I know stupid platitudes and prefab quotes of wisdom are lame, but I am always reminded of what the Desiderata says in these situations…
"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. "
I don’t get angry, I get amused. In a sort of “Ha! So this is what you’ve had to settle for since I’ve been gone?” way.
But my ex-boyfriend of three years, who remains my best friend, has a new girlfriend and all I know about her is her name… I’m dying to see her picture. He never talks about her, but he alludes to the fact that I have more in common with him than she does. I want to know who won him over when my begging didn’t work.
[/tangent]
Okay, nothing but backpatting from now on. Gotcha.
No doubt the Corvette is better but maybe the Kia has a bigger stick-shift.
Sorry Pup, I couldn’t help it. You threw out such a great set-up line!
Seriously, I think you’d get a big show-of-hands if you asked,“How many of you had an SO who talked bad about somebody elses’ looks/personality/sanity/hygiene only to see the SO end up with them after you two split?”
My ex traded down (and I think this may set the bar here) FOUR times.
Seems she got pregnant with loser number one after we’d been separated for several months. It was enough to prompt her mother to ask me “…is there any possibility that you might be the father of this baby?”
Certainly not.
Once she traded down AGAIN, her Mom asked me (half-jokingly, I presume) the same question.
I think she saw her daughter wading in the shallow, slime-coated end of the gene pool and worried for her grandchildren.
This is not particularly correct - check out your own thread on killing people who invade your home if you want to see an example of people disagreeing vehemently and still not crossing the line in IMHO. And my apologies again for hijacking that thread - I was appalled by what I was seeing, but that’s no excuse for hijacking another’s thread. Um, I’m going to end this hijack now, too.
{note to self - get hijacking impulse under control}
Darnit romansperson you took the song right outta my brain. 
Never minded a bit when they traded down.
It’s when they manage to trade up that my teeth start to grind.
I have this great effect on men I break up with it seems, as my exes are all still single. Apart from one, who’s been in a string of short lived relationships, but decided a few months ago to tell me that he still loved me. :rolleyes: Said ex’s first girlfriend post me, was definitely a trade down, and hated me passionately (ah, the disadvantages of a small college), mainly because I was the ex. Personally, I smiled, laughed and said good luck to him, since I knew just how spiteful a person she could be.
Actually, sitting here thinking about it, all of my exes traded down. I’m not being snide, but it’s true to the best of my knowledge, which makes me think…HA!
While I was living in Hawaii, the guy I was madly in love with, engaged to, and generally going to spend the rest of my life with in a haze of rose-scented bliss took up with a woman who was pretty much my exact opposite after he dumped me. I can’t say whether she was better-looking than I was or not, but she was rude, coarse, a smoker and, in general what Hawaiians would call a “tita”, sort of the equivalent of trailer trash (don’t jump on me – my best friends literally used to live in a trailer in West Virginia, so I know how untrue the stereotype is, but I needed an adequate description). The few times I met my successor, she tried to pick a cat-fight with me and once told me my ex had never liked me, despite the fact that we were best friends for 3 years before our relationship turned romantic. I wasn’t upset, just bemused. I remember thinking, “Well, if that’s you want, more power to you, I guess.” I gathered he wanted a change. Like GrizzRich, his family wanted me to get him back, even after I’d moved back to the mainland.
A couple of years later, after he’d moved to the mainland we got back involved for a while and I asked him what he saw in her. He told me she’d latched on to him! If that’s true, I admire her taste, but I’m not necessarily buying that. The rekindled romance died years ago and whereever he is, whoever he’s with, I hope he’s happy. As for me, I’m once again madly in love and I definitely traded up!
CJ