There isn’t one person in the world under the age of 12 who hasn’t experienced a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.  And if you just so happen to fall under the alternative lifestyle category, you’ll be happy to know that the rules of relationships — even those that involve breaking up — still apply; except for borrowing each other’s clothes.  That’s about the only rule you have all to yourselves — but that’s not the point of this post.  

Having experienced a decent relationship (as well as decency lasts in the eyes of a typical “spring fling”), once that relationship has ended, there’s no guarantee that it’s really over.  Sure, you may be the one to think so, but leave it up to your ex to challenge that theory with subliminally messaged phone calls, novelistic emails, and unromantic steak & cheese dinners by candle light.  

The signs are all there that those stars in your former mate’s eyes are the glimmer of hope that you’re pressed enough to swallow your pride, blindfold yourself and dive back into that dead end relationship one more time that you schemed so effortlessly to get out of. 

Take a peek at some of the signs to see if you’re being tricked into a trap:

• The phone calls that finally diminished into a single txt message per month have increased to 5 phone calls and text messages per week.  
• The emails that have become nonexistent have augmented into 4 emails per day.   
• Your ex hasn’t forgotten your daily routine and has coincidentally bumped into you at the local market, ironically holding a box of your belongings in the trunk of their car that you vowed never to pick up from their apartment once you’ve freed yourself from the death trap of the relationship.   
• They ask you about your personal life and seemingly place flashbacks in your mind of when your romantic affiliation with them was blissful.   
• They try to make you jealous by impersonating a piping hot life they’ve carbon-copied from a daily soap opera. 
• Now they laugh at all your jokes, forgetting that while you were together, they rarely heard a word you said. 
• They try to replace emotion with meaningless sex, thinking that because you’re no longer together, it’ll make you remember what you tried so hard to forget. …not mention they want to do it with their shoes on.
• They only make sexual comments to you because they ran out of profound statements during the rise and fall of the relationship. 

As tricky as some of these mouse traps may be, if you must look for the silver lining, I guess it’s always good to be reminded that you’re still a baaad mamma jamma.

And if you’re one of those desperate exes whose finally missing a good thing now that it’s gone — GAME OVER SUCKER,  it’s over and now it’s time for you to get it through your head!  It’s not very hard to accept that your ship has sailed.  And if you think I’m lying, then you don’t know that 90% of any effort is getting started. 

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Quote of the week:   “Breaking up is a natural evolution when you try to figure out what you want in life. If you’re with an individual who isn’t moving in the same direction and at the same rate that you are, it ain’t going to work.”  – Usher