So What's nEXt, You've Had Sex With An Ex?

by Kayla McCullough

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So does sleeping with an ex mean you're getting back together?

You don’t exactly know what you’re doing there, in that room, in that bed. You recognize everything, of course — there is still the same hat that lingers on the wall next to his door, the same tear in the curtain that sometimes allows light to peek in once the sun comes up, the same pin his grandfather gave him on his nightstand. You lie there and stare back at the memories that flood your mind, creating a sense of familiarity while they are on top of you — but everything has changed somehow. There used to be a warm, calming feeling of “I belong here” that washed over you when you laid your head against this very pillow, but now you feel the shift in scenery. Where you were once greeted as welcomed royalty, now you are a stranger who is being aggressively asked to show your papers. That couch, that toothbrush, that hand towel — they all want to know what you’re doing here.

The familiarity becomes a kind of drug, something you can’t take big enough hits of when you are looking for something, anything, to make sense to you. You want to go somewhere you’ve been before because you know you can escape it with little to zero bruising. The ease of getting what you want seduces you and becomes exactly what you’re looking for. You want someone who has seen you naked, who likes it, and who knows exactly how to touch it so that you will fall asleep within a few short minutes of orgasming. And, despite the harsh truth of it all, having someone else do the majority of the heavy lifting seems pretty appealing after months of having to do it yourself.

But this is not your home anymore. The things your ex is saying — even if they are all the right things — are all part of a story that has written you out. You were supposed to die at the end and yet here you are, back from the dead, running into other character’s plot lines. The tarnished, heavy air of other people’s presence is all you can sense. Where you once felt so certain about your domain, you now feel that you are just one in a list of many who will pass through, no more special than the other. How many people have they touched since you left? How much did they care about them? How long ago was their last? You want to know everything but the thought of what they would say is something you can’t bear. If they told you, it would ruin all of this. So, you bite your tongue and show yourself out the next morning.

There will always be an inherent bond with an ex because of the shared history and familiarity. And we can all agree that there is something comforting about certainty. There is something comforting about knowing what will happen and when we’ve invested time and emotion into a relationship and when they really know you, you really know them, it’s hard to walk away from that. It’s hard to give up on the chemistry and shared history, especially when we’ve gotten into the habit of saying to ourselves over and over again, this is the person I want or this is the person I love. However, if you are still keen on going back to the one who broke you, these are some of the things that most men and women are thinking when sex is on the table again.

You’re familiar with them.

No need to impress, no need to figure out what you like, no need to wonder if you’ll freak out when they tell you their weird fantasy. It’s true that being with a familiar warm body is appealing, but it won’t help you get over them and it won’t help you make a new dating life for yourself.

“I slept with him because he’s the only one that knows exactly what I like. When everything was said and done, I’m finding out that now I want him back and I can’t have him.” -Meghan

“It’s like you two are strangers again, except they know every shameful secret and every hidden flaw. So, sex is that much easier than if you were to find a new person.” -Jackson...

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