John's post on friendship got me thinking a bit over the past few days. I now basically have two separate sets of friends: (1) people I know from my own independent efforts, whether that be from the deep past, from work, or more recent acquaintances; and (2) people that I met either during or because of my marriage.
It's probably no surprise that the set of friends from the married era are the most complicated personal relationships in my life right now. They are tortured because things are now "so different" and they feel that the burden is on them to balance time and social engagements between me and my ex. It's funny; since they do such a good job of fretting over this, I never see what they go through and only see the results (and the results are that I frequently get to hang out with them and do fun things, and occasionally I am subjected to complete radio silence for a day or two when they're too embarrassed to let me know that they're hanging out with my ex.)
It's been almost six months now since our divorce. I think that's long enough that they really need to stop worrying about it; I certainly have. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. At this point, I don't particularly care if I do or don't see my ex when I'm out socially. That isn't to say there won't still be some awkward moments in the future, because I'm sure those will still occur. Can't avoid that. But it has only as much energy as people give it: I do hope my friends from that era really hear me saying that they don't need to keep doing this. I love them too much to see them suffer.
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