The Origin of Love

[4bit4]

Is it weird that I have so many exes on my facebook friend's list? That's a question that I ask myself every now and again, usually prompted by someone else's reaction to a story about tell about an ex, where it somehow comes up that we, in point of fact, are friends on facebook. While I'd say the easy answer to this question is no, that these were

Comments

[mhaithaca]

It's not weird, but it's sadly pretty uncommon. I'm on good terms with all but a few of my exes. In most cases, a relationship didn't work but we've been able to be friends or at least friendly acquaintances to one degree or another. Learning more about ourselves and what we need in a relationship is a pretty good outcome from a relationship that, for whatever reason, doesn't stick.

[4bit4]

I was also really good at figuring out what I lacked that my exes needed. I picked out husbands for at least two, although one of those husbands ended up hating me because he saw me as a threat

[nzraya]

This is a great example of how someone can be perfect for you "on paper" ("We rarely fought, we like all the same things," etc.) but just not be "the one," for whatever mysterious chemical reasons. And then "the one" is so often someone who *isn't* right for you on paper at all, but it just *feels* right and that makes everything else fall into place.

[nzraya]

Hooray! Somebody posting about love instead of war.

What I also take away from this post is that learning to trust someone else (by which I mean trust their love for you and also trust your love for them) is the most important thing. Then all the other things are just speed bumps on a road you know is going places you want to be.

[nzraya]

Oh yeah, also, I don't think it's weird at all to be friends with you exes, if you and they are reasonably mature people. I mean there has to be some reason you liked each other in the first place, right? And life is too short to hold grudges about whatever it was that broke you up, once you realize that you weren't meant to be together in the long term.

Of course, if you broke up with them b/c they were abusive or racist or something, that's a different story....

[4bit4]

What's interesting is that on one of the nights when we first started hanging out, we were on tour with Scratching Post. And we were out back by the bus at a club somewhere. We were sitting on the curb just talking about nothing. Sunny turned to me and said, "you could really hurt me." It was this amazingly profound moment where she just opened up and handed me something that could have been used to hurt her. It was this amazing moment of trust and honesty. I probably said something similar back but I don't really remember me at that moment. Just her and how she just kept blowing my mind.

[nzraya]

Love is amazing.

[shrinkingalice]

My mom told me that my Facebook "Like" made this show up on her page and she enjoyed what she saw so she read the whole thing. She said she really related to what you wrote and that she liked it but didn't want to "Facebook Like" it because she didn't know if a stranger reading such a personal account would be creepy. Anyway I thought you'd be interested to know that.

[4bit4]

Well, thank her for me. To be honest, I was really confused when I started seeing likes and posts by people who I didn't know. I was like, "who's that and how do I know them???" Then it dawned on me that it was showing up in other people's feeds when they commented or liked. Really, I could have just left it here, but I wanted to put it up where my exes could see it. Only one of the women I talked about didn't like the post and I'm not actually sure she saw it, but whatever. I'm actually way more comfortable with people I don't know reading it than people I work with reading it. My old VP and Director both commented/liked. But as Ani Difranco once said, "if you're going to do it, over do it."