Me, Him and his Ex

When you are a girlfriend, a wife, a lover, you may think you are the only one. But you’re not. Because there is always the ex. I say the ex in singular, because it’s in fact the X, as in X-factor. The love of your partner’s life. That’s the X, that has become a ghost on the radar. Not really there yet always making her presence known. It’s futile to attempt to battle her existance, yet do you welcome her?

In almost every relationship I’ve been in, the X has been present, perhaps with the exception of my first as we were both virgins. The second relationship, which was a long distance one lasting for a little less than 6 months, was with a Dutch boyfriend two years my senior. I recall not only being jealous of his X but also of the knowledge there were pleanty of girlfriends around him when I was not. The X became the faces of many, which from a distance of 600 kilometers and two ferries, was impossible to compete with. During those 6 months we sent eachother numerous love letters. Every day I would be checking the letter box for his latest correspondence, always laced with Joop perfume. I used to spray mine with YSL Paris. One day I had been waiting for his letter for more than a week and although I tried to call him, he was always out. I knew then that one of those anonymous girls had taken my role as a girlfriend. A few days later I got the proof in form of a letter of goodbye. It was very sweet but at that point all I felt was despair and misery. I tucked all the letters away, deep in my closet and called my friends who came over to support me.

My next relationship was ridden in shadows of X’s, because there were two. The first love of E, was a very beautiful girl who I had gone to school with previously. She was very voluptuous, having the curves in all the right places, something I did not. Although apparently she had moved on, E still regarded her highly, almost iconizing her. There was one more girl, a good friend of E which had turned into a fling and short relationship. Although it didn’t work out, this girl was very much in love with E and was prepared to do a great deal to get him back. It often resulted in our appointments being cancelled for other engagements with his X. The final straw came when he took his X to his graduation party instead of me. I recall he came to my place, with a single rose, and I knew instantly something was wrong as he hardly ever brought me flowers. He told me he was sorry but he had to go with his X to the graduation party. That was a day when my love life reached a new low point. I had never felt so defeated. I vowed to myself I was going avenge his indescresion. A week later our relationship was over, and from what I understood he never went back to his X either.

There was one more X that became a particularly haunting story. I had met A in a taxi in Amsterdam and he was very much the reason for my move to Amsterdam. A had a troubled past and his present was equally rocky. A lived in an apartment on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in the centre of the Amsterdam Red Light district. He had lived there for a couple of years sharing the apartment with his X until she disappeared one day, under dark and mysterious circumstances.

A was known for his short temper, and I later learned from his neighbour that they used to have frequent arguments which on a few occasions had even become violent, or so the neighbour suspected. One evening, and this is how I recall it based on the fragments and hearsay I managed to patch together from various sources, his girlfriend left after a particular upsetting bust up. In the same building a bar resided, which she knew the owner of. She left the apartment and went to the bar. Here the accounts somewhat differs, but according to A, the owner of the bar had let her stay the night on his couch in an adjourning room, where he raped her repeatedly. I am not sure if this rape was reported initially, but as soon as A found out about what had happened he got some friends together to pay the owner a visit. Apparently there were customers in the bar and they forced everyone on the floor while they trashed the whole place. A meted out his revenge on the bar owner, which resulted in a a bashed in skull and 3 month long hospital stay. The bar owner barely escaped death. A was sentenced to probation because of his young age and the circumstances around the crime. His girlfriend vanished. He told me he had been searching for her for weeks after the event but she had just disappeared into thin air. Since then he had met friends who confirmed she was still around but she remained gone.

It was probably one of the most haunting stories I was confronted with on such a close vicinity. The X was always there, her suffering and destiny casting a spell over our already doomed relationship. Although I wouldn’t call it an obsession, I became fascinated by this elusive woman that by her very absence became an even closer presence in our lives.
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The X is still there today. In a country far away, I know a beautiful, intelligent girl lives a life parallel to mine. Her thoughts and feelings probably not dissimilar of my own. I think about her, not often but frequently enough for her to leave an imprint on my life… like all the other absent women that have somehow managed to penetrate my very being.

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