Flashbacks

On Saturday night I watched the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final and saw the Austrian candidate win. I was pretty invested this year and confident that he could actually take home the trophy and thus make Austria the host country next year. As I was wondering whether it would take place at Stadthalle in Vienna, right in my neighbourhood, again, I was reminded of how I went to see one of the afternoon rehearsal shows with Mademoiselle and my then toxic "love interest" on what happened to be both their birthday. It was a visceral flashback, really. He behaved as erratic as always and I ended up as frustrated as always as I had wanted him to make a good impression to my friend (the opposite was the case of course) and most of all to be nice and thankful for the ticket (my treat) for once. Well, I should have known better and deep down, I definitely did, but...yeah. In a recent conversation with someone close to me who unexpectedly got ghosted by her boyfriend of 2+ years I told her that for what it's worth I hoped that this traumatic experience was good for one thing in the end: making her realise by negative definition what she definitely did NOT want in a future relationship and how to look out for green flags rather than being colour-blind to those bright red ones. Definitely worked for me.