Unexpected messages during lockdown

Unexpected things always happen to Ria early in the morning. 

Last week, her phone buzzed around 8am and Ria opened one of her eyes with a look of sheer annoyance on her face.

The shutdown has turned her into a night-owl and she usually goes to bed late after binge-watching movies and TV shows for a few hours.  

Her home office starts at 10am. So she would get up at 9.50am, freshen up and prepare for another day of work. 

That morning when her phone buzzed, Ria thought it was her boss calling. Still in a state of half asleep and half annoyed, Ria unlocked her phone. The buzzing turned out to be a text message from her ex-boyfriend. Within a few seconds, Riya's feeling of drowsiness faded. 

It has been seven years since they broke up and Riya had strayed away from contacting him. 

The message was just a "Hello, I hope you are doing well" but these few words were enough for Riya to stop dead. Confused about what to reply, she typed "I good" and started cursing herself for being so silly. Ria finally sent a grammatically accurate and sane text, and the conversation picked up. It lasted for around two hours. 

Although Ria wanted to sound rude and harsh to her ex-lover, she realized she might still nurture feelings for the man she once loved as the conversation progressed. 

Ever since that morning, Ria has been contemplating her feelings for her ex. She could not help but wonder whether he still loved her. "Did he text me to reconcile?" "Is he looking for a gateway to defrost the ice that settled on the now-nonexistent relationship?" Ria thought to herself. 

Ria is not the only person who has received and reciprocated with texts from her ex. Thousands around the world have texted their ex partners in a bid to curb feelings of restlessness that snowballed inside of them amid the global lockdown.

Global emergency or not, is texting long forgotten exes a healthy habit amid the prolonged lockdown?

According to a report from the Telegraph, relationship expert Any Chan remarked people are locked up at home with too much time on their hands. This might cause them to suddenly have second thoughts about that one relationship that turned sour.

"Everyone has on corona-tinted glasses," the Manhattan based expert smirked.

According to Chan, the urge to contact an ex partner is normal during such days of isolation in a bid to extract comfort from a familiar face. 

However lonely one might feel being isolated from the rest of the world, contacting an ex is a wrong move to make. 

"When we feel anxiety, boredom and loneliness, we reach for a vice to self-soothe," Chan says.

So, the next time you have half a heart to call or text an ex, think twice and once more. And if you happen to find yourself on the receiving end of the spectrum, be sure not to get carried away like Ria did!