Well, I think we can deduce what someone was doing on their trip to Thailand. 
It’s been awhile since I’ve had to worry about any kind of Guy Rule like what’s mentioned here, but I don’t recall one that was ever taken very seriously. There does seem to be a Girl Rule in Thailand, as occasionally a spectacular revenge assault will make the news involving some girl’s friend who has latched onto her ex.
I was taking my GREs. But i hear stories. I hear stories…
Yes, I’ve “heard” them, too.
I’m with the OP on this one.
Let’s say you decide to throw out your golf clubs because you are going backpacking for 8 years.
Imagine how pissed you would be upon your return if you go to the local course only to see one of your friends hitting an approach shot with your former 7 iron.
I can totally see where the OP is coming from.
Really, the only thing to do is to give the friend a call. It should go something like this:
“Dude, remember Britny? That high school chick I was banging when we were living off campus?”
“Yeah, bro.”
“Well, I heard a rumor that you tapped that after I left. Is it true?”
“Yeah. I hit it.”
“Congrats on the sloppy seconds, broheim.”
Then hang up on him.
“Hey, honey, who was that?”
“Oh, black rabbit.”
“Black rabbit from high school? Jesus, I haven’t heard from him in eight years. What did he want?”
“Oh, he wanted to know if I quote tapped that unquote. And by that, he meant you.”
“He actually said that?”
“He actually did.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, yeah, I hit it.”
“Wow, you’re like Prince Charming.”
“I know. Come here so I can hit it again.”
“What did he say to that? Did he just hang up?”
“Congrats on the sloppy seconds, and then he hung up. So I couldn’t even tell him I was hitting that every night.”
“He called me sloppy seconds? Eww. I can’t believe he just called out of the blue to say that. What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s clearly got a raging boner for you. Like some other people I could mention.”
“Ha ha, seriously though, I really dodged a bullet with that guy, didn’t I?”
“You sure did, sweet cheeks. You sure did.”
In the queer community? Are you nuts? There’s a word for the exes of your friends: dating pool.
Don’t ask,
You ought to be pitted for this demeaning analogy. Golf clubs aren’t women!
Are Ex SOs off limits to friends?
I might want to, but I’m too old to pretend it’s likely to last long enough to be worth it, so…I’d like to think I’d resist. (See how old I am? I can’t even promise I wouldn’t go for it! All I can do is state that I think it’d be a mistake, and hope I’d pass it up. )
Oh Mango, look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. But, you have piqued my curiosity. So, all will be forgiven for a glimpse of this ‘hottest’ wife of yours.
Its hard enough finding people to date that you have something in common with without taking folks out of the pool because they dated someone you were friends with.
I have a rather tangled circle of friends. Most of us have been married now for decades, but back before we settled down, we dated in ever complicating webs. And, you know what, the world doesn’t end. Turns out that we are - for the most part - grown up enough to live with the fact that we dated the same people (added complications in that while most of us picked the opposite sex for the long term, not everyone was completely straight).
If a friend of mine has a chance for happiness with my ex - they should grab it. If it doesn’t work out, we should all be adult enough to cope. If it does work out, we should all be adult enough to cope.
Seems to be a lot of Vulcans on this message board. Or at least, when the situation doesn’t involve them.
Sure, your best friend and your ex CAN date after you break up, and you don’t have any actual say over it. You don’t own either one of them. Hell, they could choose to start dating before you broke up and what could you do?
But lets be realistic here: you spend a year with a person, get to really know them, and fall in love with them before things go bad for whatever reason… and you don’t think it will be just a bit uncomfortable hanging out with your friend and your ex when they are dating? Depending on the relationship and the amount of time that has passed, “intolerable” may be more likely than “uncomfortable.”
So, sure they can date. In theory it would be perfectly fine. In reality, it will likely put a serious damper on the friendship.
Of course, the nature of the previous relationship and the time in between are very important factors. A casual date? Shouldn’t matter. The girl you thought was the one until things went horribly wrong? Might as well kiss that friendship goodbye.
There should be some kind of grace period, base don how long the relationship lasted. Common sense should prevail. If your buddy and his girl break up after 6 months, you don’t hop in bed with her the next weekend. But after a month or so - yeah, whatever - life goes on.
This has nothing to do with being a Vulcan. This has to do with being an ethical grownup. You haven’t the right to dictate whom others will and will not date.
I’m not saying it’s unreasonable to feel hurt in such a situation (though the OP’s situation IS unreasonable, given that he’s married and the relationship was so long ago). I’m saying that it’s wrong to use friendship as an excuse to control other people’s love lives, and saying one shouldn’t date a friend’s ex is doing just that.
But that’s not what the OP is about. In fact, that’s pretty much the opposite situation than what the OP described. It wasn’t his best mate dating his ex. He never had to hang out around them together. He never had to see them together. There hasn’t been time for there to a serious damper on any relationship, because this was jsut apparently some guy he knew before he disappeared for eight years.
So no, it’s not that the thread is full of Vulcans, it’s that we’re responding to the ridiculousness in the OP.
Generally I agree with the overall opinion expressed here: given the situation, it’s preposterous for the OP to think that his feelings should have been considered for even a second. Even if he was in town, after 2-3 years, that’s long over.
More broadly speaking, I would say that an ex is permanently off-limits if and only if they seriously fucked someone over. If I broke up with a bf and afterward he posted naked pictures of me on the internet with insulting comments about my sexual prowess, or if I dumped him because he emptied out my checking account to buy his other girlfriend a car, or if he hit me or otherwise assaulted me, than yes, he’s off limits to my friends. In circumstances like that it would be unreasonable to expect me to tolerate seeing him socially, and even going out with him would be implying that somehow my own experiences weren’t real or I was exaggerating them or something. But that sort of situation has fuck-all to do with the OP.
Okay, this last I can see. My two best friends refuse to socialize with my most significant ex because they don’t like the way she treated me in the aftermath of our breakup. I’ve never asked them to do this, and would never suggest it; I merely observe it.
Plus the fact that he’s not even sure there was a relationship because if there was one, it happened and was over during the eight years he was absent. He was so far from “having to hang out around them” that he’s not even sure it really happened.
And he’s married. Caring so much about an ex comes off as really disrespectful to his wife, IMHO. He hasn’t seen this girl in eight years, yet he still cares so much about her that he gets all bent out of shape over something he was never present for and may or may not have even happened.
Honestly, I’m not getting the logic of why the friend should consider her off-limits if he doesn’t want her, and hasn’t wanted her for the last eight years. Where’s the trespass, here? If he doesn’t want her, why are there hurt feelings? It’s ancient history.
If someone was an asshole, I’d warn them off for their own safety/sanity, not so much because I think it’s All About Me. If he treated me like shit, I wouldn’t expect any different with the next girl or the next, and I really wouldn’t want someone I consider a friend to get caught up in that. (Of course I couldn’t stop them, either, and if that happened I’d be prepared to be the shoulder for my friend to cry on when it crashes and burns, and avoid saying anything else or dealing with them in the meantime.)
A bit weird to talk about “rights” in this case. Its not a legal matter – rights according to who? I would say, as I noted before, that the fact of the matter is that one simply doesn’t have the ability to dictate whom others will and will not date. I mean, how can you stop them?
Now, if the nature of the relationship and duration of the time elapsed is such that my friend could not stand to be around me if I dated his ex, I would hope and expect that he would let me know. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t date her, but I would at least know the ramifications of my choice and be able to make an informed decision.
I agree that the OPs case is a huge stretch – he’s married, it was a damn long time ago, etc. My response is directed more at the multitude of posters who seemed to suggest that one can pass around an ex just as easily and with as little emotional disruption as one borrow’s neighbor Bob’s power tool.
I agree with you about the OP. I was responding to the responses to the OP, many of which I feel exaggerate the ease with which one can pass around an ex.