Read a very nice column on the Straits Times Interactive yesterday... Think its quite interesting...

"Don't axe the ex

Clara Chow


IN A city of four million people, with a land area of 682.3 sq km (and growing), it is inevitable that one should run into an ex-boyfriend.

After all, if you live in Yishun and he lives in Bishan, you are just two exits on the Central Expressway away from him.

My last boyfriend and I broke up in June after 2 1/2 years together, for a combination of reasons - some minor, others major. All culminated in the final realisation that we were not meant to be together. So we moved on.

As part of the process, I embarked on an Ex-boyfriend Desensitisation Programme - EDP for short - two months ago.

Cheaper than the ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) system, it is basically a programme of gradually re-establishing contact with a partner you have recently broken up with.

The EDP allows the two of you to get used to the idea of being friends again, now that the dish-throwing, screaming and mud-slinging are over.

The relationship might not have worked out, but that is no reason to mentally kill someone off in the soap opera of your life.

However, I admit that the process isn't always easy. It requires maturity, patience and several misfires.

For example, it was hard the first time he had to scoot off for a date in the middle of hanging out with mutual friends at a pub. I soldiered on with a couple more pints and then went home alone.

And at times, a friendly pat on the shoulder or a hug from him can still bring back memories best left forgotten.

Then again, relapses are common and they peter out over time.

And I was determined to stay true to my goal. Call it nostalgia, but I believe my ex-boyfriends have shaped who I am. They deserve better than to be thrown out like yesterday's trash.

Blame it on my diet of Jackie Collins books and reading Jacqueline Susann's Valley Of The Dolls during my formative years.

I was impressed by the way their pulp fiction heroines always picked themselves up after a man's betrayal, only to emerge stronger and even more glamorous.

However, there's also a fine line between staying friends and psychotic stalker behaviour.

Staying friends doesn't mean clogging up his voicemail with 25 messages a day. Nor does it mean parking your car outside his apartment to see who he brings home.

If you are one of those people, drop this newspaper, back away slowly and call your shrink.

For me, staying friends with an ex has many advantages:


Your ex-boyfriend-turned-friend will probably be extra nice to you because of survivor guilt. If he was the one who pulled the plug on the relationship, chances are he will try to be sweet for a few months - depending on how good you are at emotional blackmail - to get you to forgive and forget completely.


Staying on cordial terms also means you can procrastinate when it comes to collecting the stuff you left over at his place. He may be more willing to let you leave your things there for an extended period of time.

That means more storage space for your clothes and shoes, which is better than making an enemy of him and having him chuck all your boxes out before you have a chance to cart them home.


He can be a great psychoanalyst. Forget Cosmopolitan quizzes which ask 'What's Your Anger Quotient?' Now, you can quiz him endlessly on what you did wrong so that you will not repeat your mistakes in your next relationship.


You can turn an ex into your pseudo Gay Boyfriend (GBF). Since you guys have probably already got the sexual tension/talk about marriage out of the way, you are free to just hang out without feeling self-conscious.

Staying friends with an ex follows the same reason a lot of women still have their fashion mistakes hanging in their closets. Some men are like bad clothes.

Women may cringe and slap their foreheads at their own bad taste but, at the end of the day, embarrassing pieces of textile once worn - and for that matter, men once loved - become an inexorable part of them.

As for me, after swinging between feeling pleased with myself that my ex and I are pals, to irritation at him for sharing details of his love life with me, I have settled into some kind of equilibrium.

We now swap testimonials on Friendster.com, extolling each other's virtues for the world to see. He remembers my birthday and sends me flowers. And my parents are used to the idea of him popping by to visit and check on our pet turtles which I now have custody of.

We are a lot saner now as friends than when we were an item, but if we had never tried to stay in touch after the breakup, we would never have realised this.

When a marriage ends, couples may stay friends for the sake of the kids.

When a relationship ends, it is all too easy to walk away from the wreckage.

My advice is not to take the easy way out. Just as everybody deserves a second chance, so too does your ex. "


Good article, right?