emailing exes - IT IS A BAD IDEA RIGHT?? IT REALLY IS...

My god.

I'm deleting the email.

I wish I could still be friends but it just is not going to happen, is it?

Why did I google?

Just a crazy rush of memories.

I hate the internet.

It will only make you feel bad in the long run. I foolishly got into a brief email chat with my ex a couple of months ago after she accidentally added my name into an email intended for a bunch of other people. All I could think about after I replied to her mail was whether she was going to reply and when and what she was going to say and and and. Trust me, you do not need this worry. You don't need your ex. You're doing fine and eveything is much better without him/her.

The person was/is one of the loveliest people I've ever met. Four years of intensity that just died. One year to get over it. This was bad. Thanks for telling me no and giving me the quick slap on the hands.

First love - I don't think you ever get over it, do you?

if that's it, don't do it. you don't want to look like a loser to someone that you loved.

but if you're actually semi-over it, can act 'normal' around this person and actually have something to say ('someone was talking about you/my mom says hi/i just saw your favorite cereal and thought of you/i'm bored and would like sex with you because it was nice'), go for it.

caveat: if the person is an english guy, don't try the last one. they're too sensitive for this to work.

(xpost x 5)

anyway, idea = v. bad, yes.

I@ve seen them once. In the grocery store. I was getting wine with friends. I actually dropped the bottle because I was so nervous. One time in a year and a half.

ILE is way emo today, isn't it?

if only hotmail deletes "ex attachments" also, especially the ones carrying viruses.

I guess leaving that coded message on the company's message forum would be wrong as well. : - )

So, yeah: there must be a reason you two broke up. Don't forget it.

you need to go on a long road trip and talk about the situation for so long that you never want to talk about this person again, and THEN email them. because you just won't care anymore. worked for me!

(He did twice, he owes me one).

x-post.

"summer is almost here, don't let it pass you by, ok?"

Gareth otm.

If you expect to become friends with this person again, I would think
you're asking for disaster. If you haven't seen each other for three years, I can't see a new friendship springing up now after a letter comes out of the blue. After so long, I think it would have to come up more organically, like you see each other at a party and you both kind of realize you're over each other and then you still have common interests and then they bitch about their love life to you and it surprisingly doesn't sting that much. And then you start to hang out two weekends a month. Something like that.

If you just want to say, now that you've dated other people and gained some perspective, that you still think about them and they've touched your life deeply and you want to know what they're up to, fine. But after a week or so of feeling like you really accomplished somthing, don't be surprised if you don't get any feeling of closure, especially if they don't respond. And if they do respond, don't be surprised if something they say casually ends up being painful to you. If if it's something like "Yeah, I remember you fondly too, but now I found a real love and I hope that someday you do too!", it could really sting.

If you're thinking of winning them back, I admire your courage and it's certainly happened plenty of times before, but you're facing very long odds. Just go in there assuming that you're going to get your heart broken in the same place all over again.

So yeah, you need to time to let all these feelings stew.

But then again, I know what you mean about the "no contact" thing sometimes making it harder. Sometimes it takes breaking the rule and establishing contact in order to shock you out of the obsession.

I had this Ex - I was still utterly crazy about him and devastated over our breakup, a year later. (And we were only together a few months! It really was obsession.) It was his total unattainability, of not knowing a damn thing about what was going on, that made it so hard.

And then one day, I saw him. We, actually arranged it, both of us. Seeing him again was an almost physical shock, it was like none of the time had passed, he still rearranged my very atoms just by standing next to him. I was devastated, and shook up and reeling for a week or two afterwards.

And then it just stopped. It was the unattainability of him that I was obsessed with, not him. Shortly after I messaged him saying "I actually liked it better when you still hated me, because then I actually felt special." And I've never seen or spoke to him again, but it just doesn't bother me now.

and leave it at that. if you don't hear back, then that means your ex could care less--if you do, then that may mean you can get that closure you always wanted. but remember, even if you hear back the first time around, be careful--feel out the situation before you open up too much...and do NOT spill out everything at once!

the meek get pinched. only the bold survive.

*eye roll*

i feel like hell.

definitely a stay in bed all weekend and read and do nothing but eat and watch television and listen to Carole King sort of weekend.

Of course if it's a psycho fuckhead email like "YOU FUCKING FREAK I HATE YOU" etc. that'd be bad - actually no that'd be kind of amusing also.

it helps to know that i haven't completely broken them.

and i think kate is totally OTM about the unattainable thing making the person seem more attractive...same thing happened to me. but instead of seeing him to get over it, i just talked it to death. which is perhaps what you're doing here? if it works for you, i don't mind...

Back in the mists of time there was a fanzine boy I was nuts about. He is now a very queer-identified music writer on the west coast. I don't know what the exact point of being in touch with him today would be.

Help, I think this is pretty urgent and key. Have *you* not given this person enough or *your* life?

I know it's easier said than done to say "stop obsessing and move on" but I really think that you've wasted enough of *your* life on this person. Next time you get the urge to write to him/her, buy yourself a notebook, and write it down in there. Then deliberately change the subject and WRITE SOMETHING ELSE - something positive about yourself, not about them. It will start like a book of obsession, and hopefully end up a really positive diary. And then five years from now, you will find it at the back of your closet, read it, and be astonished. (This is an actual true story which has happened to me. It really works.)

Kate, are you me?

Write the letters. Don't send them. It's so much better for you. Seriously.