Most everyone has had a time in their life when they attempted to get a girlfriend or boyfriend back who had broken up with them even though it was absurd to try. Myself included.
This is a follow-up to my article, “Should You Try to Get Them Back?” You’ll soon find out the answer to that question in my story about a heartbreaking Christmas Eve I experienced many years ago. I had an awesome comeback though that still makes me smile.
I was in my mid-twenties trying to find my way in the world. Good jobs were hard to come by and my girlfriend of several years was growing impatient. She wanted to have the things that only a high salary could afford.
Jenny had landed a good job at a well-known international company. Within a few months, I began to sense that she had met someone new. There were the increasingly frequent trips after work to the employee’s bar hangouts, persistent secretive phone calls, and a major shift in her attitude towards me.
My intuition was screaming at me, but my limited experience caused me to ignore it. I wasn’t ready to face what I was sensing. I have since come to trust my intuition, especially in situations such as these.
Then one day out of the blue, she told me she had met someone new and didn’t want to see me anymore. I asked who the guy was and she said it was one of the executives where she worked.
I was heartbroken. I felt like a failure in my relationship with her and in my ability to find a good job. The fact that she had taken up with an executive who probably had a high salary made it even worse.
I wasn’t ready to let her go. So I began a quest to get her back. It wasn’t long after, I finally moved on, that I realized how ridiculous and humiliating my efforts were.
I wrote her letters and poems. Amazingly, I had never written a single poem before that time. I left flowers and gifts at her door. I got no response from her whatsoever.
I lived in a tiny apartment in a dingy building across a busy street from her large apartment in a perfectly manicured building. Being so close I often saw Jenny and her new boyfriend getting in and out of his brand-new Nissan sports car. I felt like a total loser.
Christmas was approaching so I decided to make one more grand effort to get her back. I wrote her a long poem that professed my undying love and devotion. (This seems funny to me now as I write this.)
I knew that she would be spending Christmas Eve at her grandfather’s house, so that’s where I decided to make my last attempt. I put her name on an envelope with my letter inside and attached it to the front door of her grandfather’s house well before the start of the event. (This was before email and text messaging, which would have made it infinitely easier.) At the bottom of the letter, I ask her to signify her decision to be with me by turning on the exterior light next to her grandfather’s front door or turning it off if the answer was no. I even gave her a time that I’d check.
I drove anxiously to her grandfather’s house at the appointed time. When I arrived, I just sat in my car without looking at the light while I worked up my courage. When I was prepared, I turned with hopeful anticipation toward the light. It was off! I just slumped in the seat with grief. Still unwilling to accept the truth, I got out of my car to take a closer look at the light to make sure it was off. It was. 🙁
It’s incredible what our minds will do at times like these. It’s almost like our brains are trying to be kind to us when reality is too painful.
My comeback!
I left and in a few days, I decided to move on. I began this process by taking massive action to improve my life. It wasn’t long before I landed a dream job with a popular international corporation. Within a few months, I had a new apartment and I was dating again.
I worked in the department that managed their extensive fleet of company cars for managers and executives. These were not your typical company cars. They were all luxury cars and sports cars. One day after being there for several months my boss came into my cubical and threw a set of keys on my desk. He said, “Enjoy tooling around in this over the weekend.” It was the keys to the most sought-after sports car of all! I was beside myself, considering the embarrassing car I owned.
I knew immediately where I’d drive that beautiful sports car right after I got off work. Yep! You probably guessed it — Jenny’s apartment. Although I had driven these sports cars many times while performing the duties of my job, when I got into this one knowing it was mine for the entire weekend and where my first stop would be, I shook with excitement!
I drove directly to Jenny’s apartment and as luck would have it, she and her new boyfriend were just getting out of his new Nissan sports car. I drove slowly passed her, tapped on the horn, waved, smiled, and powered away! I am not a vengeful person, but that was one of the sweetest comeback moments of my life. I want to do it again right now! 😀
It wasn’t long before I had a new girlfriend who was a manager for a distinguished U.S. company. Once I was with her, I couldn’t remember why I was so upset about losing Jenny.
I eventually became the youngest senior manager in the United States for that company. And Jenny ended up writing a couple of letters of her own that asked me to forgive and reconsider her. Although we never got back together, we did become friends and still are to this day. I have many fond memories of our good times together.
Lessons
- If your girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, or spouse has decided to be with another person, don’t waste your time trying to get them back.
- The next relationship is almost always better than the last.