text: Listening to an outsider's opinions will let us know how they see the situation and would react. Calling someone with more experience, like your parents would benefit you in a multitude ways. Your family have been in this world much longer than you have, they have faced event similar to this, and worse. When asked what they did, you will hear how they reacted and the consequences of what they said and did. You learn from where they went wrong and succeeded, while gaining the understanding of what might happen if you were to react the same way. Sadly, your parents doesn't know this person in the way you did, so their advice might not be helpful. Your friend might not have lived as long as your parents, but they know your ex-best friend as well as you did. Getting advice from someone who knows the situation and those involved is very helpful, as it means that you get an idea of how to react from someone with a similar view point on your ex-best friend and who understands the event a little more closely, to tell you their opinion. They are able confirm if something like this is normal for your ex-friend, or if that person is going through something. Your friend can let you know if your plan of action is amazing or if it would be ill-advised. But the person you ask may be partial to your ex-friend. So, you can ask a co-worker or someone who doesn't know your used-to-be-best-friend. Obviously, you want this person to be someone trustworthy, but even a semi-stranger can give well-thought out advice. They don't know the person involved, so you get a less biased point of view on how you could react. The more diverse the ideas we get from the people who care, the clearer our vision gets to what could be a smart way to cope.