Don't You Know That You're Toxic?

Pro Tip: don’t ever become friends with your ex’s new girlfriend. Trust me, I’ve done this twice.

 

In 2013, I befriended the girl who moved to Louisville to be with the man who had broken up with me because he “needed to be single.” I came face to face with Colorado Girl for my first time at an outdoor early summer concert in the parking lot of a trendy restaurant. If I remember correctly she already knew who I was. She didn’t know anyone else in town yet, so I took it upon myself to buy her a drink and begin our emotionally strained friendship. We would continue to meet for drinks, I lent her my copy of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist that I would never get back. She would even make potato salad for my family’s Fourth of July party.

 

The first time they broke up I had beers with him and then went back to his almost empty apartment he had shared with her. Sexual tension hung in the air while he showed me a pair of brown leather shoes he had made, that my feet were too big for. We watched a movie and sometime after midnight I drove home.

 

The second time they broke up, this time for good, Colorado Girl spent the night on my couch. She didn’t understand why I had stayed friends with him, she asked me questions about my relationship with him. CAN YOU SAY CONFLICT OF INTEREST? I slept with him two nights later. After he left that night I received a text from her asking if I was going to start dating him again.

 

After Colorado Girl, he eventually started dating an acquaintance of mine. Social media became a gut punch every time I scrolled through their lives. I left Instagram for six months because it became too painful to watch him create this life with her. Vacations. Expensive restaurants. Pets. The perverse illusion of hashtags and filters.

 

Only very recently did it occur to me that my friendship with him may have been toxic to my emotional healing. Yes, I considered our friendship important. I believed my emotions were in check. Of course, now I know I’ve never been able to move on because he’s always been in my life. What was I fucking thinking going over to the home they created together, drinking their wine, sitting at the table he built. Eventually it had to catch up with me. What was it going to take for me to let go of the dreams I was almost certain we might share one day? I cannot tell you what information I know now that I wish I didn’t, but it turns out it was the information I needed in order to let him and our friendship go.

 

Once I noticed he had blocked me on Instagram I realized it was the nicest thing he’s ever done for me. It was something I never had the courage to do. I could only unfriend and friend again a few months later. The endless pursuit of setting myself up for an emotional rollercoaster with no end in sight.  

 

WHY DID IT TAKE ME NINE YEARS TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO ADMIT THIS FRIENDSHIP WAS TOXIC FOR ME?