This week Amy tells us about her experience of bumping into an ex…

Picture the scene. It was an average afternoon, on an average day, in an average week. So average in fact, that I was in Boots on a routine lunch time trip picking up a few ‘necessities’ – which is pretty much anything in the shop claiming to make my eyes sparkle brighter than Simon Cowell’s teeth; make my skin look healthier than a plate of broccoli and my cheeks smell like rose petals (by using the type of cream that you’re not sure whether you should be massaging into your pores or eating with a spoon). I digress.

Where was I? Ah yes, Boots! I was having the kind of day where you think ‘If I bump into anyone I know, the ground better open up and swallow me whole’. My hair was scraped back into a top knot; my make-up, having been applied half-heartedly in a state of semi-consciousness at some unquestionable hour, was sliding further off my face; and I was wearing one of those ‘this will do, I’m only going to work’ kind of outfits. And that’s when it happened. I bumped into my ex. I know, ahhh!! Now, the law of bumping into an ex states that if you’re having a bad hair day, wardrobe crisis or generally feeling like rubbish, you will bump into them.

So there I was casually perusing the aisles, idly picking up pots of sweetly scented goo and colour testing the nail varnishes (you’re so not supposed to do that), when out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar face walking towards me. To say I saw him walking towards me is actually a lie because in reality I didn’t clock him until he was close enough to see every flaw on my skin, and probably think to himself ‘What a wreck,  I’m glad I dumped her’.

As we both did an immediate double take my brain went into overdrive, ‘What should I do?’, ‘Should I stop and chat?’, ‘Oh god no, that would be too painful?’, ‘What would I even say?’ All of which happened in the space of about two sweat inducing seconds, leaving me feeling more confused than an OAP using the tube for the first time.

At this point I half expected my brain to intervene and diffuse the situation with some altogether brilliantly-fantastic conversation. Asking too much? Clearly, because the only word that was delivered to my mouth was ‘alright?’. Alright? Surely when you bump into your ex and you’re looking less than desirable you’re supposed to, at the very least, be able to come up with something breezy, witty, and all round ‘I’m awesome didn’t you know, sorry you’re missing out’, sounding nonsense. Unfortunately not for little old unprepared me. That’s the best that I could come up with before legging it in the opposite direction in search of something, anything, I just couldn’t remember what.

That’s the thing you see. Bumping into my ex had left me feeling weak at the knees, slightly confused and somewhat disorientated. I just didn’t know why? I definitely wasn’t still harbouring feelings for him and I certainly didn’t feel any attraction towards him.

I think I left Boots that day with a toothbrush. I also left feeling somewhat reminiscent, but in a good way. Chances are my ex probably left feeling the same. A little shocked at first, then a little embarrassed and maybe, just maybe, a little memory of our time together popped into his head and made him smile too. And that’s when I realised – regardless of how long ago you split up, how bad you look on that particular day*, or what pathetic excuse of a conversation you make, you will always share ‘those times’ and ‘those memories’. And that my friends, is something you can’t buy in Boots!

*It does really matter. All other times, like events you know you’ll see him at, be prepared and make sure you look beyond fabulous!