heather

john and i have been emailing back and forth, trying to find a time to get together to exchange xmas gifts, celebrate his birthday, and hand off the guinea pigs so he can have them for xmas and i don't have to deal with ciara and them together.

two days ago, i get an email from him saying he needs to talk to me, and when will i be home so he can call. and as we all know, pre-announcement of a conversation is *never* good.

turns out, heather (his girlfriend of 5 months) is uncomfortable with john having any sort of relationship with me. she claims that because when her parents got divorced when she was a kid she never saw her dad again, that in her view when relationships end they END. i think that's bullshit and she's just possessive. she claims (all this heather claiming through john, of course) that she trusts him. ha! (*snort*) like hell she does.

so while john continues to talk to heather about this and try to get her to be more comfortable with us being friends, he can't see me, and he can't take the pigs for xmas (heather's going home with him for the holidays, and "because of the situation," john thinks he shouldn't take the pigs. he does, however, suggest that he take them for some time after the holidays, "when this all cools down" so that i can have a break from taking care of them. thing is, i don't *want* a break from taking care of them except during xmas, when taking care of them means battling my mom's dog. and i feel that, if i agree that he can have them for a while after the holidays, i'm tacitly endorsing heather's unreasonable attitude. do you agree? leave me a note and let me know.

i can't tell john what too do (nor do i want to), and maybe he'll convince heather that i'm not a threat to her. howEVER, if i were john, my feelings about heather would be irreparably damaged. if i were john, i'd tell heather that i was going to continue to be friends with borogoves, and that if she (heather) didn't like it, she could leave. put the responsibility for the break-up (if it happened) squarely on HER shoulders. in MY opinion, no one has the right to tell their significant other who they can and can't be friends with. at the MOST, heather could reasonably say something like, john, i'm a uncomfortable with your friendship with borogoves, and i just thought you should know that." then john could decide what to do with that information (e.g. have a talk with heather about her concerns, reassure her that i was no threat to her, etc). all this would be different if, for example, john and i spent hours together every weekend, or if john wanted me back, or if i were abusive to john. but we don't, and he doesn't, and i'm not. john and i have seen each other exactly TWICE in the 5 months that he and heather have been together. is that too much?

during our phone conversation, john also reported that other friends of his (including his mother) think that "it won't work" for us to be friends. that it never works for exes to be friends. i'm very hurt by this. my break-up with john was emotionally difficult, mostly because i still love him (as a friend) and didn't want a break-up to cause us to lose contact with each other. i value his friendship enormously. i feel like his friends are ganging up against me.

i just had a thought. maybe it's *john* who doesn't want to continue to be friends with me (he might not even really realize it) and his friends are picking up on that vibe and are trying to make it easier for him to stop being friends with me by telling him things like it won't work.

oy. this sucks. what does the collective wisdom of diaryland have to offer? please, leave me a note and let me know what you think: can exes be friends? is heather justified? should i let john have the guinea pigs after xmas?