an ex-boyfriend found me on myspace. i'm sure he'd found me a long time before he sent me a message, after all i'd found him once and was only half-assed looking. (what can i say? about some things i'm morbidly curious!) i'm not sure why he sent me a message, and i'm not sure why i answered. as you all know, i have some pretty strict rules concerning interactions with ex's. the main being, i don't.
i've been accused of being cold and mean when people find out about my no-contact rule, but it's a choice i made a long time ago to simplify my life. that makes me sound like i have a lot of ex's, but that's not true! i just think that if you aren't friends to start with, trying to be friends after a romantic relationship is over just doesn't work that well (if at all) dated. the thing for me is that i just don't like the . boyfriends have a lot of friendly qualities, but aren't exactly friends. not for me. i like my friends and my relationships to be separated: i don't want my boyfriend to be my best friend, i think that's kind of an unfair amount of pressure to put on one person. i don't think this is a bad thing, although i've heard pretty often that i'm horrible and completely unsentimental, which no one could accuse me of if they saw the stacks of letters and notes and detritus i keep from just about every boy i'vedated. i don't like the awkwardness of having to shift gears from one type of relationship to another, and i also don't like having to explain to the new guy who the old guy is and why i want him around. i've also only ever been in one or two serious relationships, and they weren't with guys that i wanted to be friends with.
this is one of those guys. we were fairly serious, we were together longer than i was with anyone else, and he was honestly the first boy i ever seriously thought about marrying. he was a good guy, we had a comfortable little life, and i could look at him and see him fitting into my family. we had lots of other issues, though, and in the end it just wasn't going to work. he wanted to stay friends, and i made it pretty clear that i wasn't interested. he's tried to get in touch with me a few times since then, but i kept all our interaction minimal and superficial, and always ended up asking him to stop, leave me alone. then i get this message from him on myspace and thought, "why not?" maybe it will be good for me to chit chat with him a little, to make him real again, instead of relying on old, fuzzy memories of him. maybe i'm too ridgid, maybe i should try this whole "being friends with ex's" thing that others talk about. also, lately i've felt like i romanticize him, like i have this idea about our relationship that leaves out all the bad and annoying stuff. at the same time, i'm irritated that he keeps ignoring me when i ask him (nicely) to just get the hint and drop it. this time, though, i'm totally responsible for him sending me more messages. if i didn't want to talk to him now i should have just deleted his email. plus! he asked to be my myspace friend and it seemed way too shitty to say no. so now we are fake-internet friends who dated once for years. great! once again, i am a total hypocrite!
the whole thing weirds me out. on one hand, i do kind of miss him and wouldn't mind talking to him a little. on the other hand, we'll never really be friends and so why keep this up? i don't want to know all about his new girlfriend, when i go home to visit i don't want to see him, and while he was a big part of my life for a while, he isn't now. i don't like dwelling on the past, and even though i'm guilty of that more often than i'd like to be, i like to think i'm pretty good at cutting ties and moving on. would this be any easier for me if i had a boyfriend of my own? admittedly, i feel kind of like a loser that he's got a girlfriend and i'm terminally single. at the same time, i don't exactly want a boyfriend of my own, so why am i comparing myself to him? just because i'm single doesn't mean i'm a complete loser, it doesn't mean i'm lonely and pathetic. i might be, but he doesn't know that for sure.
i know i'm over-thinking this. i know the whole thing is retarded and i shouldn't have spent this much time telling you about it. i don't even know why i feel funny about the whole thing. i just do.
1 comment:
I'm glad you spent "this much time telling...about it." I'm going through a similar situation--breaking up with someone I've been dating for a while who now thinks we should shift gears into being "just friends." I'm glad to hear someone else's angst about it. :) I think it's good that you're giving it some thought and not blindly reigniting a relationship. I hope it works out okay for you, too.
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