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[Courtney]

How do you make this not fucking awkward? Just give it time?

[bee]

pretty much. time and space.

[Pwoink]

Time is the name of the game here. How much time have you given it?

[Anna Karina]

It usually gets less awkward when they turn into completely different people who aren't your ex.

[Courtney]

We didn't talk for a little over a year, and just now hung out (we live in different states now), so about a year and a half. And he kind of is a different person now, or at least a lot different than I thought he was. I feel like I've changed, too, but just slid back to my old goofy, slightly reckless self instead of being so goddamn serious all the time.

I don't know. It's just weird. We dated for over 5 years, lived together, marriage and family were in the cards, etc.

[bee]

is he someone you can still see yourself being friends with? if so, it's bound to be weird after not hanging out for that long, but if you make sure to do it more regularly it should become easier.

[Anna Karina]

I think you drunk called me once around the time you broke up. It was an enjoyable phone call.

[Courtney]

Hahaha, there was a lot of drunkenness during that time, and I'm sure a lot of phone calls. PIX Board is always there for me<3.

Hannah, yeah, he's like family. I really value his friendship and he gives me a lot of good advice. Generally a good influence in my life. I think it'll make things easier since we only get to hang out when I come down to Florida to visit family.

[BagginSagginBrian]

There's some I never want to see again, thankfully I think all have moved away. The other ones I buy a drink when ever I see them, and that kind of keeps them happy.

[Nate Rainey]

Banging tends to make it less awkward.

[Phitney]

Lots of time and even then it might not stop being awkward. I have two exes I would not feel awkward hanging out with but it took a few years for it to get that way.

Last time I hung out with my last long-term ex it was awkward and then we decided to get back together and it crumbled in like a week. Sometimes being friends just doesn't work and you just have to go your separate ways, which is unfortunate.

[rabbit]

Lots of time and even then it might not stop being awkward. I have two exes I would not feel awkward hanging out with but it took a few years for it to get that way.

Last time I hung out with my last long-term ex it was awkward and then we decided to get back together and it crumbled in like a week. Sometimes being friends just doesn't work and you just have to go your separate ways, which is unfortunate.

ding ding ding ding

this is pretty much my experience of it.

[Courtney]

Ugh, I hate the thought of us not being friends. I'm pretty hopeful that we'll be able to figure it out, since we both seem pretty motivated to at least get back to being friends and helping each other move forward with life plans. Thanks for the advice, y'all.

[avivatigerlily]

time. i live with an ex currently, we lived together for a year while dating, broke up, didnt bother to separate. we've been friends longer than we dated at this point. dated someone else for a year who is now one of my best friends. i think i'm still friends with everyone i dated for at least six months, i guess the rest didnt really involve as much emotional investment on either end. i recently saw a couple exes (well, a sweetie and a legit long term ex) i hadnt seen since long before transition and everyone was cool. so. with this in mind, i guess like... give it some time. shit was tense around the house but it actually accelerated the 'oh thats why we arent dating' factor by a jabillion percent and we moved on from all that pretty quickly. i kind of dropped off the face of the earth or moved the other times but worked to try and fix things. if nobody was actively hostile or doing something fucked up and you weren't just obviously incompatible, i'd say just give a little time and space. maybe do a coffee sometime and try not to process relationship stuff too much. heck, if it doesnt hurt too much i'd even say ask about other people they are dating. i found that even when it stings, i simultaneously kind of want them to get on with their life, it gets you off the hook, and you can make a snarky comment or two. if you think theres something there besides romance, some awkward exchanges and time will hopefully fix that.

[bee]

if you are able to keep living with an ex after breaking up that's pretty impressive. i'm generally okay at staying friends with exes but i have lived with two - one was because we both needed a place to live and neither of us were in a great place at the time. we had some crazy fights, definitely realised why we broke up, and i moved to another city a few months later. distance made us much better friends and we are totally fine now.

the other one, we lived together for a year while dating, then broke up and neither of us could really afford to move so we stayed in our house for the rest of our contract which was a few months. it was pretty awful - i think he had quite a lot of resentment and anger towards me and became very controlling and jealous, which has definitely had a really detrimental effect on our friendship.

from my experience, getting some distance after a break up is super important, to allow time to heal away from that person and remind myself that my life is okay without them being such an important part of it. it can be hard to enforce that distance but i generally think it allows the dust to settle quicker most of the time.

[avivatigerlily]

can this post just get deleted, please?

[jerkemy]

It might never not be awkward.

I haven't seen my last ex for like 4 years now and that's just how it has to be. Things got really shitty towards the end of that relationship; while the relationship was still going she basically went all Spider-Man-villain and blamed a friend of mine for everything that was wrong wrong with our relationship, to the point that she snooped all my accounts and sent out emails from my accounts to try to dig up dirt. Through a further Spider-Man-esque coincidence I actually am now dating the person my ex was suspicious of, but that didn't happen until years after we broke up. (I haven't and wouldn't cheat on anyone. What's the point? If you're in an agreed-upon monogamous relationship and realize you want to date other people, be a decent human being and be honest about it.)

So basically my ex wanted to murder my current girlfriend and sent her multiple threats, and was legitimately abusive during our breakup (she smashed my stuff,  shoved me down onto broken glass, punched and kicked me, threw stuff at me, hacked my accounts, tried to drive elaborate psychological wedges between me and my other friends, kicked me out of our apartment in a new town we'd just moved to where I had nowhere to go, etc.)

SOOOOO it's ancient fucking history now, and honestly from everything I've heard she seems to have chilled out quite a bit by now, but given our history a post-relationship friendship really wasn't in the cards.

It's hard to talk about this stuff because so often when a dude talks shit about their "crazy ex", it's misogynistic bullshit and I really want to be careful not to frame it in those terms. But yeah. It's not always possible to be friends afterwards.

[Courtney]

Jeremy you consistently have the craziest stories. I wouldn't be friends with such a batshit asshole either.

[lindsey]

the best thing that ever happened for my friendship with my most prolific ex/now friend (i don't know how to eloquently word "the dude i dated the longest but am now friends with") was that he got an std and we stopped sleeping together "accidentally" whenever we randomly hung out. once sex was definitely for sure like absolutely off the table, we became pretty great friends.



edit: JUST TO BE CLEAR it's not that i wouldn't ever make the educated decision to safely sleep with anyone who had an std under different [relationshippy] circumstances, but i'm not gonna chance it on an it's-tradition bang with an ex

[Uncle]

   Usually, saying awkward things aloud helps me feel less awkward. Its strictly anecdotal and it may not work for your situation. But I would probably say something along the lines of "I really want our relationship to play a new role in our lives, so im gonna try to see that happen even htough right now it feels kinda foreign."

[jerkemy]

Jeremy you consistently have the craziest stories. I wouldn't be friends with such a batshit asshole either.

haha well this is all back in 2006; I just haven't talked about it much here

[BagginSagginBrian]

I'm hanging out with my ex right now!

[rabbit]

(I haven't and wouldn't cheat on anyone. What's the point? If you're in an agreed-upon monogamous relationship and realize you want to date other people, be a decent human being and be honest about it.)

i can see where you got your username from... what a jerk!

;)

[moreaboutwhozackis]

When it comes to exes it mostly comes down to the terms you guys are currently on, for instance, I dated a girl whom quite honestly only dated me because of a girl in our high school who would only fool around with someone in a relationship. I can't be around that person anymore, whereas my most recent ex of over a year ago, is a rather fine person and she and I are good friends now, despite the initial awkwardness of "Are we still gonna bang, or not?"

[pronetoaccidents]

me and my ex don't speak. the last few years of our relationship i put her through hell. i was a full blown heroin addict and everything i said was a lie. everything i did was to get drugs and i put her through a lot. the nail in the coffin was me breaking into her house to steal anything that i could pawn from her parents bedroom. I was really high, strung out, and tripped over her dog and landed directly on top of him, breaking his back. he died. it still haunts me to this day. I have nightmares about it and it makes me cry and i really feel that if there's a hell i'm going there for it. We didn't speak ever again after that. Her parents made her put an order of protection against me. We stood side by side in family court and the judge looked at me in disgust.

we have the same group of friends so we're at the same shows from time to time. we don't make eye contact. i almost killed myself over it, but one thing led to another, i found myself in jail, then a long term rehab where i met the love of my life and things changed.