Aba Luke

Re­la­tion­ships are such roller­coast­er rides. One day things are won­der­ful and the next, ug­ly words be­tween part­ners could mean the end of some­thing once thought to be the best thing in the world.Life al­ways goes on though. We get up, dust our­selves off, change the bed linens af­ter days of sob­bing and we even­tu­al­ly fall in love again. It's re­al­i­ty and whether we choose to be­lieve it or not, love is re­cov­er­able.The ex-part­ner sce­nario is a com­mon one. Whether there may be feel­ings still float­ing around or not, see­ing an ex-lover is al­ways weird. It's of­ten more un­set­tling when one of you have an­oth­er part­ner on your arm. So the ques­tions now be­come, How should you act? What should be said? Should any­thing be said? Should in­tro­duc­tions be made? What's the prop­er pro­to­col when it comes to the ex-fac­tor?

To in­tro­duce or not?

The T&T Guardian went in search of these an­swers. Lo­cal im­age and eti­quette con­sul­tant, Cather­ine Gor­don im­me­di­ate­ly ques­tioned whether, in the pic­ture paint­ed, the for­mer re­la­tion­ship end­ed on good terms or not."If the re­la­tion­ship end­ed on a good note and you're walk­ing the street with a cur­rent part­ner and you hap­pen to come face to face with an ex, the stan­dard thing to do is ac­knowl­edge your ex with a sim­ple nod of the head and a smile, much like you would a per­son on the street," she said.Gor­don, how­ev­er, high­light­ed that a ca­su­al en­counter on the street just wouldn't be the prop­er time to make in­tro­duc­tions to a cur­rent part­ner.But, she said, if both you and an ex were in­vit­ed to the same event seat­ed near to each oth­er, with your new sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers in tow, the ma­ture thing to do would be to make for­mal in­tro­duc­tions."If you're not in close prox­im­i­ty with each oth­er, you don't need to drag your part­ner over to in­tro­duce them to an ex. How­ev­er, if you're seat­ed at the same ta­ble or in the same row, do the nor­mal thing- make an in­tro­duc­tion."

Gor­don said in­tro­duc­tions should be for­mal with both the first and last name of each per­son be­ing ex­tend­ed."On­ly if you're at that stage of the present re­la­tion­ship where you feel com­fort­able re­fer­ring to the new part­ner as a boyfriend or girl­friend, should the ti­tle be in­clud­ed," she schooled, adding that there's re­al­ly no need to in­clude the fact that the ex-part­ner is in fact an ex-part­ner.

Feel­ings and ma­tu­ri­ty

It isn't un­com­mon for new part­ners to be made aware of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing a for­mer break-up, or even the per­son that had been in the pic­ture. To many, this is a nor­mal thing, but ac­cord­ing to Gor­don, the han­dling of this area of all re­la­tion­ships is very im­por­tant.

"In the be­gin­ning of all re­la­tion­ships, the han­dling is im­por­tant. In­tro­duc­tions be­tween old and new part­ners de­pend on the ma­tu­ri­ty lev­el of the new part­ner and what has been re­vealed to him/her," she ex­plained.

"You have to ques­tion whether you've been han­dling your busi­ness in such a way that the new part­ner is con­stant­ly com­pared to the old one."

If that was the case, the new part­ner could ob­vi­ous­ly feel threat­ened by an old part­ner, and an in­tro­duc­tion could just breed re­sent­ment and in­se­cu­ri­ty.

"Some­times you nev­er know in­se­cu­ri­ty is there un­til some­thing trig­gers it," warned Gor­don, adding that in all re­la­tion­ships, those in­volved should al­ways avoid talk­ing about their past.

The tele­phone calls

Have you ever re­ceived a tele­phone call from an ex, just out of the blue?

Well, ac­cord­ing to Gor­don, tele­phone con­ver­sa­tions with ex­es should be spe­cif­ic in top­ic.

"If an ex needs your ex­per­tise on some­thing you're well in­formed of, and they call for that pur­pose, that's fine," she said.

How­ev­er, she said, if an ex was try­ing to rekin­dle and was ful­ly aware that you were in a re­la­tion­ship, this showed great in­dis­cre­tion and should not be en­ter­tained.

"If you throw a piece of log in­to the fire and there's no spark, then it would be quite im­po­lite to keep push­ing."

She said that if there were sparks be­tween a per­son and a for­mer lover, there should be some con­ver­sa­tion be­tween the two on the mat­ter and a de­ci­sion should be made.

"It's very im­por­tant to end a cur­rent re­la­tion­ship be­fore go­ing in­to an­oth­er, and there must be a pe­ri­od of in­tro­spec­tion," she said.

"A lot in the present has to do with the past. The life we live to­day is a re­sult of the de­ci­sions of the past," ex­plained Gor­don, adding that peo­ple should take the time af­ter a re­la­tion­ship to think about what they want, what they're look­ing for, and avoid hop­ping from one per­son to an­oth­er.

"If an ex is in a re­la­tion­ship, don't be call­ing to re­mind them of the good times spent in the past," she said.

Check your­self

Gor­don said every hu­man ac­tion should be based on con­sid­er­a­tion of oth­ers.

"It has noth­ing to do with re­li­gion, but it is in every spir­i­tu­al text. Treat oth­ers the way you'd want to be treat­ed. In con­duct­ing your re­la­tion­ship, you must al­ways con­sid­er how the oth­er per­son would feel if you were to do some­thing, and how you would feel if the roles were re­versed."