{"id":85149,"date":"2015-04-24T16:56:14","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T20:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=85149"},"modified":"2015-04-25T11:32:37","modified_gmt":"2015-04-25T15:32:37","slug":"regrets-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/24\/regrets-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Regrets Only"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Edvard_Munch_-_Jealousy_-_Google_Art_Project\"<\/a>

Edvard Munch, Jealousy<\/i>, 1907.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

For what we suppose to be our love or our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. It is composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multiplicity they give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity. \u2014Swann\u2019s Way<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Regret is a waste of time. Everybody knows that. But there are still times when I regret the energy I wasted through many years of undermining my boyfriends\u2019 exes.<\/p>\n

I was young and jealous and insecure. Even at the time it felt bad. But in low moments, I would hear the poison oozing out of me, petty and pathetic and sad. \u201cI\u2019ve always thought people who said they preferred early Fleetwood Mac were trying a little hard,\u201d I might remark, idly, while looking at records. Because six months ago he had mentioned in passing that his old girlfriend felt that way!
<\/em><\/p>\n

Or, \u201cI mean, there was a time<\/em> when I wanted to move there \u2026 but you kind of outgrow that, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Did I even believe these things? I think I came to believe them. And the poor guy would nod absently, or say, Yeah, or worse: \u201cHuh. Sarah used to say that.\u201d And I\u2019d say, \u201cOh? Well, I didn\u2019t mean her. Obviously.\u201d And in the stupid way of young men, he\u2019d let me insidiously build my case, and probably internalize some of it; and if anyone had asked, he would probably have said I wasn\u2019t jealous, that I was cool with their still being friends, not threatened at all.<\/p>\n

I wish, sometimes, that I could take that back. I wish there were a terrible, ironic e-card for it: \u201cI\u2019m sorry for the bitchy things I implied about your ex\u2019s taste in films,\u201d with a line drawing of a man riding a velocipede or something. I wish I could say, \u201cThat backhanded remark about boy-shorts came out of somewhere dark and ugly and it has nothing to do with her. Please erase all that. Don\u2019t let it color your good times.\u201d Is that my legacy, that ugly revisionist history? There are days it gives me comfort to think that maybe, somewhere, someone has done the same of me, or maybe found one of the satisfyingly unflattering pictures of me online, and that it has nothing to do with anything real.<\/p>\n

And other times I think with wonder how much energy I put into tearing down someone who didn\u2019t fully exist to me. Imagine what I could do with that energy now! And after all, she was probably perfectly nice. Or, worst of all, hardly worth the effort.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For what we suppose to be our love or our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. It is composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multiplicity they give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity. \u2014Swann\u2019s Way Regret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[17908,17905,17906,17907,17904,2111,2807,2899],"class_list":["post-85149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-boyfriends","tag-envy","tag-exes","tag-girlfriends","tag-jealousy","tag-love","tag-regrets","tag-relationships"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Exes\u2019 Exes: A Note of Regret<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on all the energy she wasted trying to denigrate her boyfriends\u2019 exes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/24\/regrets-only\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Regrets Only by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 24, 2015 \u2013 For what we suppose to be our love or our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. 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