I’ve always believed that timing is everything. Sometimes life pulls us away from the people or things that are meant for us, and we have no choice but to let go and make room for whatever comes next. Other times, if we’re lucky, life has a funny way of bringing us back to what we thought we’d lost.
In March 2023, when COVID finally began loosening its grip and the world came alive again, I found myself at an art fundraiser in Midtown Manhattan, dressed in Chanel and sipping a martini in a room of mostly strangers. The restaurant was loud, with photographers circling the art patrons like vultures. Then I spotted my ex next to the seafood bar.
There are few things more destabilizing than seeing an ex in the wild. Thankfully, I wasn’t in sweats running around the East Village. (Timing, as I said, is everything.) He looked up, we locked eyes, and my stomach dropped immediately.
This is the problem with exes. When you meet someone new, the uncertainty is exciting. You wonder if they like you. You wonder if they’re attracted to you. You wonder if they’ll call. It’s all very thrilling and hypothetical.
With an ex, on the other hand, you already know what it feels like when they want you, you know what their face looks like when they’re looking at you with love. Now you’re just standing across a crowded room, wondering if they still see any of it.
This particular ex and I had both gone on to date other people and, eventually, found ourselves single again. For all intents and purposes, we had moved on. And yet there we were, years later, staring at each other across a seafood bar like two people in an episode of Twin Peaks.
He looked nervous, but being the well-mannered—and considerably more courageous—person that he was, he didn’t pretend that he hadn’t seen me. Instead, he walked right over.
“Hi, Eileen,” he said. I don’t remember what I said back, but I do know that my nerves became so unbearable, I proceeded to down several more martinis as we talked.
Eventually, I was leaning against the bar, saying God knows what to him, when my arm found its way directly into a candle and my sleeve caught on fire. (For those unaware, burnt tweed smells surprisingly similar to burnt hair.)
There are moments in life when you wonder if the universe is trying to tell you something. This probably wasn’t one of them, but it is possible that my ex looked at me then, all ablaze, and thought: Ah, yes. I missed this little chaotic firecracker. Because shortly after that night, he began pursuing me again.
