He loves me, he loves me not...

It's first thing Thanksgiving morning, you turn on your phone and a text comes streaming in from "the ex". You know, the one you still kind of like, the one with whom you still kind of hold out hope that something might happen, the one who you are not over. Yup, that ex.

When you see his name on the screen, your heart skips a beat, you wake all the way up, and you get a little giddy. You want to open it and not open all at once. You start imagining what he wrote. You are hopeful that it is some version of "I still love you, miss you, want you, please take me back."

Perhaps he was reflecting on his life on this holiday and he realized that he can't live without you. Perhaps he missed you when he went to see the balloons last night since that was your tradition with him and now he desperately wants you back. Perhaps his mother told him that you were so much better than the current whore, I mean girl in his life and he is begging you to be his girlfriend again. Perhaps.

You slowly push open the text. It says, "Happy Tgiving. Hope you have a happy relaxing holiday. :)"

Disappointment washes over you. No begging, no confessions, no realizations, not even a flirty word or a question. And then that awful smiley face that used to be an "xo" when you were dating!

Quickly you start rationalizing. It is such an innocuous text, but... he has to be thinking of you at least a little bit or he wouldn't have sent it, right?

But then you start wondering if a person can text a mass Thanksgiving greeting and if you were just one of the masses. You look at the text again to see if it went out to more people than just you.

And then you rationalize again; it couldn't be a mass text because on a mass text all the recipients get listed or at least you think they do. No, it was for you personally. Definitely.

Now, you start obsessing over what to write back. He didn't end the text with a question so he wasn't really expecting an answer, but it would be rude not to answer, right? You could just write "You too!" with that same smiley face you hate, but what would that accomplish... nothing!

You want to engage him in dialogue. However, he didn't seem to want to engage you in dialogue; he didn't ask you any questions or anything, just a well wish. But... maybe he was a little nervous to reach out to you period which was why he made his text so innocuous; yes that's what it must be! Definitely.

You call one of your friends, the one who labors with you over all the texts and emails you send out to the "guys in play." You analyze it with her. She's not sure-- some contact is better than no contact, but a question at the end of the text would have been more promising, more personal.

You ask her if you just shouldn't write him back. She answers, "probably not" too rapidly. You start rationalizing, in all different directions. She quickly changes her response to "well, maybe respond casually" while chuckling to herself as she realizes that you were never really asking her for her opinion; you just wanted her to tell you to text him.

After the 30 minute back and forth obsession, the two of you settle on "Happy Thanksgiving to you too" How's the fam? :)"

You type it, you erase it, you type it again. And then you push send but immediately regret sending anything at all. Self doubt creeps in. Maybe he is going to be bothered by your intrusion of his thanksgiving lunch. Maybe he is going to be annoyed to hear from you because his text was really to everyone and somehow he figured out how to BCC on texts. But mostly you are scared that you just won't hear back from him at all and then you will have the answer that you want the least.

You leave for your thanksgiving dinner, half laughing at yourself and what a girl you are because you know deep down that the text was just a impulsive whim on his part which he probably gave less than one second of thought whereas you spent the whole day spiraling over it!