The ill-advised lunch date

Yesterday I went to an ill-advised lunch with my former boyfriend and almost fiancee, Stephen*. We had toyed with the idea of giving our relationship another try (this was about a year ago), but after 5 months of paying penance for breaking his heart, I gave up on us. Not a day went by when he didn't remind me that the whole mess was my fault, that i broke up with him. And in the beginning, I took his spiteful comments gracefully and apologetically. But after months and months of the same thing, it had to end. So we became friends and we had this weird "will and grace" type friendship. We both began dating new people and I thought we had moved past all the bitterness. Yet, if there was one thing I learned from our lunch date yesterday, it was that things don't change. Specifically, there are things about Stephen that will never change:

1. He will always believe that I was steppin out on him and thus, his jealousy was just. No matter what I say or who backs up my claim, he will never beleive me.

2. He will almost always be "in a hole" as he puts it. For the entire duration of our relationship, I tried to instill the belief that he could accomplish all that he wanted if he just stopped pitying himself. But alas, after all this time, it has done no good. Someday he'll realize that its not about the money. Its about getting off your butt and doing something productive, being optimistic, and realizing no one will change your life for you

3. He will always try to cut me down. Especially when he knows that I'm happily in a new realtionship.

4. For the above reason, I believe that it will never be completely over, at least not on his end. Because now that we are in new realtionships ( mine obviously more serious than his), he insists that he's a new person with all the qualities I tried to bring out in him while we were dating. And maybe his is, but along with all these, apparently, great qualities, he is now seen by unveiled eyes.....and he's a prick

Let me deconstruct: Lunch started out alright, but as time went on, he began attacking me and my life. He started arguing that all people who live in the tri-valley area, as i do, are snobs and they are all concerned with money. While that may be true in some cases, It's not true in mine. Anyhow, he proceeds to say that if he had lots of money, he would never move to a ritsy part of town- he would continue living in the "ghetto". And as i rolled my eyes, I realized this was some lame attempt to make himself feel better than me. That living in the "ghetto" was humbler than how I was living...and somehow after that comment, i tuned out the rest of the conversation. All I heard was anger- at me, at my brother, at himself, at his situation. I reminded him that he was the only one that could change his situation, but he blew me off. So, in hopes to snap him out of his pity party, I told him, pretty much, that he was a loser: A DUI, an impounded car, a warrent for his arrest, etc etc....how could he let that happen to himself? And then I stood up and insisted we leave. He wasnt the man I fell in love with all those years ago, and he wasnt the man who was my best friend through thick and thin. He was different, he was distant, he was falling and I had been there enough times to catch him. It wasnt my job anymore, and I wasnt going to fight him for his friendship, or even his civility.

*names have been changed to protect the innocent, or in this case, the pricks of the world