Words with (ex-boy)friends

Well, I kinda screwed up. Messed up building my new platonic friendship with Ben, at least for the time being. Rushed things too fast. Tried to be too proactive. Now I'm paying the price.

Last week's conversation left me in (relatively) high spirits. I no longer harbored a grudge against Ben for what he had done. He had acknowledged his mistakes and apologized for the hurt he had caused. I was still hurting and missing him, but I was ready to leave this sad chapter of my life behind and work toward redefining our relationship.

The next day, I realized that the one item of business that I had meant to address in our conversation had been forgotten. He had written me a check the night of the break up, but had written a future date on it to give himself time to put money in his account. I had wanted to confirm with him that it was okay to deposit it. So I texted him to confirm this.

After the break-up, a few of his close girlfriends had responded to me on Facebook with words of sympathy, and encouragement. I saw them on chat after the conversation I had with Ben, and let them know that we were back on speaking terms. I wanted to clue them into the fact that I was in a much better place than when they had last heard from me, and Ben and I would be able to be friends. Heck, I valued these people as friends of my own, since I had gotten to know them over the past year.

Friday I sent Ben an email with a link to a website. It's a forum for LGBT issues that I sometimes visit for advice, or to simply browse the topics. I had mentioned it during our conversation and wanted to be sure he had the link.

And finally, my Words with Friends game on my Ipad (for those not familiar, it's basically a computer version of Scrabble) told me that Ben had recently joined and kept asking if I wanted to challenge him to a game. As a friendly gesture, I sent him a game invite.

Apparently, these gestures were too much. Ben responded to my email saying thanks for the link and the conversation, but moving forward, he thought we should keep our distance and limit ourselves to checking in once every other month or so at most. He said any contact beyond that would stunt my healing process. He said sorry, but this was what he thought was best to make an eventual platonic friendship possible.

I took the email like a slap in the face. What the heck had I done? Was this really about Words with Friends? I texted him to request we talk about the email. He called later on, and we had what amounted to the first and only real argument we EVER had.

He said that between the text, the email, the game invite, and reaching out to his friends on Facebook, that I had basically overstepped my bounds. He was feeling uncomfortable, and was having a resurgence of the feelings from the end of our relationship. Plus, since he didn't accept the game invite, the game was sending him reminders to accept. (He thought I was manually sending those reminders, when in reality they are automatic.)

I couldn't believe me ears. I had made a conscious effort to not contact him excessively. I had not called him again since Wednesday, nor had I texted him beyond Thursday's brief, business-only text. The email was me trying to help. The game invite was meant to be a "no hard feelings" olive branch. I figured hey, if we're friends now, might as well start treating him like one.

Of course, he's been talking to people. And of course, everyone and their mother has an opinion about etiquette with exes. So whereas I am of the camp that dropping contact can sometimes be counterproductive when you're trying to maintain some sort of relationship with someone (although it might work wonders if your goal is to cut someone out of your life completely), he is of the camp where exes must basically drop off the face of the earth until some arbitrary future date, at which they might be able to be friends. He was very condescending throughout the conversation. A lot of "Cal, listen," and "Cal, here's the thing." I was left feeling like he thought I was exactly the kind of clingy psycho ex-boyfriend that I had made a point of not being. Meanwhile, sure I still have feelings for him. But I was focused on reaching out in friendly ways to get our new friendship started on the right foot.

Instead, I'm angry again, which is disappointing to me. I thought we had moved on from that. I thought there was no way that Ben could still hurt me, could still reject me. Now my whole plan to transition gradually into friendship is blown to hell. Ben and I are no longer going to meet up in LA this weekend.

Now, having had today to reflect on things (after having trouble sleeping for the first time since all of this began . . . I didn't even have trouble sleeping the night of the breakup!), I understand his position a little better (though I still think he majorly overreacted). I know that conventional wisdom states that you mustn't try to be friends until any and all feelings have dried up and died. But that's why I was going to take it slow and gradual. That's why I was going to keep tabs on my emotions and adjust accordingly. So I was greatly offended when Ben claimed to know what was best for my healing process. And I was awestruck that a text asking about a check could resurrect negative emotions from our breakup.

Bottom line: Okay, so I'm not completely over Ben. And maybe I was being over-zealous in trying to rush our relationship into the friend stage at this point. But this isn't just about my healing process. Ben obviously has some healing to do too, and I believe he doesn't want to try to be friends at this point because he feels too guilty. I do believe he is serious about being friends. As he said himself, if he wasn't serious about it he wouldn't have taken the time to talk to me and set things straight. And I appreciate his open-mindedness and willingness to do that.

Questions: Was I in the wrong? Did I push too far too fast? Was it unreasonable to at least TRY to transition to friendship at this point, even if my intent was to do it very gradually? Do you think Ben overreacted?

Where we stand now: I told him he can call me when he's ready to be friends. I suggested one of us call the other in a few weeks or a month. But at this point I know it's going to have to be him. If the slightest contact from me sets off his paranoia at this point, then I'll be much too self-conscious to reach out again until he does first. If that ever happens.

Wow. Who knew a friggin' Words with Friends invite could be taken the wrong way? Piece of work, that guy. Maybe this all is a blessing in disguise. His impulsive, reactive decision making is becoming a pattern.

Oh and don't worry. He basically promised he's not going to read the blog anymore. I do trust his word.