It is common knowledge among my community that I am engaged to one of my ex-boyfriend’s best friends. As scandalous as that sounds, it does not describe the experience of actually living it day to day. Especially when that means being in each other’s lives to this day, as friends, even to the point of attending each other’s weddings to other people.
And just for clarity, this wasn’t the sort of “relationship” where we used to just kiss in my car in the mall parking lot. This was a year-and-a-half-long relationship that started at a Christian college where—at the ripe young age of nineteen—a ring by spring hadn’t sounded that bad to me.
My ex-boyfriend and I broke up four years ago right before our senior year of college. I moved across the country to Los Angeles. We saw each other for the first time since the breakup that January at improv practice. We did our best to act normal, behave normally. When my dad ran into my ex and his family at graduation, he made an effort to be friendly. He later told me proudly, “I just want him to know that even though it didn’t work out that I still know he’s a good guy.”
Years go by. I started to develop feelings for Micah—a good friend who I met through dating my ex-boyfriend. We used to joke that Micah and I were so similar because my ex really just wanted to date Micah, but settled for me. Now those comments were starting to make me re-evaluate my friendship with Micah even though we hadn’t spoken since the breakup. I wrote in my diary one night: “I could only reach out to Micah to ask him on a date if my ex-boyfriend gets married first. Once he’s married, I’ll reach out to Micah—if he’s still single. He probably won’t be.”
Dramatics aside, this was a real and true thought I had. My logic was that if my ex-boyfriend had moved on to the point of falling in love with another woman, proposing to her, marrying her, then it would not bother him as much if I started dating Micah, his friend of over a decade.
When Micah and I finally did start dating, my ex hadn’t proposed, hadn’t gotten married, but he had already met (and noticed) his future bride. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t awkward reentering each other’s lives. After more than a few conversations full of long pauses, I’m proud to say we’re better than we used to be.
Today, May 10 was a week ago. A week ago, I sat in a beautiful church, on an old pew. I was surrounded by friends I met when I was dating my ex-boyfriend, who I still get to be friends with today because I’m with Micah. A week ago I spoke to my ex-boyfriend’s parents for the first time in four years, and congratulated them. I watched as Micah walked down the aisle as a groomsman, as he stood beside my ex-boyfriend as he married the love of his life.
As much as this last year has been a lot of living in the same town, seeing each other at parties, watching each other plan weddings, it is impossible to not feel the strangest feeling at attending his wedding. He cried when she walked down the aisle. He hugged his mom and laughed during their dance. He wrote his own vows to his wife. They drove off to their honeymoon in the same car he used to drive in college.
I once wrote a piece about my childhood best friend getting married. I was dating my ex-boyfriend at the time. I wrote about how I wasn’t sure I was ready to get married, how I wasn’t sure if my ex-boyfriend was the person I was supposed to marry. I wrote about how I wanted my wedding to go: lots of dancing, laughter, and smooshing cake into my groom’s face.
I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about attending my ex-boyfriend’s wedding. We loved each other a long time ago and in a much different way. Everyone else—it seemed—had forgotten that it was even out of the ordinary for me to be there, but for me it was all I could think about. Well, not all I could think about. They had an incredibly personal and thoughtful ceremony, plus my fiancé looked pretty hot in his suit.
I am so in love with my fiancé. But my introduction to him will always be inextricably tied to when I was dating my ex-boyfriend. Without him, I never would have met my fiancé. We never would’ve fallen in love and we wouldn’t be getting married later this year.
After the wedding ceremony ended, the happy couple rushed out. The guests gathered outside the church to shower them with flower petals. While we were waiting, a bird relieved himself on me. Bird poop landed on my nose (gag!) and shoulder. I don’t know how my ex-boyfriend will feel about attending my wedding, but I guess all I can hope is that a bird doesn’t poop on him too.
Carlisle Patete (‘22) came to Calvin University from the mountains of North Carolina and graduated with a double major in film & media and creative writing. After brief stints in Los Angeles and Chicago, she now resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she enjoys sweet tea on her front porch and identifying every tree and bird she runs into on any hiking trail.
