So that's that. It's over. After a year, or a month, or an uncomfortable plate of scrambled eggs at Sunday brunch, you and your significant other have called it quits. Maybe you ended it, maybe your beloved called it off, or maybe the magic you two created beneath spilt beer and a solitary disco ball at the pub last night evaporated in the harsh, rainbow glare of Thorne.
However the relationship fell apart, there is one thing you two will always have together, and no, it isn't fond memories or chlamydia. For the rest of your time at Bowdoin, it will be awkward between you.
The awkwardness begins immediately post-breakup and will almost certainly rear its ugly head when you least expect it. Whether you discover your ex's email address while trying to log on to facebook.com in the library, or you are caught off-guard by a familiar pair of feet in the stall next to yours in the bathroom, running into your ex is inevitable and almost always uncomfortable.
You both dread and pray for these happenstance meetings. You dread seeing him or her with someone else; a happy smile plastered across his face as a result of either being with someone new or the ubiquitous Natty Ice haze.
You fear nothing more than having to watch them stumble off to the soccer field behind Harpswell Apartments where you're pretty sure the two of you made some hazy memories together.
Yet at the same time, you pray for evidence that he or she feels as miserable as you do. You dream of the moment your ex sees you floating across the Quad arm-in-arm with your very own new special person. Or at the very least, you search for any evidence that he or she still knows you're alive.
Instead of riding this emotional rollercoaster until you vomit, I think it might be time to accept the awkwardness as a necessary but manageable by-product of a relationship gone sour.
Why not joke about it with your ex? Or talk about it; maybe start saying hello when your paths cross. At the very least, try having a civil conversation over AIM without employing the sad face or the foot-in-mouth face emoticon. Or, if you're over the age of seven, try doing without emoticons entirely.
The initial awkwardness is unavoidable. It might get better with time. Or, it might not. But regardless of whether you graduate still madly in love or have slipped in to somebody else's proverbial cap and gown, take solace in the fact that you will eventually leave both Bowdoin and your ex behind.
In the classic film "Office Space," one of the Bobs explains that it is better to fire people on a Friday because "studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week."
Your time at Bowdoin is like a perpetual Monday. When you let go of your boyfriend/girlfriend/one night stand, there is no weekend escape in sight and no way to avoid the inevitable "incident."
You will run in to him or her, if not today, then tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, then you'll cross paths hung over at brunch one Sunday morning, your t-shirt still slightly see-through because of a late night dip at the foam party.
Stop living in fear and realize that awkwardness is completely manageable. As Peter Gibbons once said, "I hope your firings go really, really well."