If You’re Going To Use Your Heart, You Also Have To Use Your Head

My ex-boyfriend lived in Vancouver, Canada, and I had a long-distance relationship with him. On my first visit, my ex decided that we would go from the suburbs where he lived into the main city to spend the day.

We planned well in advance, we brought cash for spending money, we and took public transport. I did enjoy seeing the sights, visiting the CF Pacific Centre (the largest mall), and wandering. But I kept a sharp eye on my money, tucking away the change so that it could be put toward train tickets back to his house. Since the ticket systems didn’t give change, it was wisest to save all the coins to try to get exact change for a ticket, or else we’d lose out on whatever wasn’t perfect.

At the end of the day, we were done and headed back toward the train station. It was at this point that a man approached to beg for change. 

My ex, in a stroke of too much generosity, delved into his pockets and gave the beggar all of his change. After we moved on:

Me: “What were you thinking?!”

He went on a monologue about needing to be generous and to help those in need.

Me: “I don’t mind helping those in need, but we were supposed to be using that change to get home. The change I have is perfect for a single ticket. The rest of what I have is in tens and twenties; we’ll lose money if we use them.”

My ex blew it off with a lot of dismissive hand-waving, shoved his hand into his pockets, and realized how badly he had just messed up. Muttering a lot of uh-ohs and oopses, he proceeded to delve into each and every one of his pockets, until he realized that he had no money left at all! He had spent the last of his cash on dinner, and he had just given away all of his Toonies ($2 coin), Loonies ($1 coin), and change to the beggar.

Now we were stuck in a big city, tired, and all the banks were closed for the day.

In the end, we had to go to a fast food chain and ask if they were willing to break one of my bigger bills. Thankfully, they were willing, so I bought something small so the register would open and got us the change we needed.

My ex was very subdued on the trip home.