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Monday, January 12, 2009 12:00 AM

The two-boyfriend problem

I miss the one I left, but I don't want the one I left him for!

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  • Monday, January 12, 2009 08:05 AM

    The 20s

    Breaking up hurts at any time, but it can be especially painful in your 20s because you haven't learnt how well you do actually survive it yet. Also, I think that the heart and mind can run on very different rails - in your case the breakup with your most recent ex made complete sense given that you were avoiding each other for weeks beforehand. However the heart gets a shock when the separation suddenly happens, and it's not always easy or possible to reconcile the heart's and mind's view at that age. Really you just have to sit with it and try not to do anything about the situation while the hurt fades. There's also likely a little ego hurt there; he dumped me instead of me dumping him - and there's nothing abnormal or wrong about that feeling. The person in control quite likely heals faster.

    What's happening is that a deeper part of you that you can't quite connect with knows all about its attractions and capabilities, and you're pretty much just along for the ride trying to work it out. Accept this and do use your intelligence to look for patterns and reconcile logical behaviour with your desires, but don't be too hard on yourself (let the rest of us do that! - Most writers are older than their 20s.)

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