Is it okay to date an ex’s friend?
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After my ex and I broke up I continued to be friends with his friends that I had also become friends with during the time we were together (a jumble of a sentence, sorry). My ex was totally fine with this when we spoke for a while months later. He has since moved across the country & I don’t know his dating situation but I had a different relationship after him for a few months before that ended. Now recently I was hanging out with one of my ex’s friends/my own and things started to crossover into not so platonic territory. We both are feeling chemistry and have a lot in common and want to see how things go but we’re a little bit cautious because we don’t think my ex will like it. But then we’re like well… it’s been a while and he’s living on the other side of the country now so…? And it really shouldn’t be a problem because he’s my friend too, but to be honest he’s always been more of my ex’s friend and I keep going back and forth, does this make me a bad person for wanting to date my ex’s friend? Is this normal? Is this okay? It feels like it shouldn’t be a big deal but also seems like a big deal at the same time so I’m not sure.
I think it’s fine. I suppose he could give your ex / his friend a polite heads-up, but yeah, I think it’s fair game.
Yeah, I think you’re good. Date who you want, I doubt your ex is worrying about what you’d think about what he’s doing.
I feel like this is more your ex’s friend’s situation to manage than yours.
I’d think it’d be ok, but factors that may be important here include: how long you and your ex dated, how serious it was, how close he and his friend are, how long ago this was, why you broke up (i.e., were there hurt feelings?).
I have a friend whose friend group has had a fair amount of dating within the group and everyone seems to handle it maturely. She’s had two exes move on with women from their general friend group. With one, she really liked the new girlfriend and was happy for a heads up, said it was a little weird at first, but she’d been the dumper and was fine. With the other, there were some pretty hurt feelings on her end because her ex ended things like a total dick (I’d have a hard time in that situation, too, I think).
I think this is the exe’s friend’s responsibility to handle. It’s more of an unspoken bro-code thing. That said, he is on the other side of the country and it sounds like it has been a fair amount of time since you two ended things. I don’t see why the Exe would care, that said a heads up from his friend would be the polite thing. He doesn’t even need to ask permission, he just needs to tell him what’s up.
