okay. so here's a brief history:

dated M for ~ 4 years. about 6 months in, i found out he had an active m@tch.com profile and was chatting with chicks on IM and sending them emails and pictures and whatnot. big fight, lots of apologies, i decide to forgive him. but the trust is never the same. we have an up and down next 3.5 years, neither of us is really happy. he meets girl at work, who calls him constantly even after she is transfered to chicago. he says this is not weird. he breaks up with me, girl moves back, they start dating. a month later, i meet arizona and we start dating. don't really talk to M anymore, though we are civil when we do talk (he's close friends with my BIL).

here's the thing. M is very insecure, and needs to feel like everyone likes him. so he keeps emailing my friends, because he needs the affirmation that they don't view him as the 'bad guy'. now, though he was friends with my friends while we were together, he was never particularly close to any of them; in fact, he became very very resentful of any time that i spent with any of them. and in his emails, he never sincerly asks how they're doing, just sends "Just wanted to say hi!". a few people have complained to me that they feel like this is weird, and they don't know how to address it. however, i have two guy friends who have said (to other friends, not me) that they think M is a good guy and they still like him even though we're not together anymore. in general, i think this is a very healthy viewpoint. except...doesn't a guy cheating on your friend, making her feel bad about wanting to go to grad school, making her feel guilty about any time she doesn't spend rightbyhisside, and openly admitting to using her for sex after he'd stopped having feelings for her sort of take away from his good-guy-ness? at least one of said guys knows about all of this stuff b/c we're pretty close and i've vented to him all along. the other guy is the boyfriend of one of my best friends, so i assume he knows most of it. it's not like they're all hanging out together or anything, but the fact that a)these are two people i consider good friends who think that a guy who treated me like crap is 'a good guy', and b)they don't have the balls to say it to my face really, really bothers me.

i just really needed to get that off my chest. garrr.

also: M just got engaged to aforementioned girl (just, as in, two days ago). a mutual friend mentioned it to me, and i said "oh-good for him." i have no opinion either way, and was pretty much expecting that to happen soon, anyway (he was very much in 'get married and have babies' mode). so i was a tad peeved when mutual friend followed up with "do you want me to get more information?". uh...no. why? what more information? people go out of their way to not mention them in front of me, or that they've met the new girl. when they do, they always tag onto the end "she's not as cool as you." it bugs me that people think i still care, that M broke my heart and i'm still suffering somewhere deep inside, or that i need affirmation that i'm "cooler" than the new girl. i guess because that is so entirely opposite of reality. i felt so free when M and i broke up, and that combined with having met and fallen head over heels in love with arizona means that i really almost never think about M at all. and when i say these things, i feel like people think i'm covering up deep down emotions or some other garbage. it's frustrating.

had to get that off my chest, too. double garrr.