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" My best friend is now dating my ex-boyfriend. Needless to say, it&amp;amp;#8217;s weird. So in your opinion, what are the rules about dating exes? Does Gretchen Weiners have a point about the rules of feminism? I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think those are the rules of feminism so much as the rules of human decency. I am so sorry your best friend is dating your ex. That&amp;amp;#8217;s some Dawson-Joey-Pacey kind of betrayal, and I can only imagine the level of hurt you&amp;amp;#8217;ve been feeling. I dealt with a similar sort of situation with an ex and a best friend. Basically, I encouraged my gay BFF to hang with an ex of mine because why not? Life is easier when everybody is friends, right? The second I set it up though, I regretted it, because I started thinking about what would happen if they hit it off and crushed on each other. Even though I no longer had feelings for my ex, that didn&amp;amp;#8217;t mean I would want him shacking up with my best friend! I&amp;amp;#8217;m flexible, but I&amp;amp;#8217;m not THAT flexible. Luckily, they didn&amp;amp;#8217;t hook up, but I felt like my ex would have if given the opportunity. And that created a whole shitshow of drama and insecurity for me. It didn&amp;amp;#8217;t feel good worrying if he would trade in our friendship just for a forbidden make out with my best friend. For a moment, things got so bad that my ex and I stopped talking for a bit, but we&amp;amp;#8217;re fine now, thankfully. We met up recently, and it turned out, like with most things, to be a matter of miscommunication. Still, what I found most interesting is when I would go to friends and ask for advice on the issue and some people would say to me, &amp;amp;#8220;Your ex has a right to make a move on your best friend. You don&amp;amp;#8217;t own him.&amp;amp;#8221; Wait, what? I was shocked! I thought it was understood that exes are off limits to best friends, or hell, even good friends. Who would ever think otherwise? Here&amp;amp;#8217;s the thing: I don&amp;amp;#8217;t ever want to date my ex again. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not secretly in love with him. But you know what? Feelings are complicated and messy. They exist in a gray area. While I wouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t mind seeing my ex go hook up and be happy with a stranger, there is an undeniable sting when it&amp;amp;#8217;s with someone you know. And I don&amp;amp;#8217;t think you should ever apologize or justify that sting. We are humans. We are sensitive. That&amp;amp;#8217;s explanation enough. As far as I&amp;amp;#8217;m concerned, there&amp;amp;#8217;s only one rule when it comes to friends dating exes and that is: YOU CAN&amp;amp;#8217;T DO IT. Maybe if we didn&amp;amp;#8217;t have the capacity to feel jealousy and insecurity, we could all just have a big happy orgy. But as it stands, that&amp;amp;#8217;s not possible. So what do we do? We remain mindful of other people&amp;amp;#8217;s feelings. We respect our friendships. We don&amp;amp;#8217;t backstab. We don&amp;amp;#8217;t betray the ones we love the most, or at least we try not to! I understand that no one is perfect and that shit does, in fact, sometimes happen, but your best friend and your ex hooking up is a BIG dump to take. If you&amp;amp;#8217;re ever feeling temptation island, I advise you to think about how YOU would feel if your ex and BFF hooked up. If that doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t get your dick limp, I don&amp;amp;#8217;t know what will. &amp;amp;#8212;Written by Ryan O&amp;#x27;Connell for HowAboutWe Has your friend ever dated an ex of yours? How did you handle it? More from HowAboutWe... *26 Signs She&amp;amp;#8217;s Secretly in Love With You *How to Make Yourself Attractive to Anyone: 5 Tips That Really Work *10 Things Women Forget to Do During Sex Photo: Tumblr"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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