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One day, around the break up with my 3 year college boyfriend, my mom said to me, “Never give a man everything! You should always keep something to yourself. Even these friends of yours who came here today, you shouldn’t tell them everything about your relationship. You must keep some things to yourself.†In the same manner that I have always taken advise from people, so I did on this particular day-with a pinch of skepticism.
A couple of years later, I met a man who I thought I was in love with immediately after he said hello. So maybe I am a hopeless romantic… whatever (shrug). I had a very close friend who I gave exclusive details about my relationship with this guy. I am not even talking about intimate details here, I am just talking about the things you share with your friends all the time. How it felt when he kissed you. What he said that made you laugh from the bottom of your heart. How he snores. How you love his laugh. How he asked you to be his girlfriend. How it felt the first time you were together. That stuff. But even then my mother said, “You can’t tell your friends everything†… I wasn’t !
Two months after our break up, I had a strange feeling in my heart. I asked this very close friend whether there was anything going on between her and my just ex man who I was still in love with. There was a non-dramatic pause and the words, “Oh my God, he told you?â€
I never have those theatrical life changing events. Sometimes I ask God to just hand me one of those. A miracle that will change my life forever like a publishing deal or a recording deal or tonnes of money for a haphazard painting I did. And then I got this one, the day I read those words from my very close friend-in the form of the worst heartbreak that lasted longer than I can confidently admit. I replied that text message and said, “No, I just felt it.â€
I don’t know why but women are fairy tale seekers. When my brother was watching batman and robin (big flop) I was watching ‘Ten things I Hate About You’. I was the biggest audience of all the teen movies out there, when I was a teen, including ‘Not Another Teen Movie’. I wanted that accidental rendezvous when you meet the love of your life, I wanted the big fight in the climax of our relationship and I wanted that sappy happy ending. I’m a dupe for these stories and I think all girls are. That’s why when you meet everyday with you girlfriends and explain to them each and every detail of you relationship, then you are throwing yourself off a vulture nested cliff. The vultures here being us.
Your friends subconsciously and I repeat this word very cautiously, SUBconsciously fall for your boyfriend in the midst of this ‘Teen Movie’ you are narrating to them. One night, even 2 years after your break up with the guy, your BFF will be at a bar still single and your ex will be having his birthday, and they will laugh over old times and how he was such a good guy to you, and then wake up together.
Now listen. All my closest friends are girls. In fact I do not even think that there is any platonic friendship that exists between two male & female so called best friends. So I am not saying don’t share or have a shoulder to cry on. But, when gushing over your boyfriend with your girl friends, I think it is wise to keep it super superficial. And its not just your friends that are the villains here…even You could fall prey to a situation where your friend tells you how she met this guy, how he does this and that for her, how he did that thing to her, and then you meet the guy and you start to generate feelings for him even though you are the most level headed, emotionally mature individual in existence. It’s not acceptable but it is natural. I mean, really really, if you have heard of or if one of your very, very close friends has ever slept with an ex of yours after you broke up raise your hand…. Or before you broke up?
As a kind of pact, me and a couple of my friends saw that it might be too late to unshare the detailed escapades of our love lives by the time we made this little backstabbing discovery, and so we created a ‘Cant Touch This’ verbal list where we said that out of all our exes there was one or two of them that you can NEVER get with …where if you were to mess around with, by accident lets say with an ex of ours, its almost kind of, maybe-not-but-I-will-hear-you-out okay as long as its someone who is not on our ‘Cant Touch This’ list.
Not that it will surely prevent it, but, its valid grounds to pull her hair out of she does.
In conclusion, jus like my mom said, “don’t tell your friends everything.’
Yeah I said it,
Julia Love
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