The human brain is a fascinating organ. It can store the most embarrassing moments of your life with perfect clarity (like the time you waved at someone who wasn’t actually waving at you) and yet conveniently forget why you broke up with your ex in the first place. This is why, on a Friday night, with nothing but your own loneliness and three glasses of Sula wine for company, you find yourself typing ‘Hey’ into WhatsApp and staring at the green dots next to your ex’s name like it’s some kind of traffic signal for your emotions.
Blame Bollywood. We grew up in a culture where DDLJ taught us that love is meant to be chased, that if she’s leaving on a train, you must run behind it like your life depends on it. That heartbreak isn’t an end but a plot twist in the great love story of your life. Never mind that real life is less Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and more Kabir Singh, where going back to an ex is like returning to a gym membership in January—motivated at first, exhausted soon after, and ultimately left wondering why you even tried.
But nostalgia is a drug more potent than anything Baba Ramdev sells. Psychologists call it ‘rosy retrospection’—the tendency to remember past experiences as more pleasant than they actually were. So instead of remembering the times your ex ghosted you for a week or ‘forgot’ your birthday (but never forgot an IPL match), you remember the one time they bought you pani puri on a rainy day and called you ‘special.’ Never mind that they later mocked your Maggi recipe, calling it ‘soggy noodles with an identity crisis.’
Science also points to the ‘Mere Exposure Effect,’ which essentially means the more we see something, the more we like it. This is why Zomato ads keep showing up everywhere, and why after a few weeks of rewatching Koffee with Karan, even the most cynical among us start believing in star kids’ struggles. Your ex, through years of familiarity, becomes a comfortable sweater—full of holes, unraveling at the seams, but somehow still warm enough that you keep wearing it.
Of course, let’s not ignore the ‘Scarcity Effect.’ The moment someone seems less available, they become more desirable. It’s basic economics, like how suddenly everyone wanted a COVID vaccine when there were limited slots, but once it was widely available, people were like, ‘Meh, I’ll go next week.’ Your ex, too, becomes an item of high value the moment they move on, and nothing makes them more attractive than seeing them happily dating someone new—someone who hasn’t yet discovered their alarming attachment to their mother or their tendency to ‘forget’ the bill when dining out.
And then there’s social media. The devil’s own PR firm. You tell yourself you’ve moved on, but then Instagram shows you a perfectly curated picture of them ‘living their best life,’ conveniently omitting the fact that they’re also stuck in Bangalore traffic for three hours a day. Their new partner seems lovely—until you deep-dive into their LinkedIn and find out they used to work at Wipro. Not that you have anything against Wipro. It’s just the principle of the thing.
So, why do we keep going back? Maybe it’s the hope that this time it’ll be different. That people change. That love, like the Bigg Boss franchise, deserves yet another season. Or maybe it’s just that, for all its heartbreak and nonsense, love is the only thing that makes life a little more cinematic. A little more Hum Tum and a little less Google Calendar meetings.
But if you’re considering going back, at least do yourself a favor—block them first. Nothing fuels desire like a little inaccessibility. Who knows? Maybe this time, you’ll finally learn that the best love story is the one where you learn to live happily ever after—with yourself.
