Liar.

A certain well-known social networking site is trying to ruin my morning.

I signed on quite innocently to finalize plans to meet up with some friends on Saturday. Loe and behold, my ex shows up on my live feed as posting a video. Now this is completely unremarkable except for the fact that there is a comment on the video with a certain name underneath it. Now, had this been any other name, I wouldn’t have thought a single thing, moving on with my day. But, this was the name of a woman who had sent me menacing text messages and voicemails for a long part of my relationship with him. I had never met her and had no idea what she looked like. He assured me after the text message disaster that she was no longer in his life at all. In fact, he assured me that she was nowhere near our city.

Cut to several months ago when we were rehashing our relationship YET AGAIN. As he was cooking dinner, I made the mistake of looking through his camera as he had recently returned from a trip overseas. Realizing I was flipping through the pictures of otherwise his family and desert landscapes, he threw himself across the room (in my mind I see this all in slow motion with him melodramatically yelling, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”) right as I found the pictures he did not want me to see. The girl. The girl in his room wearing his robe. Him at her birthday party, hugging her and kissing her on the cheek. Him kissing the girl under a street light. The girl in, uh, a compromising position. (What I WOULD GIVE for access to this photo now...)

Back to this morning. Curiosity got the better of me upon seeing the name of the childish text harasser and I clicked on her profile. It wasn’t until this morning that I actually put together that she of the threatening text messages and she of the illicit photographs were one and the same. There are pictures of the two of them from the entire summer. There are flirtatious comments back and forth between them from the entire last year.

And, all I feel is stupid, stupid, stupid.

I did not want to find this out. And, I honestly wasn’t looking to improve my career as a cyber sleuth. However, this has inadvertently put the last year of my romantic life under a harsh light of introspection. Lies, almost all of it. In a fit of heart-pounding anger, I emailed him to let him know that I had found this out and that I would henceforth be blocking all communication with him. I hope all the lies he has told keep him warm at night.

Luckily, other than one childish email (which I have to admit made me feel much better), I will not let this ruin my day, my week or my expectations of love. I went on another epic date with my giddy first date of last week and we have plans to go out again soon. I really enjoy spending time with him as the conversation is always quite comfortable. He was even gracious when I kicked his ass in tennis and scrabble.

I am going to try my hardest to not let the circumstances of my past relationship influence the opportunity of the future. I am not going to let the (now justified) paranoia over my last failed love close my heart to something new. And, mostly, I’ll be damned if I let this ruin my day.