The Ex Factor

I’ve taken my sweet time writing about exes and the games they play, because, until recently, I let myself think friendships with past lovers was actually possible.

I gave it a shot and put in some effort but the recent failure of my foray into friendship with exes has brought me back to my original hypothesis.

Exes CANNOT be friends.

It’s impossible.

And there’s a simple reason for that.

Breakups happen for a variety of reasons, but no matter the reason, the goal of a breakup remains the same: FREEDOM.

With one fell swoop, you’re free of all the responsibilities that come with being a boyfriend or girlfriend.

You’re no longer obligated to do things you have no interest in just because the other person wants to.

You don’t have to take shit from their family.

You’re no longer bound to fuck them long after the thrill is gone.

You don’t have to tolerate their bullshit.

You’re completely free.

Friendship is not freedom

In a way, befriending someone is the act of giving up a little independence because you like and care about them.

Friendship with an ex entails a lesser degree of freedom than the one intended by breaking up.

By agreeing to friendship, you’re agreeing to do all the things that a friend would do. You’re no longer having sex, or talking about a future. However, as a friend, you have to listen to all their problems, rush to their aid when they’re having a crisis, and attend the funerals of their family members if they ask you to go.

You have to spend time with them, time you were hoping to have in the aftermath of the breakup.

And because you spent so much time with them during the relationship, you’re inevitably going to have to help them cope with the issues you had while together, and that’s a fucking drag.

And of course there are the games exes play under the pretense of friendship.

A popular one is what I call “Who has the Better Life?”.

In this two player game you exchange information about how much you have prospered without the other person. This often involves fudging numbers about how much money you make, or how many people you’ve slept with. You’ll grab an attractive friend and present them as your brand new, superior significant other; you’ll dress to the nines, and put on an air of contentment.

Not only is this game petty, it’s fucking exhausting, and exes play it all the time.

There’s also “We’re Broken Up but We Can Still…”

This is usually happens in cases where the sex was decent, and the relationship ended for other reasons. The two players go from partners, to friends who happen to fuck. The problem with this game is that it’s all too often suggested by one party to another who’s just not interested. A lot of women don’t maintain relationships with their ex boyfriends because, just when she thought she was safe, he tries to fuck her.

In other cases, this arrangement gives one party hope that they will get back together, and that’s a mess waiting to happen.

And let’s not forget the rut this can get us into.

I know people who settle for this arrangement and justify it by claiming it’s only temporary until they find something better. The problem with this is that you get comfortable and lazy and end up putting off finding something more worthwhile. You’re giving the other person the sexual benefit of being with someone without any of the responsibility. The result is that you’re getting what’s inevitably mediocre sex but you’re still lonely as hell, and let’s face it, an end to loneliness is the main reason we seek a mate.

A so-called friendship with an ex can only work if you hardly ever see each other. And in that case, it’s not really friendship.

You’re acquaintances, nothing more.

Any belief to the contrary is pure vanity.

Take an ex of mine.

For the sake of anonymity, we’ll call him John Smith, the standard alias used by rich white men when they check into a hotel with a cheap call girl.

Now I could use this column to rant about what a prick he was, but I’d be lying.

For the most part, he was good to me, it just didn’t work out.

John prides himself on the number of exes he’s kept as friends.

The ranks of his ex files include a venomous whale, a Tila Tequila look alike, a nut bar, a friend of mine, and of course, me.
Let’s go through them one by one.

The whale agreed to friendship because she was still in love with him. When she realized he wasn’t taking the bait, she used the illusion of friendship as an excuse to find fault in and spew malicious gossip about every girlfriend he had afterward, me included, and continues to do so until this day.

The Tila Tequila look alike can be friends with him because she only sees him once or twice a year.

The nut bar is married now, and the extent of the communication between her and John exists only on Facebook.

My friend barely speaks to him.

And then there’s me, who recently came to her senses and stopped taking his calls.

None of these are friendships.

John considers them as such because it gives him bragging rights.

When everyone else is bitching about their exes, he can puff out his chest and say that he has no problems. He believes he’s friends with them all.

As I said, it’s pure vanity.

Everyone else I’ve spoken to admitted that they hardly ever see the exes they’re friends with. There will be regular pleasantries online, but they never hang out, or do anything more intimate than a coffee.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, but that’s not a friend, that’s an acquaintance.

All of John’s exes are acquaintances, he merely calls them friends.

The same can be said for everyone who claims friendship with an old flame.

Don’t be friends with your ex.

You’d be taking on a whole lot of unpleasant responsibility, and inevitably setting yourself up for playing those irritating head games.

You’d be putting yourself in the unnecessary danger of fucking your ex when the whole point of a breakup is freeing yourself to fuck someone better.

You’d have to deal with all his friends, and his family, and their condescending remarks about the breakup.

You have to pretend to be happy all the time, because we all have that unspoken rule about not letting an ex know how pathetic we are.

It’s just not worth it.

-Samantha R. Gold