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)?

Ah, A-Camp: the brainchild of my boss and buddy Riese Bernard, a glorious gathering of some of the most fantastic queers you’re likely to ever meet in a lifetime. The first A-Camp (April 2012) holds a particularly special place in my heart, both because it was such a bold experiment and also because it’s where I met one of my closest friends, Emily. If we’re being honest, I barely spoke to Emily at A-Camp; I thought she was really hot so I mostly hid from her, like the mature adult that I am. Afterwards, we struck up an online flirtation which eventually resulted in a visit, which led to us developing really serious feelings for each other almost immediately (which shocked us both). She ended up messing with her entire university schedule by delaying her return to Oregon – which at the time she told me she’d done because her mom missed her, but was actually done so we could hold hands and make out some more. We never made things official official, but we weren’t not a thing, you know?

Things were complicated; Emily lived in Eugene, Oregon at the time, and she also had a non-monogamous but committed relationship with her then-boyfriend, Daniel. While she prepared to spend a semester studying abroad in Buenos Aires, I excitedly prepared to come visit her there; I was really swept away with the romanticism of it all. Unfortunately, Daniel broke up with her right before she left, which threw all our plans into a turmoil. She was having a rough time, and I was just along for the ride. Through a lot of terrible circumstances beyond our control, our once-promising relationship was put on hold, and we both struggled to understand how we were going to fit into one another’s lives. After a lot of soul-searching and a lot of sadness, we ultimately decided to end our romantic situation and figure out how to be friends. At the time, it wasn’t my favorite decision anyone’s ever made, but in the end it turned out to be the right choice. We ended up closer than ever, and remain so to this day.

A lot of this interview focuses on the negative times we spent in relationship limbo! I believe it’s worth noting that while she is not particularly demonstrative by nature, Emily is super sweet, very thoughtful and a total babe. I’m glad we ended up where we are.

Once upon a time, actually years after we broke up but whatever.

Emily: Hey.

Stef: Hello!

Emily: How are you?

Stef: I’m great.

Emily: You probably just heard my cat meow. He has a lot to say.

Stef: I didn’t, but if he wants to be interviewed as well…

Emily: He always does.

Stef: If this soundcheck starts, I’m gonna have to rethink this situation… I don’t know if you can hear this kick drum, but they’re starting.

Emily: Oh yeah.

Stef: So um, thank you for agreeing to have this interview.

Emily: (laughs)

Stef: Everything is normal and fine.

Emily: (laughs nervously) As usual.

Stef: Yes, of course. Uh, hold on, let’s pull up someone else’s interview.

Emily: Yeah, let’s just copy someone else’s interview, someone else’s answers.

Stef: So the first question is how long we were together for, which is a weird question for us.

Emily: It is a weird question.

Stef: Because we weren’t anything official…

Emily: I mean… I guess we were definitely flirting with each other on the internet for a long time before we actually hooked up.

Stef: That’s true. We made jokes about how I had designated you as my makeout intern, which was a super casual and normal thing to do.

Emily: Yeah, that was a time where we probably could have acknowledged something but didn’t… So I guess that was probably in spring?

Stef: Yeah, because the first A-Camp was in April, but I didn’t actually talk to you there.

Emily: Things escalated quickly.

Stef: I was actively avoiding you at A-Camp.

Emily: Right, as one does, until I stole your hat. So I guess that started in spring and even though it wasn’t like, official, things ended.. the next spring?

Stef: That sounds about right. So something was going on for like a year.

Emily: Something.

Stef: I’m not really sure… which leads me to the next question, which is why we broke up, or why it ended.

Emily: I will definitely take all of the blame.

Stef: Cool, because it was totally your fault.

Emily: One hundred percent. I was like, a complete… mess, I guess? I was not in a good place and I was having weird stuff with the other relationship I was in at the time, and then some other shitty things went down and that kind of sent me into an emotional spiral and I was not really doing a good job of relating to other people or like, doing anything except feeling miserable. That was unpleasant.

Stef: You were having a rough time for a while, and I think you actually handled it about as well as anybody could have.

Emily: Ehhhh.

Stef: When I’ve been in other situations where I wasn’t somebody else’s primary partner I’ve always found it really difficult, and I will admit that I totally resented Daniel for a while… which I think I had every right to.

Emily: Yeah, I think we talked about that pretty openly.

Stef: And he seemed like not such a big part of your life then, until all of a sudden he was.

Emily: That’s actually a very fair portrayal of the situation.

Stef: You guys seemed like roommates who never saw each other, you never mentioned him, and then he broke up with you and all of a sudden he was a huge part of everything.

Emily: Yeah, it was essentially that things had been in sort of a downward trend with him as well… We moved and he was miserable and it was my fault that we moved because I was going to school. He agreed to go but then was incredibly unhappy, and then we had completely opposite schedules and sort of drifted apart. He ended up really severely depressed and upset with me, and I was like “Holy shit, you’ve been such a big part of my life,” and it was an “I don’t want you to be a part of my life” sort of thing, so that was really hard and shitty. Once I was kind of back on the upswing and things were improving, then I was sexually assaulted by a stranger and that threw things more into disarray with my ability to cope with anything.

Stef: Yeah uh, everything was really fucked up.

Emily: It was not good, but I definitely did not handle the whole situation well.

Stef: I don’t think there was a great way to handle any of that situation honestly. I was so pumped to come visit you in Buenos Aires, and I was so excited and everything was going so great, and it was really intense really quickly, and then suddenly it was like, of course everything has to be on hold. You really gave me room to be upset about it, but I also was so invested, I just sat around waiting for a while until we decided it didn’t make sense for me to do that anymore. Uh, so that sucked. It ended up fine… and I actually like Daniel now.

Emily: He’s a better person now, I think.

Stef: Yeah, we’re like, cool internet friends. I did not see that coming.

Emily: Yeah, we had the right breakup later.

Stef: (sarcastically) Cool, good for you guys.

Emily: It was the “We can be friends” breakup. We’re both in much better places in our lives but uh, that did not go down well and I handled it like a dummy.

Stef: I mean, everything about it really sucked.

Emily: Yeah, sometimes I’m shocked that we still ended up being friends afterwards, I did not expect that to happen and I’m really glad it did, but for a while there I was like, well she’s gonna fuckin’ hate me forever.

Stef: It was definitely rough going for a minute. There was a time when I deleted you from Facebook and was like, “I’m never talking to you again,” and I was super pissed at you.

Emily: And I was like, “You have every right to do that.”

Stef: It was actually maddening how cool you were about allowing me to be upset.

Emily: I was just like, how pissed would I be? I’d put myself in your shoes and be like, “That bitch, I don’t want to talk to her.”

Stef: You gave me so much room to be mopey and emotional and you’re not a very outwardly emotional person… So when you were dealing with actually very real, valid things to be upset about, you were a little stunned I think, but you also gave me full license to be a pissed off mess…. which I appreciate, because I need a lot of room to be a pissed off mess.

Emily: I mean, I have some experience with people being emotional in my life…

Stef: What did you learn from our relationship?

Emily: I definitely learned that I don’t think I’m necessarily good enough at communicating to try to do multiple relationships at a time? If I’m not emotionally expressive enough to deal with my own feelings, then I shouldn’t let them get into complicated situations –

Stef: I mean, as background, you had dated other people outside of your relationship with Daniel but you always kind of cut them off when it got to a point where that person wanted to be in a legit relationship with you. You didn’t ever let anyone get that… close, I think?

Emily: That’s the case with most relationships overall for me, not just in terms of dating multiple people.

Stef: But in our case we really didn’t think it was going to be a thing; you came to New York and I was like, “I’m probably gonna hook up with this girl and it’s gonna be awesome.” I did not expect it to be this very intense emotional thing that happened immediately.

Emily: Yeah, that was weird.

Stef: It was crazy! I rearranged my entire schedule – you rearranged your entire school schedule to stay longer… and lied to me about it?!?!?!

Emily: I didn’t want you to be like, “Omigod, what a crazy thing to do,” so I was just like, “No, of course, this is completely doable that I just changed everything about my trip, no problem.”

Stef: You didn’t come clean about that until years later. In retrospect, yes, that was a totally crazy thing to do.

Emily: Thank you. (laughs) I’m aware.

We have never taken a lot of pictures together but we did go to brunch with Carmen Rios once.

Stef: It was so much so fast and we were both really stunned by it. Nobody saw that coming.

Emily: We’re both pretty cynical people, I think, so we were just like, “Uh, what?!?! What happened to me being the makeout intern?!?”

Stef: No, it wasn’t what I had signed on for at all.

Emily: No, that wasn’t in my contract of… employment or whatever interns get.

Stef: This next question doesn’t really make any sense in this context, but what do you miss about me?

Emily: I mean, we do talk every day. I guess you’re correct in that doesn’t make the most sense.

Stef: We’re definitely in a better place now than we were in for a really long time after that.

Emily: Yeah, we’ve had very honest and good conversations since then, so even though I still feel really shitty that I put you through a lot of pain, I’m really grateful that we’re in the place we’re in now.

Stef: The last time I was in DC when we were just like, hanging out with Daniel, watching Russian cartoons?! There was a moment where… I mean, I never would have… I just really wanted to punch him in the face for such a long time. I never anticipated becoming buddies with him or enjoying spending time with him, never in a million years.

Emily: This is such an incredible example of us being mature adults, but I don’t really know how we did it so I don’t know how to replicate it.

Stef: To be fair, at that time he really did deserve to be punched in the face.

Emily: Oh, for sure. The other key part about that is that he and I had also broken up by that point too, it was just a lot of exes and pal-ness that was just… odd.

Stef: You guys transitioned from partners to friends really easily.

Emily: He’s just like, a part of my family.

Stef: Yeah, you’re going to be in each others’ lives forever… But I’m not really sure how we made that transition in such a way that it ended up being this comfortable.

Emily: I feel like honestly, the time I was able to be most emotionally open and actually talk about feelings was after things ended. I was like, at the very least, I owe it to you to put myself in those hard places and actually have to talk about things, which isn’t easy for me at all… And if I can’t do that, what kind of friend am I? I’m a scumbag.

Stef: You’re a wonderful scumbag.

Emily: I realize I don’t come off well in this story.

Stef: I mean, everyone was – you especially were dealing with a lot at once, and I just kind of got caught in the crosshairs. When I tell other people this story and I have to explain who you are to me and how you came into my life, it always has to come back to that story, but I think it was just the worst timing, the worst circumstances, nobody’s fault. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if we’d met at a different time with different circumstances, but it did end up working out.

Emily: You never know.

Stef: And I definitely learned a lot about the level of emotional communication I need from another person.

Emily: I definitely learned about the level of emotional communication I need to do to be a person who interacts with other people… That was a helpful thing to learn more about. Not that I’m an expert at this point.

Stef: You’re doin’ great. At this juncture, would you invite me to your wedding?

Emily: I mean, if I believed in weddings, obviously.

Stef: Yeah, it would be fine… When you have your “yo, same*” wedding.

Emily: That’s a confusing one to explain, but yes.

Stef: Well your opinion of marriage in general is so low that if you ever did it would be the most casual…

Emily: Yeah for sure, a courthouse and beers in the backyard kind of thing. Not just beers because I know you don’t like beers. There would be a lot of vodka and whatever. Picklebacks.

Stef: Picklebacks! Perfect.

Emily: I would invite you as a guest to someone else’s wedding which I think is an even higher level of friendship.

Stef: Yeah, that’s better. Um, do you have any questions for me?

Emily: How do you think we reached this point of friendship and not… resentment?

Stef: I mean, I resented things for a long time, I’m not gonna lie. It was difficult to come around and I think that only because you were so patient with me and gave me space.. I did at times just rage at you. I would just rail about how pissed I was at the Daniel situation and all these things that had happened in Argentina, things that didn’t even involve me, and I also went through a lot of very unsatisfying attempts at relationships with other people that ended badly and made me feel terrible. You were very patient and always validated my rage, but never actively tried to be a jerk, and I think you were actually very sensitive.

Emily: That’s helpful.

Stef: It took time. Because we live in different cities – you were finally on the east coast, which was infuriating.

Emily: That BITCH.

Stef: You moved out to DC, and if we’d wanted to do some kind of long distance situation, DC to New York is not that bad, but it just wasn’t in the cards anymore and it took a lot of getting used to. Eventually it actually was fine.

Emily: I mean, time heals all wounds or whatever but I never took it for granted that you would want to be friends with me.

Stef: You’re really impossible to stay mad at, is the other thing.

Emily: I don’t know about that.

Stef: I’m glad it eventually worked out.

Emily: I also think your relationship with Mila helped a bit, in terms of you being able to talk about your relationship with her and having this other intense situation… Nothing really serious had happened since we’d ended things, and I was like, is this the new status quo? I mean, I can’t speak for you.

Stef: I mean, nothing helps that terrifying, intense Scorpio focus that I have like getting wrapped up in someone else, which I hate.

Emily: I feel like that’s when we started talking more seriously about our friendship and what that meant to us, when you two started dating.

Stef: That’s fair. And it was weird to talk to you about other people.

Emily: …I feel like we haven’t been very funny, we’ve mostly talked about really serious sad things.

Stef: Do you have any knock-knock jokes you want to throw in there?

Emily: I think it’s important that we mention what our first conversation was about.

Stef: Oh yeah. So before camp, I had dated someone with your name –

Emily: First and last.

Stef: Yes, exactly. So when I first saw your name on the camper list, I was very curious to see who that was. When I realized that this person was also the camper I was actively avoiding and even hiding from because I thought you were really attractive, I was horrified. After camp, we ended up having a conversation about “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah….”

Emily: An important thing in all of our lives.

Stef: I sent you a Facebook message about “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” and that’s really where our romance began.

Emily: I think it’s very fitting.

Stef: It’s a tale as old as time.

Emily: It’s basically the epitome of modern romance.

Stef: We like to think it was our song.

Emily: Exactly.

* – Emily’s imagined extremely casual vows at her imagined extremely casual wedding, which she has no intentions of ever having.

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