Ari: The age-old question: To text, or not to text [the ex]. To re-enter their life or retain your dignity.
Siena chose a third, somehow worse option: Interviewing an ex about texting exes. She has thoughts, I have thoughts and her ex has the confidence of a man who has never once read “5Cs After Dark” despite being asked to multiple times.
Siena: In my defense, I approached this with the rigor of a serious journalist. I opened with the obvious question: Could interviewing your ex count as investigative journalism? He said “never,” a devastating blow to both my personal life and professional credibility.
We dated for four weeks in 2022, three of which he spent in the Dominican Republic. I dumped him by phone, in a Starbucks parking lot. It’s been back-and-forth ever since. He calls it “not dating, just close.”
If I texted him at 2 a.m., he’d assume I’d suffered “another major head injury,” a reference to my 2022 horseback riding accident. Proof I’d changed? He’d need “the medical report that explains the lobotomy,” including which parts of my brain had been removed, verified by a doctor he trusts.
Still, when I asked whether there’s a statute of limitations on being insane about someone, he estimated “20, 25 years.” We’re only five years in, which leaves me 15 to 20 more years of legally sanctioned delusion.
“After a breakup, you probably don’t have direct insight into how the other person is feeling. Longing on either end isn’t a sign you should keep reaching out: At a certain point, your obsession is you projecting your desires onto an unattainable past, nearing a parasocial relationship with someone you once knew so well.”
Ari: This isn’t a ringing endorsement. After a breakup, you probably don’t have direct insight into how the other person is feeling. Longing on either end isn’t a sign you should keep reaching out: At a certain point, your obsession is you projecting your desires onto an unattainable past, nearing a parasocial relationship with someone you once knew so well.
When you miss someone, your brain is an unreliable narrator, and unreliability plus the high emotional state of the weeks and months post-breakup (or, in Siena’s case, years) often leads to impulsivity. I can’t count the number of times I’ve caught myself trying to open a text thread with an ex … but then what? It’s not that you can never re-enter someone’s life, but consider the consequences. Do they actually want to hear from you, or is reaching out ultimately self-serving?
Your “I miss you” might feel vulnerable and profound to you; to them, it might be a notification they show their roommate with a “you have got to be kidding me.”
Breaking no-contact isn’t a hard no in my book, but an impulsive text to re-alert them to your presence isn’t beneficial. They know you exist and have chosen not to do anything about it.
Siena: Wow, harsh but probably true. For this exact reason, I asked my ex whether people should be allowed to text their exes regularly or whether cellular service should be suspended for public safety. He defended the practice on the grounds that “you’re just trying to make sure all your memories are intact … It’s like a health concern. Just to make sure my brain is still functioning.”
To be clear, he texts me constantly, and I’m usually the one who goes quiet. When I pointed that out, he reminded me that he doesn’t suffer head injuries on the regular.
My 15 questions turned into relitigating our breakup call, discussing the various women he’s created marriage pacts with and deciding if he was ever my boyfriend at all. His verdict: no, because I never treated him like one. Somewhere during our conversation, I realized I wasn’t after answers.
I didn’t want to get back together; I just wanted a reason to reach out, and “journalism” was the most respectable one I could find. He should have seen it coming; he’s dated two journalists. “Two? Really? Who?” he asked when I reminded him. He then conceded that “relationships [with journalists] never last that long.”
Ari: Unless you have something specific to say, I think communicating with your ex is a no-go. I’m sympathetic to the post-breakup mania. What you do in a state of despair is none of my business, and whatever you’ve done, I’ve probably done worse.
But re-establishing contact months later just because you miss someone is where I draw the line. There is no timeline for healing, but repeatedly reopening the wound is like picking a scab and then wondering why your skin isn’t closing.
Reconnection is possible, but not until you’re yourself again. Siena’s ex corroborates this … sort of.
Siena: When I asked him to explain our relationship to a jury of people who had never experienced romantic delusion, he compared it to a drug that would eventually kill you but gave you “the greatest high ever.” Texting me was “the spice,” he said.
Would he recommend texting an ex? To someone he liked: “No, that’s a stupid idea, don’t do it.” To himself: “Yeah, definitely do it.”
Instead of a coherent answer, I got an hour of a man prescribing me a lobotomy as proof of personal growth, blaming the telecommunications industry for not cutting off his signal and explaining why he’d ignore his own advice: “Cause she’s worth it.” To which I, a trained journalist and embarrassed ex-girlfriend, responded: “That’s not an on-the-record conversation. This interview is over.”
I took all of his answers to my texts as a reason to send more. We both knew it was over, but had decided that leaving the porch light on was somehow sustainable.
The most damning evidence, though, was that he showed up at all. After five years of our will-they-won’t-they antics, he agreed to be interviewed about it, which is a textbook case of situationship psychosis. It would be hypocritical not to admit I’ve apparently given him the same psychosis that plagues me in other relationships.
Sometimes they really do want you to text, and sometimes you really are worth it to them. That still doesn’t mean you should send the message. For once, I didn’t need another text to know how he felt. I had a recording and a transcript. I also had five years of the same cycle: silence, then a burst of attention, then silence again. That isn’t fair to him, and it isn’t doing me any good either.
Ari: We are all so disinclined to take our own advice. Sometimes we reach out for closure, but often we disguise our desire for reconciliation as a need to make peace with ourselves. We convince ourselves that one last conversation will make everything right again, and then maybe, you’ll be back in the arms of someone you once loved. Or maybe, you’re the one who hurt someone, and you want to reach out so you feel better about yourself.
I’m sorry to say it, but your breakup was probably closure enough.
Siena Giacoma PZ ’27 and Arianna Kaplan SC ’27 have dated like it’s a competitive sport and lost every season. They cordially invite you to read conversations that should probably remain between them, but will instead exist on the internet forever.