TLDR: I’m hoping someone can help identify a feeling or has experienced something similar
So i had to quickly type this out before I forgot the feeling.
Context
So today something weird happened. I saw an ex who i haven’t seen for 9 months at some random event. And… she looked different. Not good or bad different but just different, but nothing had changed. She wore a top and a btm that I had always enjoyed seeing her in before but….something was different. We didn’t speak. I don’t really know how to describe it. It came along with a somewhat deep sadness. The feeling kept reoccurring because i had to pass by her location to head to the bathroom.
And right after i headed off to a group gathering for dinner and one of the guys had brought along a new girlfriend? whom i had met and not seen for 18 years and i only knew her for 5 or 6 months back then. I think i have a pretty good memory, i closed my eyes and remembered and recited to her what she was like back then and then we chatted easily about the last 18 years as if we had just seen each other last week.
About halfway through as we switched to talk to different tablemates, i was struck by the vast gap between the two situations and i was filled with a weird dissonance.
I’m struggling with the exact question i wish to ask. Maybe….what happened? Did any of you get that weird feeling? That vast gap of…man, does anybody know what i’m talking about?
2 comments
It sounds like you are describing nostalgia.
You used to know your ex better than anyone, and had a deep intimacy that is now gone. So now it’s like you don’t know her anymore, or know her as well, and this adjustment does strange things to our brains
Whereas the acquaintance, you’ve always just known her from a distance and she did not hold a strong place in your life the way your ex did, so it’s easy for her to slot back in where she left off before and your brain can easily understand her “place” for lack of a better term.
So I would chalk this up to you being confronted with the reality of the change in dynamic with your ex and that you are no longer close to her and therefore have a distance that didn’t used to exist. It changes how we see people, even if they themselves have not really changed.