A Tribute To An Ex Girlfriend: The Importance of Understanding Goodbye

From pacing up and down the office to escaping outside by the river for lunch.

The subject and tone do not change.

A strange product of my British Brazilian background is that it has allowed me to flit between two quite separate modes.

I have an upper/middle class white British mode and an urban Black British one – being neither of these myself nor quite in between.

I will leave it to others to decide which mode suits me best, but at work my friends are often black.

In this case neither of them are lawyers like me. They work in other departments. Despite my role as head of a legal team, I talk to them more than any of my legal colleagues.

In the pub the drinks are ordered. Needless to say mine is a double.

Heads are being shaken, whilst the guys are lost deep in existential thought.

One of my mates, T, is about 190cm and around 230 pounds. He is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and looks as though he could easily work in security.

The other, Ib, is around my size – 183cm and 200 pounds – and is built like a brickhouse.

The three of us in reality could in certain conditions make a menacing sight.

As when a man stares at us from across the pub and T catches his stare. “Why is that guy staring at us? Does he have a problem?”

I detect a collective undertone, and a certain tension within our number, indicating a potential for things to turn violent.

This is not good. We are minutes away from our workplace.

“Leave it T…Just leave it.”

There is a sense of barely sublimated anger – a paranoia in the air. I understand that this is part of a wider global modern social phenomenon amongst some Western men.

The subject of the discussion, is, and has been for some time, the behaviour of women in the world of modern day relationships.

“I went to a speed dating event,” T explains, “And I won an award for the most eligible man there. But it taught me a lesson. And that was a lesson I will never forget!”

“What lesson was that?” I ask.

“It taught me that I am a Beta male provider! I was not an Alpha!” He replies, the anger and self disgust written across his face.

He goes on.

There is talk of the “Red Pill” and of the “Blue Pill” – which I would loosely describe as a modern day pseudo-philosophy based upon an oversimplified false dichotomy which does not often cater for the nuance of human behavior.

There is talk of Jordan Peterson – although the manner of dissemination of his ideas seems to subscribe to that modern day pyramid formula in which very few actually read his books, but those who do pass their own (often wrong) interpretations of his thought down until, by virtue of Chinese Whispers, one of our great modern public intellectuals is heralded as some sort of Roosh V type figure. An icon for budding pick up artists across the globe.

There is also talk of Teddy Bears.

T: “When I look back now at how I was with women when I was younger, man, I am embarrassed. I can’t believe I actually did those things! You know, I have never told anyone this, but on one date I went on with this girl, I actually bought her a Teddy Bear”.

At this juncture in the conversation T looks me squarely in the eyes. He conveys great great shame at this admission and appears to be seeking both acknowledgement of the crime and exoneration at the same time.

“Dude, dude, dude. That was hardly a crime. I can not really think of any good reason why a guy should not buy a girl a Teddy to be honest, if that is what he feels like doing.” I say.

T smashes his huge fist onto the table sending shockwaves across the pub. “No! Never again!”

Something very strange is happening.

T is the nicest and kindest man you could ever possibly meet. Appearances can be deceiving. I know that deep down he is a “Gentle Giant” and a softie. Maybe deep down he really is a Beta male provider. I wonder whether he has engaged in the exercise of thinking critically about what the disadvantages, if any, are of being so.

Yet T talks with a great deal of anger and hurt when he relates his stories of romantic betrayals and failures.

At one stage he says he explains why Madonna left Sean Penn. “She couldn’t handle him! She couldn’t handle him because he was an original. A gangster! A real man!”

“Didn’t Sean Penn tie her up in a basement?” I ask.

“He tied her up in a basement?? Badman! Gangster! Respect! Respect!” T enthuses wildly, his eyebrows forming a frown and slamming his fist upon our table again to the second great surprise of our neighbours.

“Mate, you really need to stop doing that.” I say.

This is strange. I know T would never do anything like that himself. T is probably a better boyfriend to his partners than I am. I have seen him with women. The most notable

characteristic he shows in even those practical work based interactions is genuine empathy.

In fact, I am not quite sure how to break this to T, but the reality is that I think he is really just a big black Teddy Bear.

Something equally strange happened this week.

I have been talking to T and Ib about my ex. Boy have I been talking….

I told them both how she was never interested in my money, when other women might have been. I told them about her noble character.

I told them how surreal it felt when I thought now about how I had once questioned how much effort she was making with her appearance. There was a time when I would have chopped off my left hand to spend time with her. I know that I would do the same now. So how had that sort of complacency set in in between?

I told them about how losing her felt like being constantly being stabbed in the stomach and in fact how the best way to express how I feel about the loss would be to do the same. Not because I think it sounds cool. Or as some sort of Emo gesture cry for help. Only for the simple fact that it is the only thing I could think of doing which made sense at the time.

In fairness, they did both listen attentively. Boy did they listen….

One day during lunch around a week ago, I mentioned my ex and T dropped his face into his hands, shaking his head with a smile of disapproval.

“You know I really thought you were going to make it today…This would have been the first day you had got through without mentioning your ex since we met. But anyway….”

I thought about the implications of this, if true, for a second. “That’s not true. I have not been mentioning her every day.”

T shakes his head at me and smiles. “You did. I just did not want to say anything.”

The next day at lunch whilst we talk about life and love, Ib mentions how he met his ex. A mutual friend turns around to ask me: “What about you Elliot? Why are you single?”

T is sitting across me and looks up, eyebrows raised – not so much in expectation but in warning.

“Well, you know every man has a story to tell about HIS ex, I suppose.” I say. T gives me a nod of approval.

T has told me about the most significant romantic relationship in his life and how he now regrets his feelings over the 2 years after it ended. He describes the “Blue Pill” reaction amongst men to break ups as “all wrong” because of the impacts such as depression and because of its apparently incongruous role in evolution. His analysis does not seem to allow men the freedom to grieve.

Ib and T seem to have interpreted my recent conversations with them as a betrayal of the Red Pill philosophy – something which I have never professed to subscribe to in any case.

I can almost understand this. Ib, T and I very much form the Alpha Male circle at work. Whether this is more form than substance, in talking about my ex so constantly I have arguably begun to unravel that collective image.

There is something else to it. At work I am probably most respected for qualities such as intellectual rigor, stoicism and leadership. I have had to hold my ground in several legal battles. I am also a figure of authority, by virtue of the seniority of my job role.

So although Ib and T are both older than me (at 36 and 38 respectively), in some ways I have assumed the role of father figure in the Alpha Male circle.

As a former boxer I am still physically strong. I can outdrink either of them. I tied with them both in arm wrestles…at the same time.

T will often ask me for my considered opinion on matters such as how I, using my skills as a lawyer and writer, would formulate an argument that men are stronger than women.

He also urges me to meet his friends who he claims (somewhat oddly) have been influenced by many of my comments about masculine energy and how it needs to be properly harnessed.

To this extent my confession about my (lack of) hope for the future and how I am not interested in any other woman romantically apart from my ex have perhaps been experienced as a betrayal of my role at best, or even worse, as painful by them.

Tensions really began to rise around, I would say, a week ago, when we were talking about the role of men and procreation in evolution.

At this stage I committed what constitutes the biggest sin and taboo in the Red Pill community (which again I make no claim to be part of).

I was asked about the prospect of settling down and raising a family.

What must be borne in mind at this juncture is that I am not at all a man who is comfortable with his emotions. My IQ and EQ are hideously imbalanced.

In fact my first reaction to splitting up with my ex was to re-enter the ring. I thought that if I could prove that I could be strong and withstand extreme physical punishment, I would perhaps be able to numb myself to emotional punishment.

Whilst in the office I lost myself to fantasies of being beaten severely, having my face bloodied, breaking bones and spitting blood. It seemed to me that this was really the only option I had left at that stage to avoid breaking down completely.

But I was 34 and had not stepped in a boxing ring formally for years. I was unconvinced about my capacity to deal with that level of physical pain now compared to in my younger days and I had a gut feeling (in my stabbed stomach) that the physical pain would only accentuate the emotional one.

I am a really a man who has spent his entire life running from the reality of emotions.

I remember how my ex encouraged me to tell her in person what I had told her by text. Those magic 3 words. When I lost her, I spent the next year of my life losing my mind by doing what I could to escape thinking about it.

So when I began to talk, although I started strongly and sounded very much like my usual tutorial self, things quickly became messy.

There is a YouTube video of Mike Tyson discussing the emotional impact of the death of his 4 year old daughter upon him. You can find it by Googling “Mike Tyson Intense Interview” – although in truth it makes uncomfortable viewing.

Let me just say that it was a bit like that.

I said something like this: “Well, to be honest, I don’t think I will ever….you know, have children…I mean now. I mean not now. You know? Erm…I feel it is important for philosophical reasons to erm…you know….have children with the right person. And I believe that there is only one such person for all of us….So…You know what I mean, don’t you? There is no “1” after “1”. There is only “2”. Erm…do you know what I am saying?”

At some stage after starting my point, my voice started to buckle under the emotional strain of remembering my ex and I realised that I was not going to make the end of it.

My female colleagues who, as usual, were listening tacitly from the front of the office began to acknowledge the strangeness of this moment with mutual glances – although in fairness I can understand that this would have sounded quite frightening (particularly for a manager who usually strikes such a severely authoritarian and self-controlled note).

So I said “Sorry everyone, I know I shouldn’t do this.” and got up to leave my desk to avoid making more of a scene.

And now that you've been broken down, Got your head out of the clouds, You're back down on the ground,

And you don't talk so loud, And you don't walk so proud, Any more, and what for.

(Estranged, Guns and Roses)

This was the moment I had not only transgressed but completely inverted the core of the Red Pill philosophy. My friends were panicked. How could the leader of the Alpha pack let the team down like this? For an Alpha male in the prime of his life to declare he would never procreate if it was not with “the one” was unthinkable.

“Red pill man! Red pill! Come on!”

At this point T was standing in front of me.

“You sound like you are still in love with her!”

“Well, maybe I am. Listen mate, I am not ashamed of it. What are you going to do about it anyway? I mean, really, what the fuck are YOU going to do ME? Exactly! Nothing. I know you are never going to put your hands on me!”

“And I know you are never going to put your hands on me!”

As you can tell, that escalated quickly. Very quickly.

T and I both had our hands on eachother’s throats and had to be pulled apart by Ib.

We were both called into HR to explain what exactly had happened and why. This was in fact embarrassing – not just professionally but personally.

T and I hugged it out and made up.

“Show me some love, you big dumb motherfucking Teddy Bear!”

“Respect man. You can love your ex until you’re dead in your grave if you want b. It’s all good!”

Something strange is happening to men across the globe.

But – in fairness – something strange is happening to many women too.

How many women have laughed about what sort of job a man does? Or what car he drives?

Red Pills. Sugar daddies. Shaming.

Where did it all start and where will it all end?

That is a subject for another day.

Ultimately, it is just as Axl Rose sang: “I know it’s hard to keep an open heart when even friends seem out to harm you.”

This brings me onto my ex.

It did finally occur to me just how radical a position her one was in the world of today.

I talked to her for hours over strands of my thoughts on philosophy, sociology, Art, etc…

But the truth is, I know now why she was a better and more refined person than I was.

For all of my talks on these subjects, she simply operated on a higher level of consciousness than I did.

Because of who I am as a person, and the sort of life I have led, I have something of a rebel warrior consciousness. This operates at the base level of survival and attack.

It is something which has served me well professionally and is conducive to independent critical and creative thought. It enables me to take up and defend difficult positions and to launch ways of viewing the events of the world from an alternative perspective.

However within the context of a relationship, it seems that the rebel warrior consciousness does not function so well.

My ex operated at the consciousness of love. I am not a man at peace. She was however a woman at peace.

She understood, perhaps helped by her religious beliefs, the importance of treating people with fairness and kindness always.

This is what made my knowing her so spiritually enriching.

She displayed courage and bravery in trying to make the most of her life with an open heart and kindess and love. It does of course take tremendous guts to do that in today’s world generally and particularly in a place like London.

When people hear me becoming choked up as I talk about her they perhaps do not appreciate that what haunts me about losing her is not just knowing that my future will not be with her but all of the unanswered questions.

How did she come into my life and leave?

How did she know I was “the one”?

In truth, there was a great love story there.

There was also something in the idea of light shining on darkness and the Pure Maiden meeting the Big Bad Wolf.

She provided me with a gateway to see the world in a different light - with optimism and hope. She completed me by bringing a feminine perspective to my drab, hyper masculine life.

She brought magic to my life and a smile to my face.

When we were in Tunisia and Torquay, it felt as if we were on the edge of the world by the sea. It felt like a deeply religious and spiritual experience because we had transcended the boundaries of human experience and I felt things when I saw her that I have never been able to put into words.

It felt like Fate.

There were strange inexplicable coincidences. A scar in the perfect shape of a love heart. Her dream about me being chased.

It was complete spiritual bliss being in the company of someone else and knowing that was all I needed. I would have been happy if the world had frozen then. But it did not.

Because we were at one stage able to experience this complete bliss in one another’s company, she lifted the burden of self doubt from my shoulders and this felt like chains being lifted.

Her profoundly developed and often unflappable moral compass provided me with the inspiration and incentive to be a better human being.

For these reasons she will always be the most beautiful woman in the world to me – and at some level, I know I will always love her.

And yet I was not there for her when she most needed me to be. When I think of that now, it feels so strange. She was a beautiful woman inside and out. How could any guy not want an angel by their side always? It is like the proverb of a fool who loses everything because of his own hubris and then spends the rest of his life regretting it.

I know now I should have asked her the biggest question any man can ask any woman he loves, when I had the chance to.

She was faced with choices which would make most people crawl away and hide, but she met those decisions bravely and always with an open heart.

In spite of my strange ways and my arrogance, she was my witness, my angel and my biggest believer over the past few years.

What she gave me was unconditional love and understanding.

In the world of today, that is both the hardest and the bravest thing anyone can do.

This is why I was so affected by the message of Max Spiers (Rest In Peace by the way).

Something clicked after my last conversation with my ex - over a year after we split up.

Something finally dawned on me at the age of 35. She told me to treat other people well and that treating others badly would only end badly.

I have gone through a truly extraordinary moment in my life. I been receiving information from a particular band of frequency which I was previously blinded to.

After a life of sin I think I finally understand. I have not gone crazy. In fact what was crazy was my implicit belief that I could treat other people in the way I did without consequences.

People like my ex.

I am experiencing shame and guilt (for the first time) about what I have said to others over the past few years and I have been apologizing to them this weekend one by one.

I do also feel tremendous shame over things that I said to my ex and I know that I owe her an unreserved and lifelong apology.

The paradox is both strange (and in my case) near fatal: I did not love her properly but I will never stop loving her. In view of the paradox, I just want her to be happy.

T and Ib are right in one very narrow sense. I know I cannot just call my ex and start to cry. I dream about her every day but I have to be a “Man” with a capital “M” and allow her to move on, because it is the right thing to do. I have to grow up although moving on is terrifying.

I am now finally reaching the stage at which I can imagine her with someone else smiling and being happy and feel a sense of peace. I do not feel happiness as such but I do feel a sense of acceptance.

The last advice my ex gave me was to treat people well and start with myself.

My friends do not necessarily trust this spiritual awakening I describe. They understand that my feelings are genuine. But they are not quite sure how to interpret them. After all, Kurt Cobain did once sing “I’m so warm and calm inside, I no longer have to hide” and we all know now what that meant.

Nonetheless I think The Dark Season may be coming to an end. I feel a renewed faith and warmth towards other people. And in truth this feeling is truly liberating.

The most radical and revolutionary act that is possible today in 2019 is to offer someone unconditional love.

My ex did that for me. And I will never forget her.

“We ourselves may be loved only for a brief time… Even so, that will suffice… There is a land for the living and there is a land for the dead”