Your ex-gf/bf messages "Happy Valentines Day" What's the proper response?

Faust76 · 46-50, M Best Comment

Mhm. That kinda depends, anyway. Especially who broke up with whom, and how. The issue about whether you're supposed to stay friends with exes or not is kinda up in the air, anyway; some research suggests mostly psychopaths stay friends because they can turn emotions on and off on demand and they may still be able to get something out of it. In any case practically everybody agrees you need to stay off-contact for undefined time after breakup. So if it's that kind of situation, that would affect the response.
For women, it's obviously somewhat easier and more expected to keep guys as "let's just be friends" to go for emotional support when things go wrong elsewhere, without expectation of things going sexual; whether this is right or not. Again, it depends how you feel about this sort of thing, how your potential new partner feels about an ex hanging along, if the context, their current dating status or their personality suggests it's just a courtesy, if they want a shoulder to lean on, or are possibly looking for more.
Soo... yeah, like, too little information to give any sort of answer. Proper response in any case is probably just "Thanks, happy Valentine's day to you as well."

mic11225 · 26-30, M

id say thanks u2 but i wouldnt say anything else

ExploringThoughts · 36-40, M

Surprised that a lot of people are pretty civil about this one! Just got this same message earlier and considering messaging "Happy valentines day to you and your family, too"

DanielChristensen · 46-50, M

Thank you is polite and non-committal. The response depends on that particular relationship dynamic. If your ex is a psycho, probably best to just ignore them.

Faust76 · 46-50, M

Most of the short responses come on the passive-aggressive, ofeensive side, which is great if you REALLY want to show them that whatever they did really got you down and you're still hurting. If it was that bad, you probably want to show them you're doing well and don't particularly care about it.
The "proper" response would be cordial, but not intimate or warm of course. This may be hard to pull off sometimes, but besides being the proper, right thing to do you never know when you run into them with them (Or their friends) in position to do/decide something over you.
The "shorter than their message" may have some truth, if you want to send the message that you've moved on and don't want to give the impression you're open for more. So I actually like the "Have a good one too" as it simply just returns it to them, I was going to suggest "Thanks, you as well" but it just sounded dumb so I went with the full spelled out. That may not be good if you aren't open for continuation.
And yeah, writing too long & late now, haha ;)