1/29/09
Your Call: Can She Be Friends with Her Ex?

We feel just awful that we can’t answer every single advice question we get, but we figure that any answer is better than no answer at all. Which is why, once a week, we’ll let you guys decide how to advise a reader. Make your call by filling out the poll after the jump:

Dear Em & Lo,

I don’t know what’s healthy any more! My boyfriend and I broke up a month ago, I was upset but not heartbroken and since then I’ve been out with another guy a few times. Then recently, we got drunk and fell into bed. However, I kept my underwear on and we ended up talking like prudish grown-ups. We both admitted to liking one another but he says he is not ready for a relationship because he is a year out of a marriage and still grieving over that. He also told me he was having one-night stands occasionally. I told him I was 36, totally ready for a relationship and would like to have a family one day so I really didn’t want to muck around waiting for his head to get right. The upshot is that we decided to be friends but I have realized that I do like this guy. He is 34.

Here is the problem. Sure, it would be great to have some sex but my priority is to find love. Should I flag the friendship altogether because it will likely stop me from dating properly or continue to try the friends track in the vain hope that he will be “ready”‘ soon? Please help! I’m sick of my own tortured brain.

— Stuck in the Friend Zone



If you can’t see the poll, click here to take it.



17 Comments

  1. I have been in exactly the same situation before and what I’m about to advise may sound harsh. If this man was really into you it wouldn’t matter that he was still heartbroken he would be ready to move on and he certainly wouldn’t be having one night stands. He has been a year out of a marriage not a week. Plenty of people move on within that time and usually because they met the right person. When someone falls in love it really doesn’t matter what is going on in their life. It sounds as though he is using you as either a shoulder to cry on or for casual sex as a way to get over his ex wife. Don’t let yourself be used that way. You deserve better than that. You deserve true love and don’t settle for anything less.

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