The Halifax peninsula is a small, small place: You never know who you’ll bump into when you’re fighting over fresh tomatoes at the Seaport Farmers Market or scarfing down a 2am poutine on Pizza Corner. More times than not, that compact coziness is a good thing—walkability! friends! chats with your neighbours!—until the moment it abso-friggin’-lutely isn’t. These stories fall into the latter category. And the cringe is oh, so good.
In the time-honoured tradition of The Coast’s annual Sex + Dating Survey, we asked you for your most embarrassing, your most unpleasant, your most awkward encounters with the universe’s karmic-punishment-in-human-form: Ex-lovers. Your answers didn’t disappoint.
Read through some of the best replies to the question, “What’s the most awkward time you’ve run into an ex?” below:
“At a party after being extremely rude and ghosting them after we broke up.”
“One time I went into a cafe and was too socially awkward to acknowledge the person so I stood in line and stared straight ahead while I was two feet away from his table.”
“Running into my highschool ex boyfriend while in my hometown to do a masters program and telling my friend who loudly said, still in the same stairwell as my ex, ‘but I thought you were a lesbian?’”
“At a bikini competition where his new girlfriend was competing. He always made rude comments about my body while we were together so I felt bad that he probably pressured his new GF to do the competition.”
“Sweaty, leaving hot yoga right after he just got engaged to the girl he dated after me.”
“Introduced my second-longest-term partner to one of my best friends (was seeing the person who would turn out to be my longest-term partner at the time). They hooked up that night within earshot of where I was sleeping and are now happily married.”
“On the Common, having a burger with my best friend. He walked by with the girl he cheated on me with.”
“I ran into my shitty ex with my current partner outside Java Blend. She spit at us and later that night called the cops to my house.”
“When an ex dropped by my place while I was showering with another woman.”
“I was standing on the street and ran into a musician I had written to while I was working up north. He started talking enthusiastically about the letter I wrote him—like, quoting—and another guy I had been working up north with (also sleeping with once or twice but it was deep and complicated) came up to us knowing both of us separately and heard clearly that the format I had written the first guy’s letter in had been cribbed from the second guy’s poetry style. I was caught!”
“With his new gf in the pharmacy buying condoms. I instinctively grabbed the small ones and handed the box to him and walked away. Sorry, Matt.”
“My 13-year-old daughter flew down to visit me this summer. Her mother (my ex-wife) decided to come with her and visit with my family for four days, cutting into our quality time.”
“Ten years later when he showed up at my office to declare he still wanted me. And then again a year later. And again a year later.”
“An ex called me to fix her Internet. I went because I thought that she had another idea in mind but no, she just wanted her internet fixed and didn't want to call customer service.”
“Was going on a trip with my current GF, and while I was at the airport lounge my ex sat beside me.”
“I was performing in a play my ex was in, which my OTHER ex came to watch. I was also hooking up with one of the crew members on the show at the time.”
“When she was a nude model at a drawing class and I had no clue.”
“I saw them and fell down the stairs in front of them and the girl they left me for at a big event. Everyone saw.”
Ran into an ex at a bar with my new boyfriend and my new boyfriend introduced me to my ex.”
“At a sex party.”
“At a New Year’s Eve party where the ex tried to bang everyone that wasn’t me.”
“When he came to drop belongings off at my new house after we just split up and a new guy was there.”
“Was having dinner with a cousin and my ex walked in and assumed the worst and started calling her names.”
“When I was puffing and panting my way up the hill downtown, probably sounded like a steam train. I almost ran right into him on the sidewalk as he was strolling by with his new girlfriend.”
“Her number is one digit off my roommate’s and I kept accidentally frigging calling her… what are the chances?”
“At a kink party, he walked up the stairs with my roommate’s ex, who never had good things to say about him back then.”
“Ran into my ex bf and his new gf at the mall just days after he’d left me for her (he’d been seeing her behind my back). Was shopping in a store, turned around and was smack face to face with them. Didn’t know how to react so turned around and sprinted out of there, literally fled the scene. I was not trying to deal with all that 😂.”
“On the beach down south…. WTF.”
“I mean.. this wasn’t awkward. More awesome. But I ran into him while I was making out with one of his favourite porn stars.”
“My ex moved out without telling me. So we obviously didn't talk after that. I bought a salon in my community and he walked in for a haircut, thankfully not with me, and asked the stylist doing his hair when I started working there and she told him I bought it and he almost spit his coffee out.”
“At a friend’s birthday. He started crying and left.”
“She yelled at us across the farmer’s market.”
“When I had to do a job in her house and she was home.”
“On the bus on my way to buy Plan B.”
“Meal hall in university with a group of mutual friends. I said, ‘long time no see,’ and she left the table.”
“It was an almost run-in. Spotted him, ditched my full basket of groceries and left the store.”
While in the middle of a fight with my current partner.. Oop.”
“At my best friend’s funeral.”
“With my husband, meeting a former hook-up (pre-marriage) and him telling me that we can still be friends while my husband was listening.”
“I ran into an ex when I was out for brunch with my new man. It was awkward because we had recently broken up and I told him my reason was that I wasn’t ready to be in a relationship.”
“I thought I was having a stroke and was wheeled into the emergency room with my girlfriend at my side. The nurse on duty was an ex-girlfriend. The nurse said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and I replied, ‘I missed you terribly.’”
“Public transit. He was with his girlfriend and left her to come sit with me.”
“On the bus. He was trying to apologize to me about how things went down but didn't want to miss his stop.”
“In front of Willy’s at 3am… not the best look for me.”
“While on a date with another guy at the movies and he was there with his dad.”
“She DM’d me to give me back a book of mine she took 30 years ago.”
“At the front doors of a hospital with him standing next to a pregnant girl and hoping he wouldn’t recognize me.”
And last but not least, the crème de la crème:
“When they were one out of three audience members at a show I was performing in.”
