I recently had an ex-beau contact me out of the blue. Not that unusual really. I'm sure a few exes have looked me up just out of sheer curiosity. I know I've googled a few of my exes when I had nothing to do at work.

It was funny to see what my first emotional response was to reading his email: amusement and guilt. Kind of like a milk and phlegm loogie — all mingled and mixed together, hard to tell which is which, but still two distinct and very different substances.

Amusement: of all of the beaus of all of my history, he would have been one of the last I would peg as contacting me. Upon reflection, it's not that surprising. Much as I can be, he was at his happiest when he was emotionally tortured. Or at least he seemed that way. Lusted after contentment, but never content when he got it.

Guilt: while experiencing my own phase of torture or be tortured, I chose to fuck with his mind. Well, well after the relationship had ended. A hideous pointless psychological experiment to shake my boredom long after we'd gone our separate ways. It was pointless and infantile. No idea why I did it.

There are things I've done in my life that I wish I hadn't done. Things that horrify me upon reflection. The way I acted is well positioned on the shelf of regret. My actions could be perceived at the time as nothing but malicious, yet had I been confronted at the time, my response would have been "lighten up".

I'm truly sorry.

For anyone who dated me and wonders whatever happened to me...here's the story.

If you're an ex, and you want to know what I learned from the whole ex-perience, see if you can pick your lesson out from a lineup.

kat@adchick.com