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'Staying friends with your ex… discuss'

Published: 00:03 BST, 18 August 2019 | Updated: 00:03 BST, 18 August 2019

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Dress, The Kooples

My friend マイク was in town recently from Los Angeles with a 40-hour 途中滞在 in London because of a 行方不明になるd flight 関係.

‘What should I do?’ he texted. ‘I hate museums.’

I replied with a 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of activities that おもに consisted of the best hotel 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s for vodka martinis (Duke’s, in 事例／患者 you’re wondering).

マイク示唆するd we 会合，会う for a drink with my other half, J. So I asked J, ‘Hey, do you want to have a drink with this friend who’s over from LA?’

‘Who is he?’ my boyfriend replied. At which point I began to look a bit embarrassed. I started talking loosely about how we were friends who occasionally went to dinner and, yes, 承認する, I might have slept with マイク a handful of times several years ago and maybe it was sort of dating, but it wasn’t anything serious enough to categorise him as a 合法的 ex.

‘You’re funny,’ J said, returning to whatever he was doing on his laptop. ‘Why would anyone be friends with their ex?’

He asked in a genuinely reflective way. J can’t understand why I keep in touch with former lov ers when he isn’t in touch with any of his. It’s become something of a joke between us that やめる a few men I について言及する in casual conversation will turn out to be someone I have had a fling with. The exes

I stay in touch with are the men I’ve not been serious about. Ones I went on three or four dates with, いつかs 延長するing to a couple of months of seeing each other, but never 発展させるing into what I would have considered a 十分な関係.

I used to try to stay in touch with exes from long-称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語関係s too, because it felt so 残虐な to go from talking to each other every day to 絶対 nothing 夜通し. Unless your 関係 was emotionally or 肉体的に abusive, it had always seemed to me to be sad and illogical to lose that friendship, even if you were no longer romantically 伴う／関わるd.

This is what I used to tell myself. But honestly? I think this was an excuse. The real 推論する／理由 I tried to stay in touch was probably because I 手配中の，お尋ね者 them still to like me, either because I’d broken up with them and needed to assuage my 犯罪 or because they had broken up with me and I needed, on some level, to 証明する them wrong. I was trying so hard to be perfect that I couldn’t assimilate the idea that they had 設立する me, or the 関係, 欠如（する）ing. The irony, of course, was that my 試みる／企てるs to be perfect, rather than real, had probably 原因（となる）d the 関係 to 滞る in the first place.

It wasn’t that I ever 手配中の，お尋ね者 to get 支援する with these exes. No, it was something far more 新たな展開d. I 手配中の，お尋ね者 them to want me 支援する. I’d 会合，会う up with them over disappointing vodka and tonics in some あわてて chosen pub, and discover that they were perfectly happy without me and I would pretend to be perfectly happy 支援する. It felt like 選ぶing a scab that had formed across my 負傷させるd soul. I suppose I was searching for 証拠 to 支援する up my 深い-seated 恐れる that I was fundamentally unlovable.

J and I never went for that drink with マイク. We went to the cinema instead, where I didn’t have to 証明する anything or put on a good show because I feel 受託するd, lovingly, for the person I am rather than the one I was trying to be.

That feeling you get when you see someone you used to be intimate with ? that sad, restless, queasy feeling at the end of the evening when you 抱擁する each other goodbye and smell familiar laundry detergent ? is nothing at all to do with loving someone else, and everything to do about how much you 辞退する to love yourself.

This week I’m…