A Mathematical Formula to Determine When and How Your Ex Will Circle Back

They’ll definitely circle back, the question is when and to what degree.

Photo by Dan-Cristian Pădureț on Unsplash

All exes circle back. The question isn’t if they will, but when and how. Circle back phenomena can range from de minimis activity, such as liking an Instagram post in an effort to get you to circle back, to showing up on your doorstep screaming and crying.

Obviously, the ideal is neither of these extremes; the ideal is your ex asking you out to dinner so he or she can sob and tell you that they made a mistake. For fun, you can then feign empathy and humanity, and as soon as they stop hiccuping, deliver the fatal we-are-never-getting-back-together blow.

Unless, of course, you want to get back together. If that’s the case, go ahead and lock them in to plans — maybe ask them to be your date at an upcoming wedding — while they’re crying in public, because the math says the “circle-back” only happens once, and as mentioned above, varies in degree.

When and to what degree your ex will circle back boils down to a complicated formula determined by five distinct but related values: length of relationship, intensity of relationship, drama-level of the breakup, length of time since breakup, and whether a third party is involved. The calculus is further affected by whether the third party is their so-called forever person or just an escape hatch or an escape hatch your ex has decided is their forever person, but later determines to be a psycho, increasing their longing for you, the non-psycho.

The equation is: length of relationship plus the intensity of the relationship (scale of 1–10) minus the drama level of the breakup (1–10) plus the length of time since the breakup multiplied by whether a third party was involved (yes = 2; no =1) multiplied by whether the third party is your ex’s forever person (yes = 1, no = 2). If the third party turns out to be a psycho, multiple by 3. Now divide everything by 365 (days in the year) or 36.5 if the relationship lasted less than a year. Now you have the when/intensity level of the circle back, on a scale of 1–10.

First, we have to acknowledge that the advent of social media has fundamentally altered the concept of “circling…