Are you friends with your exs?

No. None of them. No interest to. I really only have male friends. All the women in my life are either family or SOs.

Some of my best friends are my exes, I’ve even been invited to the occasional wedding. My girlfriend is a dream: she doesn’t get weird about it and I don’t give her any reason to wonder.

Over time I’ve gradually lost touch with my exes, mainly due to geographical distance. Other than that, I could easily be friends with any of them; I have never had a relationship end on less-than-friendly terms.

Nope. When a relationship is over for me, it’s OVER. I’m also lousy at keeping in touch with people, so that helps. You guys are lucky I keep showing up here. :slight_smile:

Yes, all of them.

The problem is I don’t like my exes any more. There are only 2, one I haven’t spoken to or even seen in about 14 years and the other I’ve spoken to once in the last decade.

I never really did the casual dating thing, my relationships have all been long term. I guess I never really saw the point in dating much. I’ve always done either one night stands, had a fuck buddy or was in a relationship. I’m pretty much an all or nothing type so if I don’t see long term potential, then there is no point for me. There are a couple guys I kind of went out with a few times, but I don’t consider them exes because for me I don’t think of it as a ‘real’ relationship until we’ve been together a while (like up to a year), done the ‘I love you’ bit and all that jazz.

I know my personal take on this aspect of it is not in the norm, but it probably informs my opinion that I couldn’t be friends with an ex. It takes a pretty spectacularly bad event or series of events for me to break up with someone.

Ex husband, no. Ex boyfriends, case by case. Most I have lost touch with, but my first “real” boyfirend I still talk to, some 26 years later. We kept up through snail mail then e-mail and now FB, very occasionally by phone. I’ve watched his daughter grow up in pictures and spoken to his wife quite a lot. He’s a very nice guy, but he’s lived all over the world, so I’ve not seen him in person in about 15 years.

All of the rest live overseas now, but I kept up with one or two. One is actively GONE from my life forever. Just depends.

I’m friends with all my exes except one, who I only dated for a month three years ago and have since lost touch with. I don’t really get how you could like someone enough to spend time with them in a relationship, but not enjoy spending time with them out of a relationship – unless they’ve undergone severe personality changes, or something.

Earlier in life it was important to me to remain friends with my exes. Now (turning 40), I find it hurtful to think of most of them and highly disturbing when they contact me. Facebook has become something of a minefield for me.

I keep very occasional contact with one of them on facebook, otherwise, no. Once I break up with someone, I break up with them. Of course, I’ve never had a relationship end because the attraction just slowly died, either. All of my relationships have ended because we stopped getting along, so there would be no friendship to maintain anyway.

Both of them.

I want nothing to do with ex #1. She is currently in jail and that is a good place for her.

Ex #2 lives on the east coast, over the years things have gone to exchanging Christmas cards and nothing else.

I still have a regular relationship with my step daughters and the grandkids and putting up with ex #3 is part of the bargain.

Only one ex, who is spending the next 30 years in Chez Fed. I hope he rots there.

I don’t see her very often, since we live on opposite ends of the country, but I have an ex who I consider to be a friend. None of my other exes and I speak, and while I don’t wish them any ill will, I have no interest in speaking with them (except for one, but I have no idea where she is).

The only exes I’ve been able to stay friends with are the ones that later reveal they still have feelings for me. It’s the reason I’m very hesitant to cross the friend barrier, and why I’ve been working on ways to handle dating more casually. In other words, I blur the line between dating and friendship–we’re only officially dating after we’ve established compatibility. The only problem with this method is that people who you just want to be friends with often wind up trying to get you to date them.

So, are you still friends with any of those guys you dated but “weren’t in a relationship with” because you went out for less than a year and/or never said “I love you”? Because to me, those seem like *very *restrictive definitions for a relationship. Casual exes are still exes.