Your Ex Isn't Trying to Be Friends — He Might Just Be Trying to Boink You, Says Study

What if your estranged ex texted you out of the blue and said he wanted to strike up a renewed friendship? Would you assume that the whole "friendship" thing was really just a pretext for wanting to get his D wet?

Well, if your ex is (a) male and (b) a narcissist, then your assumption would be correct, according to a new academic study from Oakland University.

Researchers recently surveyed 860 participants on the topic of befriending exes, and determined there are myriad reasons why people might be compelled to seek a friendship with someone who was once a romantic partner. From the study:

Reasons that indicated that an ex-partner is reliable, trustworthy, and of sentimental value were given the highest importance ratings whereas reasons that indicated that continued friendship was practical (i.e., pragmatism) were given the lowest ratings. Men rated pragmatism and sexual access reasons as more important than women did.

The study's lead author, Justin Mogilski, further explained the results of the study in an email to Mic, noting that the motivations behind most post-relationship friendships are fairly tame.

"People stay friends with their exes for a variety of reasons, but rate sentimental reasons such as 'they were a great listener' or 'they made me a better person' as most important and rate practical and sexual reasons such as 'they had a lot of money' or 'to keep having sex with them' as least important," Mogilski said.

But! This isn't exactly true across the board. Especially when it comes to male narcissists.

"People who score higher on certain measures of dark personality [i.e. narcissism, psychopathy] are more likely to find practical and sexual reasons for staying friends important," Mogilski said. "Likewise, men are more likely than women to find sexual reasons important."

So that's cute! It's also a reason to maybe consider ignoring all future texts from your more fuckboi-ish exes. 

(Unless you're also DTF, of course. Then just go get yours.)

h/t Broadly