Is Dating a Friend’s Ex a Taboo?

It’s a difficult decision to choose between love and friendship. In a poll, conducted between 9/18/14 and 2/3/15, Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) asked 85,536 people to answer the following question: “Is dating a friend's ex acceptable?”

The results indicate that 45% of people are ready to start relationships with their friend’s ex, while 55% consider it totally unacceptable.

Among those polled 86% were from the USA. Participants from other countries: Canada – 2%, Britain – 4%, Australia – 3% and 5% – from other countries.

David Wygant, dating and relationship coach, is sure that dating a friend’s ex isn’t a crime: “If you’re feeling a connection with someone, I firmly believe that you need to take every potential opportunity for finding a great person to be with. And if you’re the bystander, if you’re fuming because your friend is dating your ex who broke up with you, you need to realize that people are not your possessions. You may have shared something special with her in the past — and that’s something to cherish — but now it’s time to give your friend and your ex the freedom to do what they want without you in the picture.”

The hardest moment here is to let your friend know about your new relationships. David Wygant suggests to be truthful and sincere: “Depending on how close your friendship is, this may be one of the toughest situations of your life. You’ll need to display complete and total honesty with yourself and ask yourself how serious you are about it (it’s OK if you don’t know yet, but you need to be honest). You need to be honest with this new woman in your life and with your friend. This is going to be a tough lesson, but a valuable one. Your ability to have difficult conversations with two people you care about, knowing that those conversations won’t be safe or easy, will demonstrate what sort of a man you are.”

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, says: “Not all the relationships end up in a marriage so there’s no need to deprive yourself and the person you like of a chance to be a happy couple.”

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.