Welcome to Interviews With My Ex-Girlfriend, in which Autostraddle writers get back in touch with their ex-girlfriends to ask them Five Simple Questions:

1. How long did we date?
2. Why did we break up?
3. What did you learn from our relationship?
4. What do you miss most about me?
5. Would you invite me to your wedding (why/why not)?

I met Bridget on AOL Instant Messenger through mutual friends when I was 14. While it feels a little silly to say that now, at the time it was the biggest, craziest thing that had ever happened to me. We dated for a few years, under weird circumstances you’ll read about shortly, and had the kind of breakup where everybody feels a little tortured for a while. We had a secret internet relationship before that was really a common thing, and so we had to have our secret internet breakup with very little support. Eventually, we ended up in the same city for college, and somehow we turned our weird relationship into the strongest, best friendship I’ve ever had. Pretty cool how that works out, huh?

Anyway, I called Bridget the other day so I could make her uncomfortable by asking personal questions about the time in our lives when we were arguably at our neediest and most ridiculous. It was a blast.

Literally the only photo of us that I could find. We are, in fact, riding Wiggle Scooters at the mall.

Kaitlyn: First, I have a confession. I, uhh, forgot your cell phone number, and I went to type it into Google Talk, and I had to look it up, and I feel really ashamed.

Bridget: You shouldn’t be ashamed of that. When was the last time you had to type in a number at all?

K:  I feel like I called you every day, three thousand times a day for two years. I should probably know your number.

B: Yeah, I definitely know your number.

K: Okay, so I have five questions that I’m supposed to ask you, but we can also talk about other things if you want.

B: It’s not gonna be like that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie gets wrangled into it and it’s like, “Single and Fabulous,” is it?

K: I don’t watch Sex and the City, but I’m gonna just go ahead and say no, it’s not gonna be like that. So. The first question is, how long were we together, and when?

B: Okay. Uhhh. I don’t know, how long were we together? I guess we started dating when I was … I don’t know, was I a sophomore in high school?

K: Um … no, you were a freshman. I was a sophomore.

B: Okay. So, I don’t know, wasn’t it three years?

K: Yeah, something like that. We started dating when we were 14, right?

B: Okay, yeah.

K: And then we broke up for the last time, right, like three months before my 17th birthday.

B: Oh really? Okay.

K: Yeah, remember?

B: Well, I knew it was junior year of high school.

K: That we broke up?

B: Yeah. My junior year.

K: Right. My senior year. So that was … what year was that? When were we 14?

B: I think I was a freshman in 2006.

K:  Yeah, that sounds right.

B: And so it would have been like 2008, 2009.

K: Okay. Why did we break up, to the best of your recollection?

B: I was actually thinking about this before you called me! Because I knew you were gonna ask, because you said you were gonna ask, and uh. We were long distance for pretty much the entirety of our relationship, and things were pretty bad. I kind of forget. Or like, after we broke up I was so bummed out and I was like, “Oh, things were so good.” I think we were fighting probably every day, I don’t know.

K: At least!

B: Yeah! And I think partially, you were going away to college — not that it really made that much of a difference because we were already long distance — but like, I was going to still be in high school, and things were not good anyway. So you dumped me!

K: I did! I don’t know, I feel like it’s important to talk about, like … our relationship was so weird because like you said, it was long distance. It was a secret for both of us. We basically started dating because of MySpace, because we were MySpace friends through Cali and everyone.

B: Yeah, or like, through AIM kinda.

K: Exactly.

B: I think it’s weird for straight people or people of a different generation, but I think it’s kind of typical of gay kids, especially now because of Tumblr and stuff like that.

K: Oh yeah. The cool thing now is like, people will meet on Tumblr and start dating and like actually move to be together. We never really had that option, and I don’t think we ever really thought about it. We talked about college, but it was so far away from being a reality that I kind of got tired of waiting for it to happen. It felt like we were still kids.

B: Yeah, there were a lot of things about our relationship that were kind of probably contingent on the time in our lives that it was.

K: So what do you miss most about me? I want to hear this!

B: Oh, God. I don’t know. It was nice that when we were together, we kind of had our own things going on. As much as you can in high school, so I guess we didn’t have that much going on. But we had our own separate lives because we were long distance, but then it was nice to check in with someone at the end of the day, and have somebody that cared to listen about stuff that happened. As opposed to being with somebody in the same place, we had new things to share at the end of our day.

K: So what about our relationship that we had has impacted other relationships you’ve had since then?

B: Well, I think the fact that our relationship was kind of weird, the fact that we were long distance and, like you said, it was kind of a secret from people that we knew. [So] in relationships, my experience wasn’t typical. I didn’t date somebody at my high school and then break up when we went to college. Or like a bunch of my friends were still dating their high school boyfriends or girlfriends when they went away to college. So I feel like I didn’t have a typical kind of first relationship. I guess it has impacted my relationships. I don’t really know how I would say, but it has.

K: You haven’t really been in a serious relationship since then, right? Like you’ve had relationships with people, but you — I don’t know. It sort of fucked with me the same way, where like, it was a really intense first relationship, and we were just so crazy about each other. We were teenagers, and after that, the bar was set really high for me. I’ve always demanded a high level of communication, and I have high expectations of how people will talk to me and what kind of questions they’ll ask me. I really expect someone to be there for me in the way that we were for each other, even though that’s not how everyone does relationships. My relationships are really intense, because my first one ever was, and I got used to it.

B: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it was kind of weird because you’ve basically been in relationships since we broke up. Since you got to college you’ve been in pretty serious relationships, and I haven’t been in a serious relationship. I don’t really know why we came out of it with opposite [experiences]. I don’t know.

K: I don’t know either. So the last one they want me to ask is, would you at this juncture invite me to your wedding, and why or why not?

B: Yeah, absolutely.

K: Why?

B: I think a situation where you wouldn’t invite an ex to a wedding is like, if things got really bad and you never really got a chance to have any closure. If they’re a negative presence at your wedding, of course you wouldn’t want them there. Or I guess if one of the people in the relationship still had feelings for the other, that wouldn’t be good to have them at your wedding, either.

We’re weird friends, but we are friends. I would have you at my wedding. You’d be one of the first people I’d invite. I wouldn’t think twice about it.

K: That’s the other question I wanted to ask: Why do you think we’re friends still?

B: Hah. Uh. I don’t know, our relationship was kind of atypical and maybe not — I don’t want to say not real, but kind of not real, because it was so weird. Us not being in the same place, and maybe we didn’t even really know each other that well. So I guess we’re just good friends because that was the only way that could have worked. Maybe we were always just good friends.

K: I don’t know. I get what you’re saying, I guess. But we were in the same place for the big things. You were my first kiss, and we planned all that stuff out so intricately. Which was always sort of funny because I don’t think people who are in the same place talk about stuff the way that we did.

B: Yeah, but 16-year-olds that are attracted to each other have unrealistic dreams about going to the same college and getting married and stuff like that. I think there is a really important reason why that doesn’t happen, because when I think about how we are compared to how we were when we were 16, we’re totally different people. I don’t even want to imagine how bad the relationship would be if we had forced it and stayed together, because it was pretty bad in 2008. But when I think about you now, I think you’re so different than you were when we were teenagers. I think there’s a reason why that generally doesn’t work out.

K: Yeah, totally. And we actually weren’t friends for a long time. It was really hard for us to figure out how to be friends. Yes, our relationship was us being good friends and talking all the time, but it was a very intense friendship where we shared every single thought we had all the time, and like everything that happened in our day, we told the other person about. It was hard to step that back and learn how to be just friends. It was really hard for a while not to call you every single day. Or like text you every two seconds.

B: Yeah, I kind of forget that now. I guess it would have been like a year that it was pretty horrible. Because I think I was still attracted to you, and you felt shitty about making things so bad for me, and you would try to like become my friend, and it was probably like, I was talking it the wrong way kind of thing.

K: Oh yeah. It was definitely too soon that I forced you to be my friend.

B: Yeah, I think I needed to take time. I think it also helped to be attracted to anybody else, and senior year, even though I had a straight crush that I took all my time and money trying to make that a reality —

K: Who was that? Was that [name]?

B: Yeah, but don’t put her name in it! You know, we went on quote-unquote dates, but of course she was straight and stuff, and I don’t think really attracted to me. But it was good to keep wasting my time by doing something other than obsessing about a relationship that I was romanticizing anyway. I think it just takes time. And then it’s also good if you’re not attracted to the person anymore, because I think it’s kind of impossible to move on otherwise.

K: I think it’s good that we ended up both living in Chicago, but I’m glad that it didn’t happen for at least a year.

B: It was probably a good thing that we both ended up in Chicago, because it changed the dynamic of our relationship. Like, us hanging out for instance was so different  than talking on the phone. One of my friends from high school asked me recently when she came up to visit, she was like, “Did you move to Chicago to try to get Kaitlyn back?” but it was actually my idea first!

K: It was. You’re the reason I went to Chicago, and then we broke up and I still wanted to go.

B: I mean, it’s a good thing we didn’t end up at the same school, but Chicago’s so big so we weren’t in the same social circles. It was cool that we could hang out with each other.

K: How did you feel when we started hanging out in person? That was weird to me. I still wanted to plan out every moment of when we were gonna hang out, because that’s what I was used to doing. But then like, I’d get there and we wouldn’t know what to do, and it was like, “Alright, guess we’re gonna go eat food now!”

B: It was difficult for me because it was my freshman year, and I didn’t know anybody in Chicago, and when I first moved into the dorms, I didn’t see myself making friends at first, which I think everybody kind of goes through. I wanted to reach out to you, but I didn’t want to fall back into anything. That was difficult when we first moved back, because it was like, am I gonna have feelings for Kaitlyn? And then I think I kind of did for a little bit, but then I started to make friends and feel comfortable at [school], and our friendship became more normal.

K: Definitely. I think it’s funny when we slip back into the, like, being too involved in each other’s lives still happens sometimes, like trying to tell each other what to do. It feels like every time that happens, then we have a fight, and we’re unhappy. That kind of to me is always telling that if we were still dating, it would not be good. We don’t agree on how to solve conflicts!

B: Yeah and it’s funny because I don’t argue with any of my friends. I’m not confrontational. But then sometimes, and it was really rarely [Kaitlyn’s note: It was not that rarely], we would get in an argument, and then my roommates or my friends would be like, “Who are you talking to like that? It sounds like someone bickering with their girlfriend.”

K: The times when people were most like, “Do you and Bridget still have feelings for each other?” were when we would fight and shout at each other on the phone.

B: Yeah, how horrible is that?

K: Over the stupidest shit! I still don’t get it. I’m glad we haven’t fought in a while, because the most emotionally draining fights I’ve ever had are when we’re just yelling at each other, and I feel like neither of us really knows why we’re mad, but we just get caught up in it.

B: That’s a pretty typical thing that happens in any relationship. When you’re just having a bad day and you bicker with each other, and then you really hurt each other. The way that you solve it when you’re in a relationship is like, “Oh, I love you, blah blah blah.” But you can’t really do that in a friendship. It’s weird to have relationship fights but then resolve it like friends. Like, “Okay well, sorry I pissed you off. Talk to you later!”

K: It is weird. I think we got the hang of it.

B: We used to fight like all the time because it was the only way we really knew how to talk to each other. I think we’ve figured out how to talk like friends now.

K: We’ve figured out how to listen to each other’s problems without trying to solve them, which is a thing that you used to say to me all the time. “I just want to call and complain because I’m bummed out,” and instead I would try to tell you how to fix it and you would get really mad.

B: Right, because in a normal friendship, you just listen to somebody, and you don’t necessarily — like, you give them advice, but you don’t try to correct what they’re doing. You’re just like, “Oh, that sucks, that’s bad.” But in a relationship, you’re like, “Hey, you need to change what you’re doing! That’s why it’s bad!”

Now that we’re publicly friends and not secretly dating, we can take pictures together! This one’s from Times Square in January 2015.

K: Well, those are all the questions that I had. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?

B: Well, I was thinking about whoever created this as a project for Autostraddle is probably just somebody trying to get their ex back. Like an excuse to contact their exes.

K: I mean, I have several exes that I would not feel comfortable doing this with. But with you, it’s like, “Eh, I can ask Bridget anything. Not a big deal.”

B: Yeah. It’s like a stereotypically lesbian thing to do, to hash every moment of your relationship out. And it’s probably harmful to do, but I think there’s something kind of good about figuring out what was good and what was bad about your relationship, in order to move forward from it.

K: I think it depends on how you do it. Right now we’re not doing it to go back and dig through things like, “Oh, you were such a bitch to me.” We’re doing it to learn about our friendship.

B: Yeah, and it’s been long enough now. It’s been, how many years?

K: We’ve been not-dating for longer than we ever were dating in our friendship, and that’s weird to me.

B: I can’t actually remember why we fought so often, what was so bad. I don’t think anything actually was so bad.

K: It wasn’t, at all.

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