The exes that are like that are, for me, no longer friends, and I kick myself for ever being with them. But I have other exes where we broke up for completely different reasons - we just grew apart or were at different stages in our lives - too different to be together, not so different that we can’t be friends.
And they’re definitely real friends. My most recent ex (that a lot of Dopers have met) is still one of my best friends. We were together for six years and I thought we’d need a cooling-off stage, but that ended up not happening and it’s been fine. We still see each other about once a week.
For a few months before we broke up, we’d essentially been friends anyway. Friends who had sex occasionally, but something indefinable had changed so that it was more of a platonic affection than romantic. That seems to be pretty common IME of my own break-ups and my friends’.
I have only one ‘real’ ex- we lived together for 2.5 years. I don’t see very much of him, but only because I moved about 6 hours drive away. We never fell out- at all, we just both stopped wanting the relationship, at the same time. I told him I thought I’d move out on the wednesday, but we’d bought tickets to an event on the sunday, so I stayed living there 'til then. Was a really fun day, we both enjoyed it.
I was back round to pick up a few things I forgot a week later, bought his sister’s birthday present the week after that, and (admittedly accidently) introduced him to his next girlfriend a month or so later. That was a little awkward, but only because I worked with the guy she dumped for him. I’m on reasonably terms with his current girlfriend, though as I say, I rarely actually see them, and I don’t talk much online with her. It’s been about 8 years since we broke up now, so I doubt she cares.
No cooling off period, no drama- I like him as a person, just have no desire to sleep with him any more. I that supposed to be weird?
That reminds me- it’s his turn in Facebook scrabble.
