Ex on the Beach: An oral history

Everyone you’ve ever dated is at Riis

I fell in love at Jacob Riis Park in the summer of 2019 — or at least I thought I did. Having read that one bell hooks book, I don’t know if I’d still consider it love. It was more like falling into anxiety, the root of all initial attraction. I’d roll up to Riis not knowing for sure whether I’d see this person, hoping I would, hoping we’d spend the day flirting, me prancing around in my Dolls Kill bikini, them half-hauling me into the ocean as an excuse to touch bare skin. One day, toward the end of the summer, we finally caved and went together: a beach date. Before we boarded the bus to go home, they whipped out a travel toothbrush and brushed their teeth right there on the sand. This, I thought, is true intimacy. They spat; I took a picture. 

Obviously, we broke up. The next summer, I couldn’t go to Riis without feeling like I was going to throw up. My anxiety was no longer cute, fun, and flirty; it was the kind that made it difficult to function. Every time I saw someone with thick, dark hair pulled back into a bun, my ears started ringing, and my stomach did its little gymnastics routine. The thought of running into my ex in the place we’d first gotten together was too much. Eventually, my psychiatrist prescribed me medication for panic attacks, and I started pill-popping before even putting on my swimsuit. Time did its thing, and I returned to Riis the following year without meds and with some level of ease. 

In New York City, Riis is legendary. Located in the Rockaways, it’s been a queer cruising spot since the 1940s. (In the 70s, butch lesbians would take femmes into the bathroom stalls to hook up and have them stand in large shopping bags so that cops checking under the doors would only see one set of feet.) On a sunny day, virtually every LGBTQIA+ you know will be there, sun-drunk, topless, and blasting Dua Lipa. Odds are you’ve dated several of them, and odds are you’ll be forced to contend with that fact, sharing space with your own personal ghosts even as everyone gets shitfaced on nutcrackers and revels in gorgeous, semi-nude community. In anticipation of beach season, I asked six people to share their stories of these encounters, which have been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Shana (she/her), 35

My ex and I broke up in May of 2021, in large part because we’d opened our marriage that had been monogamous for six years. Before the pandemic, she started falling in love with this person she’d gone on a few dates with. In the height of lockdown it suddenly got more serious. We tried to make the poly thing work, but it ultimately didn’t. So, in thinking about running into her, it was always, Am I going to run into them together, too?

That first summer, I didn’t run into her at Riis. I would choose the spot, and I purposely went all the way to the end where the fence was so that there was no chance of running into her without at least seeing her coming. The next summer, I was no longer doing that. And one time I was sitting in my beach chair and she walked by; she’d just arrived and was looking for a spot to land. We said hi, and it was totally fine. We’d done the post-breakup meetups and processing and whatnot. Having had more time and intentional communication helped running into each other feel like less of a punch in the gut. But certainly there’s an element of that regardless when you see someone who was a very important person in your life. And, of course, she was topless because it’s Riis. There’s always a good chance you’re going to see some boobs of people you used to have sex with. That’s an added element. 

At Riis, it’s a community, we’re all together, everyone loves each other, and that is the beautiful aspect of it and why I love it so much. But then, in running into exes, there can be all these complicated, vulnerable, negative, or difficult feelings. It’s a very strange juxtaposition. Part of the thing I struggled with in the immediate aftermath of that breakup was that there’s pressure, particularly in the queer community, to be friends with your ex. That’s partly because we have so many shared spaces. But I do think it’s OK to not be OK with things like that and to have the feelings that you have.

Liana (they/them), 29

It was June, there were a bunch of us under multiple tents, and it was packed. And I looked over and saw my ex with their new partner. I had broken up with them, I think at that point, five years ago, and I was pretty certain I had absolutely broken their heart. We had checked in here and there during COVID, but the last time I’d messaged them, they hadn’t answered me. We hadn’t spoken in probably six months.

They didn’t come over to say hi, but I was happy for them, seeing them with somebody else that they seemed to be a good fit for. I call myself the “Good Luck Chuck” of queers because I will date someone, and then we'll break up, and they will get married to the person they date after me. It’s happened three times.

I think I did the right thing by not going over there. Because as much as I wished we could talk, acting on that desire would have been selfish. But there’s also a level of sadness that’s like, you’re over there at the beach, and we will not speak. It’s not a sadness that ruins my day, but it’s an, I wish things were a little different. 

Kebra (they/them), 26

I’m not a big fan of beaches because I’m from Miami, and it feels like other beaches don’t really compare. But as soon as the weather hit 60, all I heard was, “Oh, we going to Riis? Are we going to Riis?” And that piqued my interest. I was like, who?

Last summer, toward the end of June, someone I’d been dating for a couple of weeks suggested we go with their friends. I thought they were really cool, and I’m a “yes, and” type of person. So I was like, OK.

My passion — my practice — is composing and performing classical music. For me to leave my apartment and not be working on my stuff is, frankly, kind of a big deal. My ex and I had dated for about a year and a half, and we’d been broken up for six months. This ex doesn’t really get out a lot; we’re homebodies to a degree. So I wasn’t really thinking about seeing them.

I think I was sitting under the umbrella talking to some people, and I saw them walking down the beach with their friend. And I’m like, Is that — oh, no. Riis is always pretty crowded, but there’s a reason we dated: I thought they were beautiful, and I could always pick them out from a crowd. We hadn’t spoken since our breakup, so I was like, well, I guess this is a chance to just say hi. Plus, I’d been working out, so I was kind of ripped.

Our conversation was a couple of words like, “Hey, hey, what are you doing here?”

“I’m at the beach.”

“Okay, cool. Nice to see you.”

When you see an ex in public, you always kind of want to be like, what happened? But sometimes it’s not appropriate, and sometimes there’s no point.

Alex (she/her), 35

I feel like I literally spend the whole year making sure I don’t have any beef, any problems, anything negative with anyone so that when summer comes I can go to Riis and it’s all chill. It’s like a squirrel collecting acorns: that’s me collecting good vibes for Riis. This year I have tension with someone so it’s not going to be a good Riis year. Maybe next year I’ll have better stored my no-drama acorns.

The ex I most recently saw at Riis was someone I’d had one of those crazy six-month flings with. It was kind of volatile but exciting. We’d last hooked up around December 2020, and we didn’t speak again until I saw her at an industry event three or four years later. Then I saw her at the Dyke March last June; the Dyke March I think is a great time to be like, We’re going to be cool now. I said hi to her and her girlfriend, and we chit-chatted.

Then I saw her at Riis, and as I was walking past her, she leaned in and said to the person next to her, “That’s an ex of mine. I really do not want to get pulled into a conversation with her.” She must have been drunk because she had no volume control. I just kept walking. I was like, This bitch would be so lucky if I wanted to talk to her. Which I don’t.

She was sitting not far from where I was sitting. And maybe I’m misreading it, but I felt like she kept looking over at us after that. I think she was expecting me to come talk to her and was trying to look cool. So I remember feeling kind of good. I was like, yeah, I didn’t talk to her. I don’t need to talk to her now, and I don’t need to talk shit about her to anyone around me. I’ve grown.

Even if she hadn’t said that, I think I would’ve just given her the smile and wave. I try not to get into loaded conversations. I’ve been in this city for so long, and I went to high school and college not far from here, so I go to any queer party, and I feel like it’s full of ghosts of my Christmas past. I try to keep my head down and just talk to my friends. I do feel like something biologically happens to your brain when you turn 30. The right decision is just so clear. It’s easier to act like 20% less unhinged.

J.R. (she/her), 33

We had been in a relationship for, I guess, five months. And we’d been broken up for two. I had broken up with them, but it was one of my first queer relationships, and I’d gotten my heart broken a little bit.

This was probably six years ago. It was the first big, nice, warm weekend of the summer. What I remember most about the experience was knowing through mutual friends that my ex was going to be there and feeling carsick the whole drive. We were waiting in line to enter the parking lot, all of my friends were excited, it was perfect weather — gorgeous — and I was sitting in the back thinking, I am going to vomit. And then walking from the car to the beach itself, scoping out a spot, and surveilling the perimeter in a way that doesn’t draw attention or look like you’re surveilling. My eyeballs could not have gotten any further into the corners of my eyes if they’d tried. And then getting situated, sitting down in my chair, and realizing that the person I was trying to avoid was very, very, very close to us.

I remember in my bones how it felt to basically split myself in half, and have one half be present with friends and enjoying the day and eating snacks and laughing and putting on sunscreen. And the other half floating above my body trying to figure out what to do next.

I’m an avoider by nature. And I was avoiding pretty successfully. But I remember being like, I’m going to take a hot girl walk with a friend. Some of her friends were sitting next to my ex, so we went over. And then one of my ex’s friends noticed me and said hi. So then I walked over to my ex, and we had a beach chat. We talked about staying hydrated. We talked about the trash in the water. We joked about how many needles we’d seen. I was also casually trying to assess whether they were there with someone who felt like a new hookup or a date. I remember staring into the soul of every person on their blanket, being like, Are you now fucking? They’re not on social media, so I was basically doing the real-time version of clicking on tagged photos on Instagram.

I remember feeling jealous because they seemed totally fine. They were surviving without me. And I was like, How dare you? They did not seem remotely as stressed or bothered as I was. It made me wonder: Did they do the same level of anxious surveillance? Did they ask around first to know if I was going to be there?

Afterward, I felt proud of myself for surviving what felt like a car crash — for not hiding. We go to Riis to be both seen and not seen. You’re in such dense community that if you want to disappear, you can, but it’s also a place where you can be seen through the gaze of others. Riis is a place I’ve learned to enjoy being seen at as much as I usually enjoy disappearing.

Jessica, 36

The time that stands out for me the most was in 2018. I had this one ex, and they were one of my demon exes: the really bad ones. We’d dated for about a year and had been broken up for about a year. I and this other person had been dating them at the same time, and then we both broke up with them, and all three of us transitioned, which is so unhinged. I ran into my ex’s other ex on Tinder, we matched, and I was like, “Oh my god, you’re trans now, too?” We became friends, and he really loves Riis, so he and I would go together. We had talked about maybe running into our mutual ex. It was more a version of, when is this going to happen? Because it’s definitely going to happen. And, of course, it was going to be me who saw them because I’m the drama queen.

One day, we were there; it was around 3 p.m., and we were both pretty drunk. I had walked back to the car to get water or sunblock or something, and I saw our ex walking out of the parking lot. We gave each other that I hate you look. We were probably about 10 feet apart.

The main feeling was terror, but then, immediately, relief. It’s like, Oh, right, they're here, and nothing bad can happen because we're at the beach. I rushed back to my friend. And there was this wonderful moment where I got to say, “Yo, dude, I saw our ex. They’re on their way in.” Looking back, that’s maybe when I started to feel better about the breakup. Because here I am with my ex’s ex, we’re friends, and we can laugh about it together. It was also funny because nobody was talking to the ex, so they didn’t know that we’d become friends. We must’ve been kind of excited for them to realize that.

If you go to Riis, especially as you age, you will see pretty much your whole past wandering around topless. You’re going to be confronted with every decision you’ve ever made, and you have to hope they were good ones. There are certainly many exes who, if I see them at the beach, I’m like, “Sweet, do you want to sit down on my blanket?”

If they weren’t good decisions, you have to come to peace with them. A friend of mine once said something that stuck with me. He was like, “Look, we’re all trans. We can’t cancel each other because there’s nowhere else for us to go. So we’re going to have to get very used to seeing our exes all the time, and we’re going to have to learn how to share space with them because there’s no other choice.” You’re going to have to deal with it. And I think that’s kind of beautiful. We do owe something to our communities. I think in owing something to our communities, we owe something to ourselves.

This piece originally appeared in my friend Laura Thompson’s zine/party invite, “La Sirena de Rockaway.”