The Benefits Of Exorcise

My fiancee dumped me three months ago. I was devastated, but I've come to realize that we shouldn't be together. Now she keeps pressing for us to meet, saying there's stuff she needs to "process." I was finally starting to get over her, but should I just go?

--Torn

Getting together with your ex-fiancee after you've finally started to move on is like being just out of rehab and reconnecting with a friend: "What could be the harm? A nice pastrami on rye with my old heroin dealer!" Your brain, like an air-conditioned Miami mansion, is "expensive" to run, so it tries to go on autopilot (basically nonthink mode) whenever possible. When you repeatedly take a certain action -- like turning to a certain person for love, attention, and comforting -- that action becomes more and more automatic. On a neural level, this plays out with a bunch of individual brain cells (neurons) that "wire together," as neuroscientist Carla Shatz puts it. This happens after individual neurons each fire off a chemical messenger -- a neurotransmitter -- that another neuron catches and absorbs. The more a person repeats the same action -- and the more a group of neurons does the same fire-off-and-catch sequence -- the faster they get at it. Eventually, these neurons become what I like to describe as a "thinkpack" -- conserving mental energy through bypassing the conscious thought department and robotically defaulting to whatever action worked for the person in the past. Right now, the last thing you need is to stall your recovery process -- the weakening over time of those entrenched neural pathways -- by getting the band (Ramon and The Neurons) back together. If you feel bad about saying no to seeing her, consider how she's prioritizing her need to "process" over your continued recovery. Aww...how loving! ("It's not you; it's me -- and how my crappy new insurance no longer covers therapy.")