Day Twenty Five-Dating Purgatory

....that's where I am currently hanging out.  It's that place you end up at when you're kinda burned out on meeting people...have no new and possibly exciting adventures to look forward to...and decide to hang up your dating shoes for a while (yes, I know...I don't own any appropriate dating shoes).
It's always tempting to revisit the past when you're stewing in purgatory...call someone that you've dated previously to see what they're up to.  Is that ever a good idea?
I was in a relationship with someone a number of years ago who had a reputation for being quite the ladies man........okay, he was a big slut.  At the time I really wasn't sure if it was just hearsay (maybe even started by him because he also had quite the ego) but apparently it was true and to his credit he broke up with me before resuming his whoring ways.  We actually worked in the same location so we would still see one another often but it was fine (I didn't harbor any ill will for being dumped).
As it turned out we were both residing in purgatory at the same time and one thing led to another and we ended up going out again.  I generally follow the rule that you should never backtrack....for some reason it conjures up the image of that wad of gristly meat that you chew and chew and eventually spit out and would you really want to put it back in your mouth yet again?
Anyway, we went from our mutual purgatory hook up to getting back together.  That should be the making for a lovely story to tell your grandchildren (well not the meat part) but once I was released from purgatory and back to my senses, I realized that my actions could be classified as duress from my stay in the dating semi-netherworld.  It took me a few weeks to address the situation with him and in the meantime we also learned that he had fathered a child with his ex-girlfriend's best friend (who apparently thought that her boyfriend was the father until he failed a paternity test)....who he had an affair with (while still with the ex-girlfriend)....after he had convinced the ex-girlfriend to have an abortion when she had unexpectedly gotten pregnant.  Now I was having images of gristly meat and Jerry Springer.  Not good.
I think the moral of this story is that it's best to do whatever is necessary to entertain yourself while in purgatory other than chewing on cold, gristly meat.