Coping with friends who date an ex (or, why I found Loveshack in the first place)

[TheBigQuestion]

This is long, but it needs to be read for my situation to be truly understood, and I appreciate any readers and responders for taking about 5 minutes out of their night I’ve posted here semi-regularly but I’ve kept this part of my life silent, which is odd because it’s the reason why I came back to post and read here in the first place.

 

First, the context. You can more or less skip the next 2 paragraphs if you’re willing to go through these brief threads that I wrote last year which offer similar insights.

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t181850/

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t185139/

 

Notice the time frames.

 

I started seeing a girl early last year that I had known and admired distantly due to her having a boyfriend for a while, and there was instant chemistry. We were able to talk, whether in person or through an online medium, for hours at a time. We spent a decent amount of time together and our relationship also got sexual after a few weeks. In retrospect, I can safely say that I was “in love” with her in every way possible, and probably to a greater degree than ever before. She was absolutely drop dead gorgeous, intelligent, ambitious, caring, we had many things in common, and she just seemed like an all around great person. After spring break was over, our relationship changed. It was during this time that I wanted to push things in the more “official” direction, as nearly 2 months of seeing each other seemed like enough reason to do this. Unfortunately, before I had the chance, she became more withdrawn, started making more excuses, and just pretty much stopped seeing me on a regular basis. When I confronted her about this after about 2 weeks, she had told me that she wasn’t ready for things to get serious but that she really liked me. She assured me that if she didn’t want to see me anymore, she would just flat out say it.

 

After this talk, the games started. She would talk to me, flirt with me, and on rarer occasions slept with me, but whenever we hung out, she would be all over me one day and almost completely physically withdrawn the next. This went on for most of the month of April until it faded into nothing. In early May, I finally confronted her about it, and she gave me pretty much the same speech. I told her that I wasn’t able to handle her anymore because it was too hurtful for me. The promise that she would never keep me in the dark as to what “we” were ended up being complete BS. We then stopped talking for about 3 weeks. After that, in an attempt to not seem bitter, I agreed that we could be “friends” and, for a while, this worked out just fine. A part of me still did long to be with her, but I decided that for my sanity it was best to not actively pursue it. We didn’t spend all that much time hanging out as friends either.

 

As an aside, it’s important to point out that she really ended up NOT being all those good things I previously mentioned. It turned out that she’s the kind of person that constantly needs male attention in her life, and this need is fed without any conscience or remorse. As a “friend” she is generally worse than the norm when it comes to only being there when it is convenient for her. The more time that has gone by, the more people I’ve met who confirm that this extreme selfishness and lack of awareness for the consequences of her actions is a constant in multiple aspects of her life. This resulted in her being shunned and brutally ignored by the mutual friend who had introduced us, a shunning which continues to this day.

 

Although I had a gorgeous and loving girlfriend for almost 3 years earlier in my life, we had gotten together very matter-of-factly and honestly, I may have never been “in love” with her. On the other hand, this was the first time in my life when I had admired someone from afar for a very long time and actually had it come to fruition. I graduated college in May, and right before this happened, the anxiety of moving back to my hometown, coupled with the stress from this situation caused me to have a mini-breakdown, and I sought psychological counseling through my school for the first time in my life. My graduation day was one of the most profoundly unhappy days of my life, and a lot of it had to do with this situation.

 

Now, the issue.

 

I was in a relatively small, very close-knit fraternity throughout my 4 years of college. If anyone is familiar with Rutgers in New Jersey, the city of New Brunswick is a major social hub for people in their early to mid 20s, and so part of the culture around here is that you don’t really “leave” New Brunswick once you graduate, as almost everyone is from in-state. In the two months after my graduation, this girl managed to weasel her way into my social circle and began hooking up with one of my friends in said fraternity, who couldn’t really be described as a “close” friend but with whom I was closer than many others. Throughout being lead on by her, I made it no secret to anyone in my social group that I was pissed off and incredibly frustrated due to the crap that she had put me through. As far as my fraternity goes, we had blackballed women from our house in the past for doing far less, and the only reason that I refused to do this before I graduated was, once again, this admittedly vain need of mine to not appear bitter and petty in the eyes of others. When I found out she had been spending time with my social circle (though not that she had been seeing anyone within it), I made some light-hearted joke about people having sex with her, again out of a need to not appear bitter.

 

As soon as I found out what was happening (while she was simultaneously starting to get more flirtatious with me and being more insistent on contacting me), most of the leftover attraction I had for her immediately disappeared. My friend denied knowing that anything between her and I had ever been more than one or two casual hookups, which is complete BS to anyone who lived with me in that final semester and anyone who was my friend, himself included. He could not look me in the eye for more than a split second during this entire conversation. He just conveniently forgot about things it seems. She denied doing anything wrong or questionable, although she did apologize for there being “miscommunication” issues between us. After a week or two of mudslinging and people taking sides in my social group/fraternity, I decided to keep my mouth shut. They’ve been going out ever since, and the issue has not really been touched by any of us since then. We're all on "friendly" terms.

 

The problem is, I still find myself getting extremely angry about this whole situation and, save for a few days here and there, it never seems to get any better. This is a person that used me and f**ked with me, tried to make ME feel guilty when I was trying to see her, and she’s being showered with approval by people, most of whom are either long-time friends or long-time acquaintances of mine. I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that someone who screwed me over in a pretty horrible way is being accepted by people who I’ve known longer and who are still loyal to me in every other way (although I sympathize with the fact that most people don’t want to get caught up in the relationship issues of others).

 

My question for everyone here is, what should I do? Is there any way to cope with this better that I may be unaware of? Should I say something to somebody directly involved in the whole fiasco? I’ve honestly tried really hard to not be bothered by this, but the fact that I’ve been silenced for so long seems to be my biggest issue. As a general rule, any kind of action which terminates my friendships with these people is probably something I’d be unwilling to do. I understand the whole thing sounds ridiculous, and I agree, which is why I’m surprised that this still pisses me off as much as it does. Now, since graduating, my life hasn’t been all that bad. I’ve successfully been admitted to law school for this fall, I’ve met other girls, slept with other girls, found my best female friend, worked for a short period of time, etc. Still, I can’t shake this monkey off my back.

 

I promise to not be as long-winded in any and all further responses. I’m open to all attitudes, whether praising me or brutally criticizing me. I want to hear it all.

Edited March 10, 2010 by TheBigQuestion

[Stung]

Well, it's certainly annoying, but your situation isn't all that unique. You fell for somebody's packaging before you got to know her and then you got burned, you've discovered that guys are in competition for hot girls and not everybody is as upfront and honorable as you would like them to be. Ultimately these are some of the growing pains of life most of us suffer through in one form or other.

 

Next time pick your mates more carefully with a critical eye to interior qualities as well as exterior, and when you find loyalty in a man or a woman, value it highly because it's not a quality that grows on trees. In the meantime, at this point all you can do is try to learn another lesson: how to let all of this go. Your ego is bruised, your sense of fair play is shaken up...but, you just have to let it all go. Stewing in bitterness will turn you into a person you don't want to be, trust me. Time helps, and the company of real friends (which neither of these people ever were to you). You're moving on to law school, right? Onward, and on a higher road.

[TheBigQuestion]

Well, it's certainly annoying, but your situation isn't all that unique. You fell for somebody's packaging before you got to know her and then you got burned, you've discovered that guys are in competition for hot girls and not everybody is as upfront and honorable as you would like them to be. Ultimately these are some of the growing pains of life most of us suffer through in one form or other.

 

Next time pick your mates more carefully with a critical eye to interior qualities as well as exterior, and when you find loyalty in a man or a woman, value it highly because it's not a quality that grows on trees. In the meantime, at this point all you can do is try to learn another lesson: how to let all of this go. Your ego is bruised, your sense of fair play is shaken up...but, you just have to let it all go. Stewing in bitterness will turn you into a person you don't want to be, trust me. Time helps, and the company of real friends (which neither of these people ever were to you). You're moving on to law school, right? Onward, and on a higher road.

 

You're absolutely right. As far as picking people to date goes, I really thought the qualities that I listed could be considered "interior." It didn't really occur to me that someone could be outwardly nice/caring while at the same time being incredibly selfish, but it certainly registers on my radar now. Honestly, I saw red flags while being involved with her now and then but I always rationalized it as me being too paranoid. Judging from the size of my initial posting, it's no mystery that I tend to be pretty analytical about stuff that happens in my life, and I thought that's exactly what was going on.

 

The good thing is, I'm totally aware that being bitter about the whole situation is a bad way to live. While I do feel bitter about it, it hasn't really stopped me from meeting other people, nor has it turned me into a misogynist like some members of the beta-male brigade on LS.

 

As far as friends go, the people that have traditionally been closest to me told me at the time it went down (and many continue to say so to this day) that they think the fact that those two are dating is complete and utter BS. I don't consider either of them a true friend to any degree, at least not anymore. The only question I have now is whether or not there's any point in saying something out loud. There's a lot of hush-hush that has gone on because of this, and I feel that's what's irritating me.

[Barky]

That would have been more than 5 minutes had I done it :\

[TheBigQuestion]

I'm glad someone brought my thread back up:D

 

Not sure what you're getting at in your last post though.