Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Old boyfriends are a new breed of friends?
What do you do with old boyfriends? I'm not talking "old" as in "we broke up last week." I'm talking "we were together like 3 years ago." And somehow I always have the strangest conversations with him. They're playful, comical, reminiscent of the banter we used to have years ago, yet more refined, more tentative...as if there's always something more to say but neither of us actually says it. They're also rather deep at times...because we still know each other well, even after all these years. Some things about a person never really change.
Do I enjoy being able to converse with him sans bitterness and underlying resentment? Absolutely. Do I still find some of the things he says odd? Yeah, because I tend to read into them more than I should almost out of habit from the days before the bitterness went away.
It's an interesting relationship now...one that is comforting because of the familiarity, but at the same time uncertain because of the history that will always exist between us. And at what point does the relationship we now function under become one of pure friendship, without that fear of "what if he wants to try again?" Does it EVER really become "pure friendship?" Can it?
Even as I ask all of these questions of myself (and the undefined air around me, and you I suppose, since you're reading this), I realize that they don't matter all that much. In the end, I enjoy this new level of acquaintance with him. So different, and yet not as different as I think. Talking to him is like wrapping myself up in a favorite blanket and reading an old book that I've read many times over...both evoke the same feeling of familiarity and security. Nothing overly scary. I don't have to be on my toes and ready for something unexpected. (I know that almost seems to contradict what I've said earlier in this post...it makes sense in my head...)
I guess this isn't so much a question of "what you do with old boyfriends" as it is an observation about a completely separate classification of social interaction...interactions that are nothing like any other type of interaction with any other group of people. It's an interesting relationship...friendship based on lessening the intensity of interaction rather than increasing the intensity.
**Note: I purposely do not use the term "ex" in this post...it has such negative connotations. While I did once consider him as such, he's no longer attached to the negative stigma that comes with that term. So, when typing this, I DO make the distinction between the two. I don't believe that this sort of relationship classification is possible with an "ex."
Do I enjoy being able to converse with him sans bitterness and underlying resentment? Absolutely. Do I still find some of the things he says odd? Yeah, because I tend to read into them more than I should almost out of habit from the days before the bitterness went away.
It's an interesting relationship now...one that is comforting because of the familiarity, but at the same time uncertain because of the history that will always exist between us. And at what point does the relationship we now function under become one of pure friendship, without that fear of "what if he wants to try again?" Does it EVER really become "pure friendship?" Can it?
Even as I ask all of these questions of myself (and the undefined air around me, and you I suppose, since you're reading this), I realize that they don't matter all that much. In the end, I enjoy this new level of acquaintance with him. So different, and yet not as different as I think. Talking to him is like wrapping myself up in a favorite blanket and reading an old book that I've read many times over...both evoke the same feeling of familiarity and security. Nothing overly scary. I don't have to be on my toes and ready for something unexpected. (I know that almost seems to contradict what I've said earlier in this post...it makes sense in my head...)
I guess this isn't so much a question of "what you do with old boyfriends" as it is an observation about a completely separate classification of social interaction...interactions that are nothing like any other type of interaction with any other group of people. It's an interesting relationship...friendship based on lessening the intensity of interaction rather than increasing the intensity.
**Note: I purposely do not use the term "ex" in this post...it has such negative connotations. While I did once consider him as such, he's no longer attached to the negative stigma that comes with that term. So, when typing this, I DO make the distinction between the two. I don't believe that this sort of relationship classification is possible with an "ex."
// posted by Nina @ 6:15 PM 
