule. I thought that I would be okay after only a week and a half, and we would be just fine as friends with no problems and everyone around us would not even know that we dated. It wouldn't be awkward, it wouldn't weird, everything as usual, right?

Wrong.

At first, it was fine. I wasn't filled with songs of joy and passion, but I wasn't angry or hurt. I was ready to enjoy the haunts of Halloween and Knott's Scary Farm, and I just planned on staying away from his arms to hold in haunted houses, that was the game plan. I succeeded with some minor small talk, and we were cool. Friends.

The not so cool part was watching him flirt with a friend the entire night only to somehow be thrown in the same log with him and her crotch to crotch on the log ride together. All three of us crammed in together shooting through some crappy ride where crazy people are jumping out at us. Him in the back, her as a buffer, and me in front with an scowl that no one could see because I was sitting in the front. Then there was another couple in front of us, so yes, I was the odd man out, squashed between two couples.

My face was revealed in the picture that they take when you're shooting down the waterfall. A picture's worth a thousand words, cause I looked pissed. "Wow, you look really mad," he said to me. Really? Gee, I wonder why. Thanks for pointing it out.

So, maybe personal space after even a short relationship is more needed than thought. Shooting the other person in a space shuttle to outer space would be preferable for a time being, so I'm thinking of dating an astronaut next, as long as he doesn't have a diaper wearing obsessive co-worker.

This really was the first time I didn't "burn bridges" and had an amicable breakup with a man. Usually I try to burn it with heavy artillery and a lavish fireworks show. As a good friend once told me, "If it's really worth salvaging, you don't want what's left anyway, an old rickety bridge. You should burn it and rebuild a better, stronger bridge." Well, maybe my old tried and true method was better. Or maybe I just need some more space.