THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: Axe your best friend’s ex

One of my closest friends recently broke up with her boyfriend.  (Actually, they went on a “break,” which I define as: “I am too big of a wimp to break up with you completely, so in addition to breaking your heart I am going to confuse the crap out of you with mixed messages about how I love you but am not in love with you.”)

Neither the elements leading up to my friend’s breakup (a higher-than-normal occurrence of “guys nights out” and passive aggressive comments about them being a boring old couple) nor the actual breakup (buying ice cream and watching Animal Planet with your close friends to take your mind off it) was extraordinary. What was amazing about this breakup occurred less than a week after their initial split.

The guy sent me a seemingly innocent (albeit not typical) text message asking me how I was doing. My first thought was to respond with “better than your ex-girlfriend,” but I refrained from typing it. I told him I was doing fine and I asked him how he was.

“I’m shitty,” he responded. “Speaking outbwitchll…” Then, seconds later, another text, “Of which we still need to go out for a drink.”

Now, like most 22-year-olds I’ve received (and sent) my fair share of drunken, typo-filled text messages inquiring about going out for drinks. Never once have they been from guys who considered me just a friend.

Knowing this, I told him I thought that going out for a drink with him would be “a little strange.”

He said, “If you say so.”

I tried to clarify. I told him I think he’s a cool guy (which was true until this point), but that my friend was really our common bond. Then, in a futile attempt to show him that we could still be friendly, I made a joke about how he likes a particular character that I can’t stand.

His final text message to me read, “Well, I can see you were never a friend. I’ll remember that. Night.”

Dumbfounded and not wanting to text-argue with someone who was drinking, I ignored the message. After all, I felt the situation was crystal clear and there was nothing I needed to apologize for.

I’d met the guy through my friend and never hung out with him outside of group outings with his now ex-girlfriend. We’d chatted online a bunch of times but never held any deep conversations that might make us close friends.

Furthermore, he knew his ex had spent the weekend at my house because she needed company after the breakup. He would know, from conversations with her, that she was worried about him “doing something stupid” during their break.

Being the mutual friend between two people breaking up can be difficult. However, more often than not, the loyalty lines separating your ex and his or her friends are drawn clearly.

If you just broke up with a girlfriend, you shouldn’t ask that girl’s best friend out for a drink. Even if your intentions are perfectly innocent (but be honest, chances are they aren’t) the drama such circumstances creates is bad. You may not love your ex anymore, but you don’t have to throw salt in the wound by trying to take away the confidants she still has left.

It should go without saying that if your best friend was just dumped by a guy you shouldn’t go out for a drink with him.

Of course, being smart enough to avoid an awkward situation with your best friend’s ex-boyfriend still leaves you with one awkward decision: Should you tell your best friend about her ex’s offer?

On one hand, it would be easy for me to just tell her that her ex is humiliating her and degrading her by refusing to make it a clean breakup and instead stringing her along like a dog. Furthermore I could even explain to her how he invited me out for drinks, to which she will easily assume what his true intentions were.

However, by doing so, I run the risk of my friend reacting in a way that I haven’t predicted. In an attempt to enlighten my friend that her ex is truly not the guy we thought he was, I run the risk of her getting jealous or second-guessing me. She may end up going back to him and not being my friend anymore because she doesn’t trust me to be around her boyfriend (or her boyfriend around me).

It’s too risky. It’s better to play it safe and stay out of it. Give the ex-boyfriend the benefit of the doubt and allow yourself to be the bad guy in his unimportant eyes. Remember that the only way people learn is on their own.