Ran into ex's friend - positive realization on recovering from rejection

[stella m]

I had a random chance encounter with one of my ex's best friends yesterday. This was the only friend of his I felt a genuine connection with (and the only I was ever Facebook friends with) but it's not like we were particularly close. My ex and I never really kept in contact since the breakup nearly two years ago, save for a few brief conversations about mail forwarding and emailing lease documents. And since we don't share the same circles I never really expected to run into any of his friends.

 

But I was on the train coming home from a movie and I got a message from this friend asking if it was me on the same train. I looked up and there he was. We had a nice friendly catch up chat and he was actually with a couple other coworkers of my ex that I recognized who were equally friendly. He hung back to chat a bit more while his friends headed off and it was nice that it wasn't awkward. For obvious reasons, neither of us brought up my ex. Then we parted ways with a friendly hug. The only time the breakup was subtly and indirectly brought up was when he paused and told me, "You look good. I'm really glad you're doing well." The breakup was a long time ago by now but seeing someone for the first time since then brought back old thoughts on the breakup…and not in a bad way because I had a positive realization.

 

My ex and I may have not worked out (and if we had a chance encounter I'm not convinced it would go quite as smoothly…), but the fact that one of his friends could separate that and go out of his way to catch up with me reminded me of something. Just because someone you loved did not want to continue a relationship with you does not mean there's anything wrong with you. That's just one person in one specific context that it didn't work out with. If you're a genuinely good person, many other people are going to see that in you. You can't take it as a personal slight and let it change the way you look at yourself just because one person out of the many people we encounter decided to go another direction. When you're deeply involved with someone everything seems so personal. But the truth is that most breakups aren't personal. Many times it's just that two people simply didn't mesh - the messy part is just an unfortunate byproduct of that.

 

So in sum, don't let a relationship rejection make you lose value in yourself. You're still made up of amazing qualities that many other people see - so keep remembering to see it yourself as well.

[kbbcoop77]

What a great post! Thanks for taking the time

[Zard0z]

thanks for this, i feel the same way about my breakup.

[Batya33]

I'm glad you had a positive interaction and that it triggered that "aha" moment!