Exes are the worst. The worst mainly because they were once the best, and regardless of how Beyonce Irreplaceable you think you played it, there's nothing fun about being really vulnerable and open with a person only to find they don't like you anymore/you don't like them/both of you would prefer to be alone then ever hang out with each other.
How you handle that situation is up to you. You could, of course, do a Kanye and say you needed 30 showers after dating them. Or, do as he did yesterday and slut shame them as fodder for an argument you're having with someone else. Because, ICYMI, somewhere in the middle of the bonkers Twitter spat Kanye West (a fully-grown man last time we checked) had with Wiz Khalifa, he decided to go for Amber Rose, who has dated both of the rappers. Kanye first tweeted 'you let a stripper trap you' and then, rather charmingly, followed up with 'I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years.'
Wiz and Amber have a child together.
Amber, unfortunately being used to getting slut rubbished by silly men was ready with a zinger of a riposte 'Awww @KanyeWest are u mad I'm not around to play in ur asshole any more? #FingersInTheBootyAssBitch'.
Another option, for dealing with your ex, and life in general, is don't do a Kanye. Be an adult about the whole thing because hey, nobody wants to do anything Kanye West does unless it involves making excellent records that even non-rap fans go mad for.
Firstly, immediately after a breakup, you are not liable for your actions (unless your actions involve criminal activity, because unfortunately the actual law doesn't grant people in the post breakup period immunity) so any dignity lost immediately disappears into the ether.
I say this because, during my immediate breakup periods (which took a year), I was about as far from Beyonce Irreplaceable as one could possibly be. I was the opposite of Beyonce Irreplaceable. I was... an onion. That's the opposite, right? Either way, nothing worse than waking up after a year-long breakup coma only to be like 'Oh my fucking god what was I doing?' (alright, it was two years okay?) to really make you think about how you treat the ex-that-you-no-longer-speak-to. Because regardless of who broke up with who, and how it ended, both of you will have missed each other, been sad, felt weird, acted out, repressed it, cried for no reason, and hated the other person.
And, secondly, when it comes to ex etiquette, it gets pretty Ancient Norse eye-for-an-eye out there; so do to others as you yourself would wish to be, er, done. Or whatever the saying is. Because if they break the rules, you are totally within your rights to make the decision: will you do a Beyonce Irreplaceable? Or will you do what I've done and, when my ex talked shit about me to a close friend, mention it in an article in the hope that he reads it and knows I know, and feels fucking bad about it? It's your choice. I hope you choose the smoothest course, steady as the beating drum (Pocahontas reference).
In saying that, here are the guidelines you should at least attempt to follow, even if they fail to follow them. Because we've all got to try and keep the peace and respect our fellow man, even if we boned them for a while and no longer speak.
It's not OK to:
**Talking about ex sex **
Can you imagine if you found out they were gossiping about how you make that weird face when you come, cried that one time afterwards, or had some sort of performance problem for a few months because you were dead stressed at work? It's the worst form of betrayal. There's a one night stand, and there's repeatedly being vulnerable and intimate with the same person for a long period of time, and that second one deserves some sort of respect. It wasn't, like, flippant at the time so don't make it flippant now. Oh, but if you find out they're trash-talking your bedroom moves you are fully within your rights to destroy them. As they are, with you.
**Telling other people the secrets they told you **
Some people are non-communicative and won't open up. Some people open up way too much. If your ex told you that one thing that makes them burn with shame that they don't anyone else knowing, the fact that they dumped you shouldn't mean you go around telling everyone - and if you dumped them, then don't add insult to injury, man. You might have destroyed each other, but that's no reason to break the invisible contract that binds two people when they exchange secrets while nude. Or they've just been nude. Or will about to be nude. Nude.
Trash talk them for no reason
Telling people you needed 30 showers after dating them, and calling them a slut counts as trash talking for no reason. You're allowed to partake in totally insane, unfounded accusations during the breakup period (and especially when drunk), but once that's over with then it's not cool to keep at it. If you still find yourself yelling things like 'HE JUST HAS A BAD, EVIL SOUL AND I THINK HE'S A PSYCHOPATH' four years on, then maybe start checking yourself. At the very least, constantly focussing on how much you hate them will just add fuel to the fire, so break the cycle and move on. People are dicks. People love each other and then don't anymore. Go and find someone cool who doesn't make you act like a mad person.
Oh, and at the very, very least it just looks like you're overly defensive and bitter and sad.
Ward other people off them
There's one thing telling your friends that it'd be great if they didn't have sex with any of your ex boyfriends ever, but it's quite a different thing to launch into someone you see your ex hitting on and tell them you'll beat them up if any sex occurs. Or say 'Look it's none of my business, but I know that guy and I heard he killed a man'. Look man, a month after I got dumped, I was forced to walk home behind my ex with another girl because there was no other way for me to get home. It's probably the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced, and I once knocked myself out on my own bedroom door while alone in my flat, so I feel you - but you need to walk away and not come off like the crazy psycho mental ex. Even if, in your head, you 100% are.
Set fire to their house
Dunno, it just seems a bit much.
**Use social media to blow off steam **
Once you've broken up with someone, or been broken up with, suddenly you become the sort of person who demands everyone sends you photos off their phones after a night out so you can instagram/Facebook them over the course of the next week in order to show the world (read: your ex) how great life is. Then, after the de-friending stage (because you're so exhausted with trying to look good and constantly stalking every female who posts on their wall, and is pictured with them), it becomes all about the cover photo, because no privacy settings can hide it. The likelihood of someone having been just made single directly correlates with a) the amount their cover photo changes and b) the amount of fun they're having in said cover photo. So far, so passive aggressively fine. But the moment it moves to full-on status updates, blog posts or tweets relating to your ex, you need to rein it in. Apart from the fact that status updates that read 'Need a hug [link to the song you and your ex used to listen to]' and 'FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME' posted at 3am are so damn obvious, nobody ever manages to pull this off without looking desperately sad. And yes, that includes instagram selfies captioned with broken heart emojis.
**Show other people rude pictures they sent you **
If an ex does this to you, then you are pretty much legally obliged to destroy their lives and everything to which they hold dear. So do yourself a favour, and put all those pictures on a memory card at the back of your wardrobe in a shoebox marked 'Not to be opened until after you've turned 40' and never speak of it again. Or delete them.
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Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.