The need to fix things...

I recently held a conversation with a woman in an attempt to understand something that had been perplexing to me for many years. The need for women to stay friends with their ex's.

From both personal and related experiences, I know many situations where women remain friends with their ex's. The conversation generally goes like this:

Boy: "Hey, I see that your ex hit you up on Facebook the other day."
Girl: "Yeah, we're still friends. We talk and catch up every now and then. There's nothing to it."
Boy: "Sure, but I'm not particularly comfortable with it."
*insert tense silence*
Girl: "Well I'm not going to let you tell me who to be friends with."
Boy: "So you're telling me being friends with your ex is more important to you than me?"
Girl: "Well if you put it that way, yes."

Now this particular woman I spoke to said she is friends with one ex in particular. They were together for a number of years, and broke up. Then some time later he contacted her and they caught up. On departing he gave her a hug and tried to kiss her. She explained that she just wanted to be friends, nothing more. His response? I have enough friends, I don't need another one so if that's all it will be thanks but no thanks.

So time passed, and then she received an invitation from him on everyones favourite Fake...errr...Facebook. She accepted it, and they got to chatting every now and then.

Am I the only one that see's a problem here? My first question was why. After some superficial responses, it came out that she wanted to fix it. That they have been together, that they could possibly fix it and maybe get it back to what it was.

Now putting that aside, lets say this woman meets a guy and forms a relationship. When I asked her if she would stop being friends with this guy because her new boyfriend asked, her initial response was no. Why should I? He should trust me.

OK, so I spun it around. I explained a scenario to her...she goes to a nightclub with her boyfriend. During the night, a hot girl throws herself at him and tries to kiss him. He pushes her away and says no thanks. Now, how do you feel? She says well it's not his fault, I'm not going to hold it against him. OK, but do you feel happy it happened or comfortable with the situation? Ummm...well no.

So it's not that you don't trust them, but it's that it's an uncomfortable situation. And most importantly you don't trust the guy (or in the prior example, girl). Especially when (in this case) he has made it very clear that he has enough friends and doesn't need another...if you can't read between those lines...

So why is it that women do this? Is it the moral high ground? Are they so naive as to believe that men can be fixed? Is that saying really true about womens behaviour in general:

A women enters a relationship expecting a man to change,
and being disappointed when he doesn't.
A man enters a relationship expecting a woman not to change,
and being disappointed when she does.

When I had that related to me, I laughed. I didn't believe it but the more I think about it, the more I talk to women about their beliefs and behaviours, the more elements of it come to the forefront.

Now before any women decide to take a hit out on me, I do not generalise this across the entire female population. As a matter of fact much to my detriment, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt and my trust up front. So I am not tarring all with the same brush. However so far, I have been given little reason to think otherwise.