I agree with everyone here. Just want to say that not being able to handle your emotions in these situations is not a poor reflection on you. I think anyone would feel shitty if their ex did that in front of them, whether it be one month after breaking up or 18.
Just stay away from her. She has no intentions of being “just friends” with you. She is just using you to make her feel better.
Sounds like you’re lucky to be rid of someone who would do that. There exist people who are not like that. Go forth and find one.
I will suggest that possibly she’s not mean so much as clueless and/or thoughtless. She may be in a state where she doesn’t (consciously, anyway) think of you in any romantic terms, and blithely assumes that likewise you don’t associate any romantic context with her. She may like the idea of maintaining a friendship, without understanding the reality of its difficulty at this time. It’s one thing to be civil and low-level friendly with someone you have an emotional history with, it’s quite another to have that person’s love life thrust in your face. She may not be wise enough to discern the difference.
You’re just a trophy to her. She strings you along to show off that she’s a playah. All you’re doing is feeding her ego when you hang around with her, even when you’re complaining about her actions. She gets off on the attention, even if it is negative. It reinforces the reputation she’s trying to make for herself as a bitch goddess. The best way you can retaliate is to have absolutely nothing to do with her.
I suggest a brand-new girl friend.
One that respects you (and likes kissing!).
Yes, I think most other posters are correct. There are two parts to this: One, you need to get used to the idea that the relationship is over. If you were, this wouldn’t have bothered you (well, it wouldn’t have bothered you anymore than the general tackiness of strangers making out a foot away from you). You don’t get to tell them to change their behavior just because it is making you uncomfortable. You don’t have the right, but also it is not in your best interests anyway. Two, it sounds like she is a little damaged anyway. Either she is making this difficult for you on purpose, or is so socially inept and self involved that she simply cannot see how this may be hurtful. Either way, the healthiest thing is some distance. I wouldn’t go as far as to break off all contact immediately if that would be unnatural, but just move away slowly (find yourself with other things to do when she invites you out, don’t necessarily be as responsive, etc). Concentrate on your own life …
Wow. Thanks everyone, seriously. This really is time to get out. It’s actually way PAST the time. You’ve helped me avoid the temptation to say SOMETHING to her, even though I decided to wait at least a couple days and hopefully make her sweat a bit. I’m sure she’s fully aware why I left that show, even if she’s playing dumb with me. There really isn’t too much I can do anyway. I’m leaving for Seattle a week from today, and will be there through the end of the month. This actually presents a good opportunity to reflect on how I’ve spent these last 3 years, since I can physically and mentally distance myself from everything, and where I should go from here in the future.
I might as well give the rundown of what’s happened with us. Just a warning that most of this is probably going to sound very unhealthy to most outside observers. To avoid the use of pronouns, I’m just going to use some fake names. I first met Tina (because she’s the spitting image of Tina Fey, who was and still is my #1 celebrity crush) almost exactly 3 years ago. At the time, she was a student at Ohio State, and she was having a long distance somewhat-relationship with Mr Potato Head, who lived in southern New Jersey. I live in Brooklyn, which is a reasonable bus ride away from there. I actually first came in contact with her about 6 months earlier on AIM, due to the 3 of us having some common friends. The first time I ever met her in person (in June 2006) was actually because she was taking a trip out here to see Potato, but due to a problem in his work schedule, she was unable to stay with him for the first 2 days, so she asked me if I wanted to hang out with her. I somewhat reluctantly agreed. I get extremely nervous meeting and interacting with new people, which is related to my Aspergers, but she became THE exception to the rule, and we hit it off REALLY well, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so comfortable around somebody before, and that includes some of the other people I dated. She came back again the next month, but this time decided to spend 6 days with me. I even took that week off of work. At this point, we were still on the just-friends level, but we both really took a liking to each other’s company. I didn’t see her again until October of that year, but we still communicated, and even discussed the possibility of dating - which I myself turned down because I’ve been in long distance relationships before, and I didn’t want to go down that path again. However, when she came the next time between Christmas and New Years, some intimacy started up, and I officially asked her out. She was a bit hesitant at first, because of Potato, but I reminded her that neither of them ever made their relationship “official” and I was actually going to take the initiative to ask her out, and so she decided to be my girlfriend. However, she still did have feelings for Potato, and was afraid to break things off with him, so we decided because of that, and also because it was still going to be long distance and we didn’t want to stand in each others way of finding someone local, to make it an open one. So for the next couple of months, she was having relationships with both of us, coming to the area every couple of weeks to see us. She even took me to meet her parents in April of 2007, and she also met my parents, who loved and STILL love Tina (which is why I haven’t been able to tell them yet what happened). After that visit we made there, she told me that she had lost the feelings that she had for Potato, and was going to stop doing anything with him more than just being friends, and that as a friend he was pretty distant and boring. So from that point up until our one other breakup we were exclusive. We got over the issues prevented there after a couple of weeks of taking things slow again, and remained together. At the same time, she decided to transfer to a college in New Jersey. That created this incident…. Now that she was within spontaneous-visit distance, we spent a lot more time together during our second year. However, this move did change a lot about her. For one thing, she made a bunch of new friends around where she lived and her school, and she started getting interested in things like drugs and raves, things which I didn’t want any part of. This really started causing problems with us, and there were a number of times that I thought about just getting out. My problem though, was that I have given her so much of my time that in way, she really HAD become my life, and I felt like I had nothing to move on TO. So I just let her do her own thing. It was in November of 2008 that she first met Jesse (who bears a striking resemblance, in both appear and mannerisms, to the Jesse from Breaking Bad), and they were friends for a couple of months until he finally asked Tina out in mid-February. She decided to pursue this relationship, and did tell me about it. I was ready to walk out on her, because Jesse was REALLY bad news (he was the genius who thought it would be a good idea to give her Morphine one night when she was having a hard time getting to sleep), and I knew that he was going to pull her further and further down a bad path. But again, I had a really hard time letting go, and the clincher was that she said that absolutely nothing would change with OUR relationship. And for about a month, that was still true…it was like that situation with Potato again. I even tried meeting one girl (whose name was ALSO Tina), who contacted me via my not-updated-since-2006 okcupid account, but I was unable to click with her, and Old Tina even started giving me a bit of jealousy crap over this. However, a couple weeks ago Jesse was over at Tina’s apartment and started going through her emails and aim logs while she was at class, and found out that she was still involved with me (which she was apparently keeping behind his back), and asked for her to have an exclusive relationship with her, which she agreed to. However, she waited until the last time I visited her to tell me about all of this, and it led to a huge fight and me getting thrown out. Ever since then, our communication has been pretty limited (at first she said it was cuz she was too busy getting ready for the end of her semester, but she did later admit to me that she was purposely trying to hide from me to avoid continuing this conflict). Anyway, that led up to the concert that Tina & Jesse and some of our other friends and I went to Saturday night. I had a feeling this may have been a bad idea, and I even asked her if she still wanted me to go to it (this was planned out back in March), and she said of course, and that she would be nice. And you know the rest…
I’ll paragraph for ya, hon - so people will bother reading it.
Never go anywhere at any time with an ex; you don’t know what might be waiting for you. Besides, when its over, its over. In your case, I might go a step further and advise you to never speak to her again.
Apparently you’re missing the dating instinct gene. Without wanting to be harsh about this, pretty much that entire post reads like a primer on what not to do.
This chick has serious issues, and if you stay around her you’ll have serious issues too. Scour her out of your life, even if it means being uber-lonely for a few weeks.
FWIW, there will come a time where you may encounter said crazy and whatever she does has no (zero) impact on your well being.
It’s kind of a nice, if clinical, feeling to think ‘hmph, I don’t give a rat’s ass WHAT she does.’
I did, however, take a little pleasure in seeing the sadness in her eyes when that happened…not that I’d dwell on it or anything.
I second what RNATB said. This woman has shown a pattern of pitting people against each other in her relationships, and it’s clear from the other thread that this behavior was learned from her family. She likely thrives on attention and drama, and when a relationship gets too settled (i.e., stable), she gets bored. To add some chaotic excitement, she goes out and starts up with someone new, while still nominally together with the previous boyfriend.
I think you need to read the i think i hate my boyfriend thread. Between the quasi-polyamory and the feeling that you’ve invested something in a failing relationship… some of the advice there is likely applicable to your situation.
My take: you should be jumping for joy that she’s off your hands. I know that’s easier said than done, but she’s trouble and you should just move on.
I don’t know if I’ve said it enough times around here to make it my trademark, but I will again use my (now) trademarked phrase.
**
Life’s too short to stick your dick in the crazy.**
I disagree; the OP may be well brought-up.
It’s rude; anything involving bodily fluids - blowing your nose, bleeding, swapping spit, etc. - should be done in private, if at all possible.
Well, okay, you need to get help when you’re bleeding.
When you’re 50-ish, sure. But that’s what 20-ish dicks are made for.
I wouldn’t even stick my 20-inch dick in the crazy.
Oh, wait… -ish.
A 20 inch dick is even better – you could keep your distance.
You’d need to be freaking Hulk or a horse to have the blood volume required to drive a 20" phallus…
Why is the OP socializing with the X? I could see it if it weren’t a dating situation, but I’d rather not be around an X, at least not initially, and definitely not when she’s with a new guy.