I do a pretty good job of leaving my love life in the past. New love interests don’t want to hear about old love interests, and for the most part, I don’t combine the two. (Unless we’re playing a game of “I’ve never”, then I must, must, must include the fact that I have kissed three sets of brothers, one of which were identical twins, but since it was only kissing, I figure that’s juvenile enough to at least mention for status if nothing else.) Anyhoo, past loves (and by ‘loves’, know I really mean ‘likes’, since there are no past ‘loves’ per se, only guys that I decided to kiss now and again and foolishly found myself enamored with for a day or week or so. But I digress…) remain in the past. As they should be.

As such, because I don’t talk about them, and really, because there really isn’t too much to talk about (minus the week full of dates that I went on where one was a gay anorexic, the second told me I could be a plus-sized model and the third was a cat abuser so I rescued his cat), I really don’t ever think about any of my (few) exes that have been privileged enough to play the “Let’s Date Aubrey” game-o-fun. And I prefer it that way. If you’ve kept my interest for a few weeks (or a few months) then know that you’ve got my undivided attention.

At least in my waking hours.

Now, settle down, kids. There’s nothing tawdry going on in my dreams; quite the contrary. But every now and again someone from my past will pop up in one of my dreams, a cameo not only unexpected, but also undesired. Like last night.

Don’t really remember the entire story, but there was a party, there was an ex, and he was as cocky and British and assholey as ever. I’m pretty sure his cameo was prompted by the cocky, non-British yet still seemingly as assholey guy at poker last night gallivanting with a pretty young thing while I got stared at in my karate-uniformed glory as I beat the proverbial pants off him at Texas Hold’em, but hey, who knows. Anyhoo, my subconscious must have registered this under “Similar to Assholey British Quasi-Ex” and lo and behold, up pops the British Asshole in Aubrey Dream-o-Rama. There were discussions of high thread count sheets, a lot of alcohol, some aquarium rocks and plants (likely prompted by the true-life plight of an adorable boy’s true-life fish), and yet I remember being absolutely disgusted by the actions of aforementioned Asshole. The same actions that, four years ago, had me eating out of his hand and swooning at the very sight of him.

Which makes me think that perhaps the occasional cameo isn’t so bad, if it shows you how far you’ve come.