Ramona_W

I'm going to give you some advice that you probably won't take and then, if you want me to, I'll do my best to explain what's up. Get ride of your ex ex's bike. If you want lady friends or potential to lady friends to ride with you then it needs to be a bike not "contaminated" to use LAJ's word bike. I think it's nice to have a bike on hand, in case the lady in question rides one but doesn't currently have one, but it can't be one that you bought specifically for someone else.

Here's why I think your current ex can now ride the bike: Everyone has a romantic history- unless you get involved with someone who doesn't and that opens up a whole different can of worms, I don't recommend it, and no that person is not LoP- but it's not something we think about on a regular basis. Most women for the most part want to believe that they are your future and also maintain the illusion that nothing and no one existed before them. (Obviously this is more difficult if you have children because those kids didn't just drop from the sky.) That bike- like a kid- is a very tangible reminder that there was most *definitely* someone before her and someone who, with a greater or lesser amount of success, you tried to get involved in the very same things you've tried to involve her in. And she may even have wondered why you held onto the bike and if you regretted no longer being with the ex ex, etc etc. #contaminated

We, as people, don't have the same expectations/delusions about our friendships that we do about romantic relationships. Because you all are just friends now, she knows she's not your future so she no longer needs to wipe out your past, and she is, in fact, or seems to be happy to be part of that past and present. And she's riding with you finally which is what you wanted although not the way you wanted it to happen.

But seriously, avoid all this mess in the future by getting rid of the ex ex's bike now.