bout a week after I started writing my last “Crying in Restaurants” piece--and about two days after I became crippled by writer’s bloc--I decided I needed to get in touch with my ex-boyfriend. Maybe it was just procrastination. (It was probably just procrastination.) But I was seized with an urgent need to speak with him, to tell him I was writing this story about him, to warn him I had decided to use his real name. It’s a tricky thing writing about people you once knew, because you are very aware this is YOUR version of the truth. You try to be honest and fair, and a little bit funny, but you know that it is more like a shared history reflected in a funhouse mirror.

I hadn’t seen him in five years, when we ran into each other at a funeral, and I hadn’t really spoken to him in 10. Our relationship predated email (can you believe it?), and I had no idea where he worked or lived. Still, I opened a bottle of wine and began my search, certain that in this day of Google and Facebook my task would be easy. We’re all connected to Kevin Bacon, right? Surely I could find a boyfriend I once lived with.

Maybe not. I emailed old friends (or friend, as we really don’t have friends in common anymore.) I called a few restaurants where he used to work. I felt like a maniac, really, and in the busy and demanding restaurant world, the call you probably don’t want to get at 9pm is, “Hi, umm, I’m looking for a guy who used to be the chef there about five years ago?” The bottle of wine was dwindling. I gave up and went to bed.

So I never got in touch with him. I’m not sure what I would have said. I was angry at him for so long, and even when I saw him at that funeral, I felt this surge of bile, because I had wasted so much time hoping he would change his mind about me, wanting him back and being crestfallen when he blew me off again. But when I started writing the story, I remembered something different. Maybe that’s what was tripping me up. I remembered how much I loved him, how happy he made me. I guess I just wanted to tell him that. Anway, he probably already knew.