My name is not Roger.

I saw my ex-girlfriend this past weekend at a club, where the 2-3 degrees of separation that had been maintained between us for the past three years fell apart in a collision of mutual friends/acquaintances. I was surprised, although I shouldn’t have been. We did not speak, and I may have come across as rude. That was not my intent--I wasn’t angry, or even annoyed. I just didn’t think that it would be constructive to speak to her while hammered, because I’m stupid when drunk. I’m also prone to fits of anger (which are rare, but vitriolic) and although I didn’t feel particularly peeved at that moment, there was certainly room for growth. But I mostly didn’t talk to her because there really wasn’t anything to say. Instead, I gamely attempted to dance (briefly) and sit on a couch (more successfully, and for a much longer amount of time). I also provided legal advice on a NJ landlord-tenant dispute. This advice chiefly consisted of, “YEAH! YEAH! THAT’S BULLSHIT MAN! YOUR PARENTS SHOULD GET AN ATTORNEY!” Lastly, I introduced myself to George Ho for the third fucking time--for someone that’s presumably intelligent and always sober when we meet, Mr. Ho has a hard time remembering names. But most of the night was spent in a funk. This was so for three reasons.

First, seeing my ex-girlfriend made me feel very old. Don’t get me wrong. In many respects, I am a young twenty-eight. I don’t have kids, or a wife, which puts me among a shrinking minority among my age-group at my firm. I can also be an infant--if I ever get around to giving someone an angry dragon, I think I would laugh very hard. But seeing this person again lent a different perspective. When I was with her, I was still in school. That’s the stage of your life when you don’t know exactly who you are, but you do know who you would like to be: i.e., doing this, owning that, and with her. Well. I’m a lawyer, I have stuff, and I’m with someone who’s not too shabby. If I had ambition, I would trade those goals for new ones. But I don’t, and as a result, even though I’ve been quite happy recently, that happiness remains foundationally suspect. This was not a problem when I was twenty-four, and still dreaming of greener pastures.

Another thing that I enjoyed about being young is the potential for personal growth. Even if illusory (b/c people don’t change), it’s comforting--whatever personal foibles I have, I’ll outgrow it. But I never did. And at twenty-eight, I’m fairly certain that I am whoever I was meant to be. The factual circumstances will change (wife, kids, professional accomplishment), but whatever it is that’s essentially me will stay the same. This was an unhappy realization--knowing that there will always be some part of me that is godless, avaricious, and selfish--and sort of surreal, given the context surrounding my epiphany (drunk and in the dark, enveloped by sound and surrounded by a horde of similarly intoxicated, oversexed bourgeoisie).

Second, seeing her brought back a lot of bad memories. Not all related to her, of course. But our break-up was acrimonious and presaged the worst year of my life. Initially, drugs and relationship trauma do not mix. Next, I can’t express how worthless one can feel after graduating from a purportedly elite law school with no job in hand and a big fat load of student loans on one’s back. This coincided with the unanticipated end of my father’s career, which bothered me more than my own unemployment. With time, these things rectified themselves. But I don’t like thinking about them because (1) I’m a fatalist; (2) in my experience, happiness is cyclical; and (3) I’ve just enjoyed a long period of happiness which, in light of recent events, shows signs of flagging.

Lastly, love feels cheap when you can be in a room with someone that you formerly loved very much, and realize that you don’t even know them.