The ex-girlfriend is not a person and therefore does not really exist; she is a dark looming reminder of what used to be and of what hopefully will never happen again. The ex is automatically despised no matter how many fluffy kittens she has rescued. Her interests have no merit. Her hair is bad. Her fashion sense leaves much to be desired. She's the worst person in all of God's humble creation and I will never meet her.

Before me, my boyfriend had a three year relationship with someone I'd like to think of as less funny, less attractive, and less interesting than I am. I've seen her picture once and apparently she still goes to my school so there is a possibility I've been walking past her all this time and never realized it. She's probably a great person. She probably cares about others and goes to church every Sunday. She might as well be a saint but because she dated my boyfriend for a very long time it makes her sheer, unadulterated evil. My thoughts drive me crazy. Did he take her to the same restaurants? Did he look at her the same way? Did he love her? Did he call her baby? I'm tempted to sit her down for an interview and discuss every high point and pitfall of their relationship just so I can prove to myself that I am a better fit for the man she's no longer with. Silly me. Automatically disliking someone just because of something that happened in the past. She has no clue I'm alive and here I am, stewing over whether she had a better body. My boyfriend doesn't understand. I attempt to pry information from him but he insists he doesn't want to talk about her. It's the past, he says. Who cares about the past? I do. I care about where he was before me. I care about why they broke up and who dumped whom and who said what. I care about it all because I get a sick sense of satisfaction from knowing that if she were any good for him they'd still be together now. Maybe one day I'll be that ex-girlfriend who has left my footprints for some other poor soul to decipher and despise. Oh, the joy.