the ex-factor

Ex-significant others.  Everybody’s got ‘em.  Some people have several.  Everybody who has one is one.  Yet, for such a universal experience, the business of exes is one that never seems to get less complicated.

I’m thinking about this now because one of this blog’s co-stars, Ang, was due to meet up tonight with her ex, with whom she parted ways back in October.  This was to be the first time they’ve seen each other since the night they broke up.

While I don’t have the details on the outcome of this powwow yet (although I’m sure I will soon enough), it got me thinking about the delicate nature of dealing with exes.  Unless you’re a hermit, you deal with a lot of people everyday – family, friends, co-workers, classmates, random strangers – but exes fall into a category all their own when it comes to communicating with them, due to the paradox surrounding them.  Almost inevitably, an ex is a person about whom you care very much and want in your life, yet, most likely for one reason or another, you want them to disappear in a cloud of steam and smoke like The Wicked Witch of the West.  Which means dealing with an ex requires all the delicacy and precision of a surgeon performing a quadruple bypass – one small slip, and irreversible damage can be done.

Allegedly, a group of people exists who can maintain solid, sincere friendships with their exes (and I mean long-term relationship exes, not people who dated but ultimately decided to remain friends).  I say allegedly because I don’t actually know any people who do this.  Maybe my friends and I are a bunch of cold, unforgiving harpies, but I can’t think of anyone who has maintained a close, functional friendship with one of his or her exes.  Which I can’t help but think is how it should be.

Perhaps my friends and I have only experienced extremely traumatic break-ups involving lots of harsh accusations, hurt feelings, and general anger, but when a break-up is that traumatic, it stands to reason that the only way to move forward is to make a clean break from that relationship, at least for an extended period of time.  From personal experience, trying to maintain a cordial, friendly relationship with an ex too soon after a break-up can only lead to more hurt feelings and heartache.  Sometimes that sort of friendly relationship is altogether impossible, no matter how much time has passed or how badly you want it.  Time may heal all wounds, but the scars and weak spots remain.

Over the weekend, while I was visiting my parents, the subject of my last ex-boyfriend, from whom I split last September, came up.

“Do you ever hear from him, or talk to him?” my dad asked.

I paused in the middle of hanging an ornament on our Christmas tree.  “No,” I said, a bit wistfully.  “It’s not like I don’t want to – I would like to know how he’s doing actually, but…I don’t want to rock the boat.  I know how upsetting that can be when an ex pops back up in your life.  I don’t want to do that to him, if he’s doing better without me.  When -if- he ever wants to get back in touch with me, he can.”

Is it the right thing to do?  How am I supposed to know?  I’m no surgeon – I just fumble around and hope for the best, like everyone else.

pearls of wisdom

There was a movie that came out awhile back called What Happens in Vegas, with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz.  It was a fairly formulaic, milquetoast rom-com in which Kutcher and Diaz meet in Vegas, get drunk, get married and then try to get divorced, but in the end realize that, since they are both beautiful, vapid people, they are obviously meant to be together forever.  Whatever.  The only thing I really remember about this movie is one particular line that I have actually found myself using in real life (or at least my version of real life).  After Diaz’s character realizes what she did during her night of Sin City debauchery she says to her (obligatory snarky and quirky) best friend, “Was there any part of the night when you thought, ‘Hey, this would be a really good time for an intervention?’”

I was reminded of this quote again last night during a girls’ night out with my friends Julie, Carly, Jess and my two new bffs, Jess’ friends Mandy and Jill.  While luckily the night did not end in anyone needing an intervention, the subject of when, as a friend, you should intervene and when you should keep your trap shut did come up between Julie, Carly and I over our pints of lager.

Anyone who has ever had a friend, ever, knows what I’m talking about.  There is a fine line between being a concerned, caring friend and being straight-up nosy, bossy and judgmental, and sometimes that fine line becomes even blurrier.  Nobody (or almost nobody, I guess I should say) wants to be the overbearing friend who knows it all, including the best way for her friends to live their lives.  Frankly, if you’re like that, before too long, you won’t have many friends.  But obviously, part of the job description of a friend is to, you know, be involved in your friends’ lives, and look out for them and help them when they need it.  Some issues are easily addressed; it’s pretty easy to tell a friend, “Hey, I appreciate your chutzpah, but pleather zebra print leggings just aren’t a good look for you.”  But when you get into the murky waters of anything very personal and close-to-the heart – careers, families, and of course relationships – well, it’s very easy to get in over your head.

Experience helps in these situations.  I feel like the older I get, and the more crises I deal with, the better I become at judging when I should speak up versus when I should shut up.  Also, with experience comes the trust in your friends that they will make the right decisions in most cases (or at least you know the type of situations in which your friends will not make good decisions, so you can preemptively intervene.)  And you have to remind yourself that the best way for people to learn is through experience, including bad experiences.  No matter how much you may want to save a friend from making a bad choice, sometimes you have to let them make it, in order for them to learn and grow as a person.  As a friend, the best thing you can do is just be there to catch them when (or if) they fall.

At this point in my life, when it comes to intervening in my friends’ lives, I usually wait for one of two situations: a) When they ask for me advice or b) When it’s ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY  (and believe me, it’s very, very obvious when it it becomes ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY).  Otherwise, I try to keep my mouth shut.  Anyone who knows me knows how hard that can be sometimes (no comments from the peanut gallery) but I try to because of the Golden Rule: Do unto others has you would have them do to you.  Or, less esoterically, because I am stubborn as hell and am the world’s worst person to give advice to.  But they keep trying, because they love me, and that is why I love them.

Last night when Carly, Julie and I were talking, the subject of my first boyfriend, whom I dated for two years in high school, came up. Carly brought up the time when she and a few other friends tried to inform me that this guy was cheating on me.  I was having none of it.  NONE.  OF.  IT.   I can’t remember all of the exact details (this was about seven or eight years ago) but I do recall tears, cursing, shrieking – you know, all the usual teenage girl histrionics.  Carly said how hard it was for her to come to me and tell me that, because she didn’t want to get all up in MY business, and she knew I wouldn’t react well (good call.)

“So, after I told you and you freaked out, I kind of dropped it after that,” Carly remembered last night.  “You know, I kind of cracked the door, peeked in, and when I realized it wasn’t going to work, I just backed off.  I knew you would figure it out eventually.”

Which I did, as evidenced by the fact that I broke up with that guy senior of high school, and Carly and I are still bffs today.  I may not have been willing to see it then, but that day in the hallways of Hazleton Area High School, Carly was only looking out for my best interest, which is really what it all comes down to, I guess.  Sometimes it’s hard to speak up, and sometimes it’s hard to listen, but if the words are coming from a place of genuine concern, then it’s always worth it.  I think a measure of true friendship is when one friend tells you something she knows you don’t want to hear, because she knows as a friend, she has to, and when you remain friends with her because, even though you didn’t want to hear what she had to say, you respect and love her for caring enough to say it.

Ok, so on a less sappy, saccharine note, here are two other pearls of wisdom that came out of girls’ night:

1. Fuck me boots have been rechristened “Sexy me” boots.  Because the boots don’t make you sexy – you make the boots sexy.

2. It’s not cheating if it doesn’t happen in a bed.

Thanks, girls!