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Nothing like Googling an ex-boyfriend and his arrest warrant/mugshot comes up.

That’s what happened to me the other day when I was writing a story and using an example from an old relationship. I decided to Facebook that ex-boyfriend to see what he’s up to now (or at least what he looks like). His name didn’t return any results so, overcome by curiosity, I typed it into that all-seeing Google search box instead. First result? Jailbase.com.

The unchecked, mass incarceration of Black men in America is outrageous. When one of my friends sarcastically mused that her future husband was likely locked up in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, I looked up the stats of prison inmates and was startled to see that more than 800-thousand Black men are serving time. According to The Good Men Project, there are more Black men in prison than there were slaves pre-Civil War. With nearly a million of our sons, fathers and brothers in prison, it’s not surprising that I would know at least one or two men who are behind bars (it’s still alarming though!).

This guy isn’t the first former beau whose current criminal status shocked me. I remember several months after I broke up with a guy and moved out of the state, my sister called to tell me she’d just seen him on the news arrested for armed robbery. About a year later, my mom said she went to his grandmother’s funeral and he was there in prison shackles with a police escort. Another ex sent me a Facebook message once telling me he “just got out” and asking if I wanted to meet up. I didn’t know he ever “went in”, but regardless I wasn’t interested in him anymore.

Thankfully, all of my ex-boyfriends aren’t ex-convicts. Most are equally undesirable though. Of ten guys I’ve been involved with, probably at least eight of them have a child and random babymama. In fact, this guy I was obsessed with for more than a year, currently claims he has two children by two different mothers. I say “claimed” because I find it hard to believe he only has two considering the time he boasted about having had sex with 60% of the girls in the crowded nightclub. Honestly, he’ll probably end up being the next Desmond Hatchett.

Another guy I used to date in high school worked at McDonald’s — and still does. In this economy, there’s nothing wrong with working in fast food, but sometimes I think if he would have applied that same cleverness to his academics that he used when philandering, he’d certainly be stacking chips in Silicon Valley and not looking one lost paycheck away from homeless at McDonalds on 25th Street.

Then there are the guys who have just fallen so far off the handsome wagon, I wonder if they were ever really riding it or if I was just blind. You know the type. They’re standing behind you in line at Best Buy and you don’t even recognize them for the prominent beer belly, months of missed haircuts, Phat Farm jersey and SouthPole jeans. It’s all you can do not to say aloud “What was I thinking?”

That’s not to be mean. We all know at least one person whose heyday is long gone. When that person happens to be a guy you used to date, especially one who broke your heart, who can blame you for feeling just an eensy bit smug? At the very least it’s relieving. I’d like to think that some of those guys would have continued down the good guy path they were on while dating me, but many men take a disastrous turn in life and take their ride or die chick right with them. I’m just glad I got out of the car when I did. Whether I jumped out or was pushed out, at least I’m out! With some of these guys, I know I dodged a missile. It just goes to show that sometimes rejection turns out to be God’s protection.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting anyone seek to find out if an ex has been hit by the Karma bus yet. That’s just asking for disappointment. Both fortunately and unfortunately, the internet gives you unprecedented access into the lives of love gone by, so no longer do you have to see a friend of a friend to not-so-casually ask “how’s so-and-so?” Thanks to people like Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg (and even Tom Anderson) as well as the general narcissism that our generation is known for, you can type a guy’s name into Google, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and see for yourself. Of course, I don’t recommend doing that if you still have even the slightest feelings for the guy because there’s nothing more depressing than seeing a man you’re not quite over, way over you.

But when you’ve moved on and happen across an old flame that clearly has been burned by his own doing since dating you, well, that’s just a strangely satisfying feeling. And if you haven’t felt that yet, you will. Like George Herbert said, “The best revenge is a life well lived.”

Have you ever come across an ex that made you say “Thank God I dodged a bullet”?

Follow Alissa on Twitter @AlissaInPink

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

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I’m great at remembering. It’s probably the reason my favorite animal is an elephant, a pendant often strewn across my heavily burdened chest. Often, I find myself sifting through memories: A familiar song on the highway will push me through tunnel visions of a summer car ride and fling long gone. A passerby’s smell will trigger a yesterday. The awkwardness of someone’s jawline will remind me of the same one plastered on an ex’s face.

I’ve always counted on my reflections. Recollection has always been my forte; the ability to pull from the good and the bad when I’m apt to reiterate the same mistake or shiver at the good ones running down my spine. I’ve always been able to recall, the description of those I’ve loved, in metaphors and similes.

Lately, this talent has forsaken me. Actually if it were not for conversations with friends, highlighting this same issue in their partnerships, I would not have noticed it at all.

My memories were ruining my relationship.

I got into this habit of noticing reflections of exes’ behaviors with my new partner. One of my exes got into the habit of calling late. We’d digressed from the all day check-ins to speaking a few times a week and eventually nothing at all. He’d call around midnight, expressing his schedule was keeping him away, and tell me we’d speak tomorrow. We would, but it was always very briefly and bereft of the love we were once so immersed in.

Another past love, one who’d also been infatuated with the art of the word, frequently joined me at open mikes and poetry slams. We discussed rap lyrics on city steps until the wee hours of the morning, debating whether or not hip-hop was meeting its demise. We flipped through DVR’d HBO Def Poetry discussing the social issues that the poets slung through literary elements. After a while, his interests also began to deviate. Soon he’d grow frustrated at the mention of cafés and microphones, hanging out at the skate park instead. We’d grow apart slowly, my confusion a lingering voice through text messages and infrequent visits.

You see, I remember.

By Erica “RivaFlowz” Buddington

I was sixteen when my heart was broken for the first time. I remember clutching my chest, convinced the muscle was going to fall out of my chest. It took me a week to realize that it wouldn’t, a month to stop gripping my fists in anger and a year to breathe without a tinge of sadness stinging my core. After that first heartache, I took note of all the things that helped my healing process. When the serious relationships of my early twenties began to fall apart, with each one, I hurt a little less each time.

Articles, advice, and books on how to tag him, bag him and snag him surround us. However, it’s rare that these texts dwindle on how to cure yourself when he leaves. A lot of women actually prolong the process; listening to sad love songs, flipping through Facebook photos (to delete them) and analyzing every instance that led up to the relationship’s demise. This is not the way to heal. In fact, I’ve found ten ways that help assist the mending of my sorrow:

When things are over, it may be hard to completely cut off all ties to the person you once cared for. It becomes even more challenging when you get updates about their life via their Facebook page. As much as you may want to be over them, it can really hard to ignore all that information.

Find out how your Facebook stalking or peeping might be keeping you from moving on at Your Tango.com.

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Wale told ya’ll “breaking up it’s hard to move along it’s even harder.” When you’re going through a tough time, you need all the help you can get. So, why not use your cell phone to help?

Check out these apps that will redirect your attention to more positive things so you can stop thinking about the ex.

They’re at Your Tango.com.

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Do you find yourself daydreaming about him at work, laying awake thinking about him at night? Sure you know he was no-good and you can certainly do better (with or without a replacement man) but that doesn’t stop thoughts of him from taking up residence in your brain.

Why is that?!?

Well Your Tango.com provided some pretty astute reasons as to why this might be and how you clear your head.