I’ve been in a bad mood all day because during my routine morning email check, I received an email from my last ex-boyfriend, from whom I haven’t heard in six months. After some disingenuously polite questions asking about my time in Oxford, he asked me to return the keys to his house that he had given me. Ignoring his jabs at pretending like he cared, I straightforwardly replied that I did not remember anything about a key; which was the truth.

I might sound like the stereotypical resentful ex-girlfriend, and I probably am. I will completely admit that my feelings my cloud my judgment. But I still have not completely wrung out my disgust for him. It’s not that I’m bitter that we broke up, it’s not that I’m jealous he has a new girlfriend (does he? I couldn’t care less). It’s that I honestly think he is one of the most unlikeable people I have ever met.

The first time you meet him, you can’t help but like him. That’s what trapped me to him as well. He knows how to smile at you, talk to you, make you feel like he would go out of his way for you, even though you’ve only just met. When we first started dating, I wanted to show him off to all of my friends, because I knew that he would impress them as well.

The more I got to know him, the more I realized that his congeniality was really just a cover for his vapid intrapersonality. He valued his friendships for how they could benefit him, and saw all his friends as potential connections. I knew something was wrong when I asked him what he wanted to do with his life, and he replied that he never really thought that was important, as long as he made money. However, I was too stupidly in love with him to let that bother me, and I pushed my discomfort aside. Towards the later part of our relationship, he had at that point already lost any feelings for me. Yet, he still asked me to call up my dad’s business connections to help him find a summer internship, meanwhile pretending that he still loved me. Even when I finally caught on to what was happening, he still proposed that we try to amend our relationship; perhaps he worried that if we broke up, my dad’s contacts would not pull through for him. I finally wised up and got out of there (quite literally).

The next time I saw him was at a group meeting of my superviser’s research team (also a job I had helped him get). He smiled at me with his characteristically congenial smile (whenever I imagine his smile, my insides burns with a green flame of disgust), and, much like the email I received today, asked me about how I had been. I didn’t even bother to pretend like I cared, I just responded and continued my work, leaving before he had another chance to speak. That was the last time I saw or heard from him.

Dear Crystal, It’s almost the end of the quarter. How are you and how has life been at Oxford? When are you coming back to Stanford?

When I got his email, I can almost imagine him flashing his unctuous smile, calculating whether the effort for social interaction will be worth the reward.  Whenever I think about the way I let myself be used by him, the way I deprecated myself for him, my entire body (particularly my stomach and my muscles) systemically does flips out of self-disgust, while I can feel my blood pulse in my hands out of anger. I sincerely hope that most girls will never have to experience this feeling of self-deprecation due to a guy.

Best song that describes how I’m feeling now: Picture to burn, by Taylor Swift