But is he really such a loser? As a friend of mine recently remarked, “Dating should be like buying art. Stay open-minded while you shop and wait to be struck by the uniqueness of a piece that you want to frame. But the problem is that so many of us go about it in reverse. We walk around with a frame, trying to find a piece that will fit.”
So maybe you found a masterpiece, but didn’t trust your gut because he was a bit on the surreal side and your taste tends towards the romantic. Or maybe you listened to the opinions of your friends. At one time most art-snobs thought that Van Gogh’s work was worthless—are your friends just dating-snobs?
You’ll only know if you pick up that phone and call him, even though most advice books will tell you not to.
I say go for it. But before you do, consider what the writer George Sand wrote, “Vanity is the quicksand of reason.” Are you about to step into a whole mess of the stuff? Just as Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living, so too is an unexamined relationship not worth rekindling.
So think about your motives and then make the decision. Maybe he is an overlooked piece of priceless art or maybe in the end it just doesn’t matter who dumped who: A cheap forgery of love is still a phony no matter how you slice it.
Yes, you can’t always get what you want—or even what you don’t want for that matter—but like the Stones said, if you try some time, you might just find you’ll get what you need.
Ian Kerner, Ph.D., FAACS, is the author of She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman, selected by Amazon.com and Borders as a “Best of 2004” non-fiction title. A companion book, He Comes Next: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Pleasuring a Man was published in January 2006. Ian also authored The New York Times best seller Be Honest-- You're Not That Into Him Either. Ian lives in New York City with his wife, son, and Jack Russell Terrier. Photo © istock/Jelani Memory