Some guys don’t know what they want. I’ve heard this is more common in a Gemini. Take my ex, for instance. He broke up with me a couple months ago, but seems to not quite want to let me go.

I’ve always been attracted to the ones who cause me the most pain. I know, objectively, what it means for a man to treat his girlfriend well, but when I’m deep in a relationship I have no way of implementing the respect I deserve or of summoning up the strength needed to call him on his bullshit. The fact is, whenever a boyfriend has broken up with me or cheated on me, that fire-y, passion-filled pit inside me that’s reserved only for him increases tenfold. I find myself craving him, yearning for him as if my happiness depends on it. And the worst part is, I know this is wrong and only encouraging him to mistreat me further. I just can’t help it.

And so it’s no wonder that after being broken up with, my lust for him and visceral need for him skyrocketed. In such moments all I want to feel was less. Less emotions, less lust, less pain. Like T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” in which fertility and the overt hopefulness of spring is stifling, I too often feel stifled or limited by a man who is too overtly kind to me. And like “The Waste Land,” in which “Winter kept us warm, covering / Earth in forgetful snow,” I too feel comforted and liberated by the prospect of a pervasive numbness.

It had been two months since we saw each other and despite his efforts to see me, to hurt me, to get my attention—anything to keep me at arm’s length—my need for him increased. And this was only heightened by my friends’ urges to stay away. Meanwhile, the idea of him in my mind was elevated to some god-like status. Because admiration and a deep, logical affection, I’ve learned, is always inversely proportional to lust. My friends’ opinions of him would get worse and worse with each passing day. He kept asking to see me, and then blowing up on me when I would listen to my friends’ advice and treat him like a stranger. I was doing everything but thinking for myself. It all seemed so dramatic and I kept wondering, why can’t I just see him? And then one day, I did.

This time though, it wasn’t on his terms. I was the one who called him, who invited him over. I was the one who mounted him and fucked him. And I was the one to tell him when to leave.

Sometimes seeing him and sleeping with him is the only way to get over him. It certainly gives you a dose of reality no friend can provide. To see him is to have that deified figure you’ve built up in your mind for the past couple months dismantled and shattered. To see him is to see that he’s human (and still fat); it’s to remember that what I’ve been missing I never even had.

I couldn’t get over my ex. Then I slept with him. And I realized he’s the same shit I always knew—only, wait a second…he’s lamer.