Not my ex

If you follow me on twitter, you may have caught a few of my outraged tweets after Private Practice ended on Thursday night. Not to go into too much detail for those of you who aren't into the show, but it ended with Addison getting together with her best friend's ex-husband.

I freaked the fuck out. Which led to a big discussion with my sister about whether it's ever okay to get it on with your friend's ex. See my sister, far more benevolent and level-headed than I, is of the probably correct opinion that we cannot make unilateral rules about whom our friends can date. And while I partially agree with her, I do think that in this particular case, what Sam and Addison are doing is unilaterally foul.

So does this mean that it's never okay to get with our bestie's ex? Depends who you ask. My usual internet poll yielded a whole lot of "it's not okays". But surprisingly, I don't agree. I actually had a similar discussion with the lovely _melissa of commenting fame not too long ago in which we both expressed that we don't believe in the hard-and-fast "absolutely not" mentality when it comes to sloppy seconds exes. At the time, I shared with her my rules of thumb for gauging whether it's safe to tread into ex territory and now I will share with you.

To get the greenlight to thronx an ex you have to answer the following questions correctly:

1. How good is the friend?

If you are talking about your bff, the number one on your speed dial, the only one you told about your drunken hook-up with your boss, your most trusted confidant, you must cease and desist immediately. Especially when we're talking about women. You never know until you get in the situation how the friend is really going to react and it's not worth putting the friendship in jeopardy.

However, if you're talking about an air-kiss friend, a new friend, a work friend or something of that ilk and you know that you will skip along your merry way when if the friendship mashes up, proceed to step two.

2. How significant is the ex?

Significance comes in many forms. If it's an ex that your friend was in love with or a relationship that was longer than a year, abort the mission. You're wading in shark-infested waters my friend. Those are obvious ones; but short relationships can be dangerous ground as well. Bad breakups, tumultuous and dramatic relationships, and unresolved relationships are all landmines you probably don't want to be dragging your private parts through.

3. Where were you when the relationship (and especially the breakup) was happening?

This is the most important variable as far as I'm concerned. If we're talking about a new friend and an old ex, I could deal with it. The friendship might end, but I wouldn't slice the bitch's throat over it or anything like that.  However, a friend who was there during the whole relationship, who hung out with me and the dude, witnessed our struggles, and provided a shoulder to cry on when shit went sour? Oh no she's dead if she goes anywhere near him. He should be dead to her after the relationship ends. Okay that might be a bit over the top, but you get what I'm saying.

Sidebar: Not to beat the whole Private Practice reference to death, but this is the part where I just can't with Addison and Sam. Addison was there for their whole marriage. She delivered their daughter! She witnessed the whole thing and to then up and get with the man causes Naomi to go back and question everything that has ever happened between the three of them. That is effed up in my book. But anyway.

4. What's your objective?  

Now this may be slightly backward, particularly in light of my views on the subject of casual sex, but a friend who just slams my ex for the sake of filling up her sugar bowl is a dead woman walking. We know I love pipe more than life, but it is so not worth the level of aggravation that will ensue when I find out. And I will find out. However, if they are genuinely in love, if there's a future, if it's something...real (for lack of a better word) then I probably won't kill her.

So if you're my friend and you're contemplating retracing my steps, you have my blessing so long as you land on the right side of the line on these variables. I'm not sure that's possible....but give it a shot. Plus all my exes are so worthless you deserve whatever disease you get if you mess with them.

Sidebar: When I was in love with Snickers but before we got together one of my good friends asked me if I would still be her friend if she got with him. I told her no and she was crushed...but she did it anyway. Obviously, he was her ex when I finally wore him down got with him but I did it anyway and felt no shame about it.

That's my take on it, but what say you, dear readers?  Have you gone there with your friend's ex? Would you? How would you react if your friend did this to you? 

Throwback Tuesday - The Problem with Friends and Advice

Welcome to Throwback Tuesday. Since Google Analytics tells me that most of you are new visitors, I thought I'd repost all the good ish you missed before you got on board the max-logic train.

I dated a guy once who was a complete asshole. I knew it at the time, but somehow allowed myself to get sucked into his vortex and it took just over two years to get myself out. The whole experience was completely soul-crushing, but there is one thing he taught me that made the whole debacle worthwhile: be very careful about taking advice from your friends. Granted, he probably told me this in response to my friends' collective opinions that I should leave him, but it still holds water.

If you're as lucky as I am, you have a handful of friends who love you. But that doesn't mean they get you and it doesn't always mean they want the best for you. It's a sad fact of life that some people find joy in other people's pain, and that miserable people always want someone along for the ride. Which is not to say that your friends will set out to ruin your life, only just that you should take their advice with a grain of salt. We'll get back to that in a moment.

All of the above begs the question of whether I a) give advice and b) follow my friend's advice. And the answer to both is mostly yes. I give advice but I try very hard to wait until I'm asked for it. When I am, I usually ask 'do you want to know what I would do in this situation? Or do you want to know what I think you should do?'. Sometimes I say 'do you want me to be nice or do you want me to tell the truth?'. But that's just me. 

In terms of whether I follow advice, it really depends. Besides my sister, I only have one friend whose advice I would follow without first seriously examining her motivations for giving it. Everyone else's advice has to go through a screening process before I'll follow it.

Which leads me right back to where I left off - taking advice with a grain of salt. I think that before you follow your friend's advice, there are a few things you have to consider:

1. Where they are in their life
If you are taking dating/relationship advice from your girl who can't keep a man, you might want to think twice. You know the expression 'the blind leading the blind'? it applies here. If you see your girl do shit with a man that makes you cringe, why would you trust her judgment over your own? If you're taking career advice from your frequently-fired friend, you might wanna reconsider that. Just like you want your doctor to have a medical degree, you should want your friend to have some kind of expertise in a matter before you go following their suggestions.

2. Does the advice make sense for you?
Unless I specifically say 'tell me what you would do in my situation', I want my friend to give me advice that's based on, well, me. I want her to use what she knows about the kind of person I am and the situation I'm in to help me make a decision about how to proceed. We all know that people are different and what is normal behaviour to one person is completely unacceptable to another. I want my advice tailored to my realm of possibility.

3. How did she arrive at the advice?
Please don't tell me to do something unless you have thought it through. Because when I ask you 'why, why do you think i should do that?' you need to have an answer. Reflexive, unsupported, unilateral advice has little to do with you, your situation, or what is best for you, most of the time it's your friend just saying what she thinks is the right thing to say at the time.

4. Would she do it?
If a friend advises me to do something that I know for sure she would never do herself, it raises a red flag for me. Is she saying that because she recognizes that we are different, or does she just want to live vicariously through me? Or does she just want to see me crash and burn?

5. did i ask for this advice? - it makes me very nervous when i call a friend to tell them a story and they start telling me what to do about it. when i need advice i ask for it and if i don't then please assume i've already figured it out. in my experience, unsolicited advice is rarely worth listening and usually is less about me than it is about the person who is giving it.

Advice isn't an exact science. There's a lot going on beneath the surface - for both the asker and the giver - and we need to remember that. Just because you ask for advice, doesn't mean you have to follow it to the letter (although it gets annoying as shit when someone constantly asks you for advice and never fucking listens to it). Advice should be a conversation, not a proclamation.

Where you guys stand on taking advice from your friends? Giving advice? Have you ever had to cut someone off from giving/receiving advice from you?

I Just Wanna Get to Know You

I'm a curious person. The kinda person who knows a little bit about a lot of things and wants to know something about everything. The kind of person who can easily spend two hours on wikipedia clicking on link after link learning about everything from Basquiat to escovitch. So it stands to reason that, as I'm going along living my fabulous life, I encounter someone about whom I'd like to know a lot more. Now when this person is a woman it's easy - all I really have to do is talk to her about shoes find a common ground and we're fast friends. But when the person is a man it can be a little...problematic.


See the only way to get to know someone is to stalk get close to them...pay attention to them, ask questions, suggest outings, stuff like that. And through the shared interests and experiences you will, if you're lucky, forge a friendship. Or get bored - if the person doesn't live up to your expecations. But when you're a single woman trying to get to know a single man, nine times of our ten he's gonna think you're trying fuck date him; and your assurances that you're interest is purely platonic will likely be met with a big old side-eye.


So what's a curious gal to do? My fab friend Jem says I need to stop lying to myself and that my so-called desire to get to know a dude is nothing more than a hard-on wrapped up in lofty talk. But I don't accept that.


To me, wanting to get to know someone I'm attracted to is a crush. Wanting to get to know someone who doesn't give me that 'funny feeling' is just...wanting to get to know him.


So what's the right way to do that? Educate me people.

where's your window-shade? (part I)

After a very interesting night on Friday, I had a very interesting conversation with a very interesting man. After discussing life, art, sex, and money, we got to talking about the merits of being an open person versus being a private person. 

As I'm sure you are all aware, I'm a very open person. Since I make a concerted effort not to do things that I am ashamed of,  I'm comfortable discussing virtually everything about myself and will do so with just about anyone. Mr. Interesting is the exact opposite of this. He plays things very close to the vest and spends a lot of time getting to know someone before he decides whether he wants to open up and allow them to get to know things about him. I thought that was a very interesting way to be, and I told him so. He thought my approach was very risky. Which I guess is somewhat true. 

My theory in everything is that I don't give people rules, I don't keep score, and I don't try to stop myself from being who I am. I don't release the rope in stages; I give you the whole thing and see what you do. And if you try to hang me with it, that's on you. All of which is a very cryptic way of saying that I feel that I can afford to be open with my life experiences because there's not a lot of harm that can come to me for it. 

Think about it - we are careful about what we tell people usually because we're afraid of three things. 1. They'll tell someone else. 2. They'll judge us. 3. They'll use the information against us in some way. 

As an open person, I'm obviously not worried about the information that I give so freely being disseminated. And if someone wants to judge me because they think that knowing a fact about me means they know me, I don't give a f*ck. Whether they'll use the information against me is a real concern, and it has happened in the past.

I guess the thing that I don't understand is this - how do you ever really get to know someone if you're so busy keeping your sh*t to yourself? I truly don't understand how this concept even works...if someone tells you about something that you can relate to because you've experienced something similar; do you refrain from telling them so because you don't know them well enough or long enough? Do you withhold the insight and understanding you've gained from that experience in the interest of saving face? To me, that is the worst kind of mean-spiritedness, but I think that may just be another brand of maxlogic.

I recently had the experience of a close friend of mine revealing a huge secret they've been hiding from me for a while. The information that they shared with me gave me greater insight into their point of view on the various issues we'd discussed through the course of our friendship; but also rendered a lot of the advice I had given them pretty much useless. And while I can fully understand that person's reasons for keeping the secret (it's a huge secret), I couldn't help feeling a little...used. Well, maybe used is too strong a word, but I definitely felt that this person had deceived me by accepting and applauding my openness and purporting themselves to be an open person as well, while meanwhile keeping a vital part of their life from me. 

I guess at the end of the day, we all need different amounts of light in our lives and it's up to us to decide where we're gonna keep our window-shades.  Mine is and always will be pulled open almost all the way. How that affects me in my dating life is part II of this topic. Stay tuned.