From the title I thought you meant that a fish had leaped into your boat and you were now facing the quandary of having contributed to the accidental death of a living entity. Thankfully, this does not appear to be the case.

Consider how you’d feel if you were to go to dinner with a person for the first time, someone with whom you had no prior relationship. If this person new to you were, in the course of your conversation, to disparage some person not previously known to you, you might well think that this person is still too attached (although in a negative sense) to that previous partner and is not yet ready to begin a loving relationship with another. Sometimes I have heard such an attachment characterized as “having too much baggage.”

From your letter, Louise, it seems that this is exactly the sort of person your former partner has revealed himself to be. That he has turned out to be of lower character than you formerly esteemed him is certainly a sad thing for you to learn. But it is better to know his true character than to maintain a delusion of enduring friendship. Had he been worthy of you, he would have spoken well about you in the course of that unfortunate conversation and you would have had reason to hope for eventually cultivating a rekindled romance.

You write that you are “still really close friends,” but this is an unrealistic assessment of your situation, because friendship must be reciprocal. Now you have an opportunity to develop your compassion for him, just as you might have compassion for any other suffering being in this world of samsara. The extent of that compassion will, of course, be limited by your knowledge that you cannot fully trust him.

The fact that you have now had a couple of bad experiences with previous partners is sobering. It must be hurtful to hear yourself maligned, whether in a public forum by a bitter person or in the relative anonymity of a private discussion. The fact that two people have levelled criticisms at you does not imply that any of these criticisms are justified. Only you and your real friends can know the truth that. More likely, you have just had the misfortune to encounter two people who did not deserve you.

If after introspection you genuinely uncover a flaw in yourself, do not despair. One saying I like is: “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” Benjamin Franklin identified 13 specific flaws in his own character and resolved to concentrate each day on overcoming just one of these. On the other hand, if introspection reveals the external criticisms to be wholly unjustified and baseless, then you need not dwell on them any longer, since they reveal more about your critics than they do about you.

Everyone seeks happiness, but we do not necessarily know where true happiness is to be found. If you have had two bad relationships within a short time, you might resolve to spend a few years not in dating but in study and self-improvement. The mind always demands engagement. For example, you could learn the international language Esperanto through free lessons at lernu.net or duolingo.com, or seek peace and inspiration in a classic spiritual text. Here’s an example of the latter:

विषया विनिवर्तन्ते निराहारस्य देहिनः।    रसवर्जं रसोऽप्यस्य परं दृष्ट्वा निवर्तते ॥२.५९॥
यततो ह्यपि कौन्तेय पुरुषस्य विपश्िचतः।    इन्द्रियाणि प्रमाथीनि हरन्ति प्रसभं मनः ॥२.६०॥

viṣayā vinivartante nirāhārasya dehinaḥ
rasa-varjaṁ raso’pyasya paraṁ dṛṣṭvā nivartate
yatato hyapi kaunteya puruṣasya vipaścitaḥ
indriyāṇi pramāthīni haranti prasabhaṁ manaḥ

“Though one may restrict the embodied soul from sense enjoyment, the taste for sense objects remains. Having experienced a taste of the spiritual, one is fixed in consciousness and gives up the taste for the mundane. For the senses are so strong and impetuous, O Arjuna, that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a thoughtful person who endeavours to control them.” (Bhagavad-gītā, 2.59-60)

Good luck to you, Louise. You deserve a future better than your past has been, and I am confident that you can succeed in whatever you put your mind to with enthusiasm and conviction.