Talking with a friend recently who was rather enamoured with a chap who was super ambiguous, a little probing revealed that this guy has a hell of a lot of female friends. A lot. Like when you see those shows about hoarders and then can barely move for all of the stuff piled up around them and they feel super attached to stuff that they’re never going to use or appreciate for that matter.
This guy collects exes, love interests that he’s turned down as well as becoming friends with the exes of his friends.
As soon as I heard about this, a code red alert went off for me. “You’d want to watch yourself there with all of those exes. You don’t need to be another one in the collection.” I was cautious because things were so ambiguous and not moving anywhere. At this point, she was still thinking that he was that special and putting him on a pedestal. I had to remind her that she is pretty damn great too. Undeterred, she reassured me that these friendships (erm, more like a harem) were genuine and that he has all of these female friends because, well, he’s so intelligent, funny, and quirky.
Here’s the thing: Some people love collecting exes.
I don’t mean that they go out of their way to make partners into exes by botching up relationships (although I suspect some do sabotage to resist commitment and then console themselves that they’re Really Great People ™ and A Really Good Ex ™) but more that their ego needs almost constant supply from the pool of people who have tried to forge something with them in the past.
These exes are like medals – Dear Ego & World, look at me. I’m such a good and great person that I can remain friends with all of my exes.
They’re also deterrents that tend to keep potential new partners at bay or are disruptive if it progresses. Even the most secure people in the world would feel rattled by going out with someone who spends most of their time juggling their exes including ex love interests.
People who collect exes and who in fact collect ‘supply’ are what I’ve joked are ‘haremologists’. If a person collects attention but is pretty indiscriminate about it and doesn’t have a harem per se (like people who trawl for attention on introduction ‘dating’ sites, Facebook et al), they’re more of an attentionphile.
Some ‘haremologists’ extend this penchant for collecting exes to collecting those of their friends. “Look! Your ex girlfriend/boyfriend likes me and I’m making him/her feel better about having been with you.” A number of my early relationships started this way – the friend of an ex swooping in on his broken down donkey disguised as a white horse. In these situations, you love the attention and the diversion plus, let’s be real – you get a kick out of remaining connected to your ex but also out of knowing that it’s likely pissed them off. Note – some people like going out with their friend’s exes because they’re pre-approved.
Being friends with the exes of their friends elevates them and they may even enjoy listening to these people expressing their hurt over the breakup and then… gradually seeing that they’re now falling for them instead. Then the haremologist gets to have a brief romance and then turn it down or to claim that his/her interest has been ‘misunderstood’ and that they just want friendship. In fact, I’ve heard a lot of versions of this story where they claim that they’d assumed that they were kindred spirits who were coming from the same emotional place and leaning on each other for friendship and support. Yeah, of course.
The sad thing is that once you realise that you are in a harem, even if you’re peeved at being messed around, your own ego then worries about not being in the harem and even that he/she might choose another member. You might find yourself hanging around for reputation management.
A lot of people are friends with an ex or two although plenty aren’t. It’s not a badge of honour to be friends with your ex and it doesn’t make you a Good Girl/Guy. It really doesn’t and I say this because too many people are obsessed with saving face and maintaining faux friendships because they think that only not-so-good people don’t remain on friendly terms with their exes. A hell of a lot of people also remain ‘friends’ with their ex because they:
1) want to keep an eye on the other party and keep them in their pocket as a rainy day option in case they change their mind and also to ensure that they haven’t made a bad decision, or
2) are not over them and are effectively re-auditioning in the hopes of being picked up when they realise that they can’t do better or when they have a lobotomy, or
3) are still sleeping with them but calling it ‘friendship’ makes the bitter pill of no official title and relationship easier to swallow, or
4) don’t really like him/her that much but can’t bear the thought that they [the haremologist] may feel similarly so they have the faux friendship for reassurance, or
5) need to validate something and prove it to their ego, peers or ‘everyone’.
When it’s genuine friendship, this is self-evident and unforced. It’s organic. It’s not baggage because the friendships are not being carted around as a way to avoid letting go and/or as symbols to reassure the ego.
If a someone is in the habit of remaining in touch with all of their exes, their ex love interests who they didn’t reciprocate the feelings of and even their friends’ exes, these ‘friendships’ are important to their ego and are serving a purpose. Their motivations and lack of self-awareness cause a pattern of problems. If you have been let down by somebody who didn’t reciprocate your interest and now they’re all over you like a rash to keep messaging them and keep up a ‘friendship’, they have form for this. How do you think they accumulated their harem? It’s like, “Here we go again. Yet another woman/guy who can’t control their emotions and is falling for me. What can I do? All I want to do is ambiguously be friends with them and they all go and get the wrong feckin’ idea. Ah well.”
My friend eventually discovered that she is indeed a member of his harem. It’s as if this guy is carting around a cemetery of all the women he’s ever been involved with or who have expressed an interest in him. The ghosts of unavailability past. I’ve seen this so many times in reader stories. It’s as if these people all read the same playbook. All of this carry-on is reassurance that they’re not shady and is about maintaining illusions. The pursuing of ‘friendship’ which may be little more than lots of messaging, is about getting harem members to forget their own feelings so that they can stroke his/hers and assuage them of their guilt.
When I see people carting around their exes and devoting so much time to tending to these ‘friendships’, I have to wonder: how in the hell do they expect to have room for a romantic partner?
I regularly ask people who are expending excessive amounts of energy on keeping their ex in their life: Exactly what part of moving forward with your life does your ex fit into? You say you want to meet somebody and have a mutual relationship – why are you basing your life plans around how to keep your ex in your life or even how to keep them happy? Let it go!
The easiest way to ensure that you don’t end up in someone’s house of ex dolls collection is to ensure that your self-esteem isn’t reliant on validation from ex partners or people who don’t reciprocate your interest. It’s knowing that line between being friends and disrespecting yourself because you’re trying to have some crumbs rather than no crumbs and are taking what you see as their rejection of you and their inability to give you what you want personally. It’s not about you. Stop pumping them up!
