I never thought of Facebook as something that promotes decision-making, establishes boundaries and would help me become the person I’ve wanted—but it has. I’m surprised, too. With one response to a simple computer generated question I was able to answer something that nagged at me for a while, Were Mr. So-and-So and I friends after all? I had to click a button. I could sit on the fence no longer. We had gone from friends to more and then back but that was years ago. What were we now? Were we friends?
After breaking up years ago, we said we were friends and for a while, I believe we meant it, albeit in the way that men and women do when there is still potential (potential being both are single and amiable.) Often we use the ‘friend’ label post-breakup because we think it’s a safe perch to show emotion while still noting the change in relationship. Especially in our situation since we had been friends first. Just because we didn’t work out didn’t mean the friendship went away, right? We were mature. Of course, we were friends.
But ‘friend’ is no small thing and lately when he came up I didn’t feel so good. It’s years later but I felt like a fraud. We had been close for so long but hadn’t talked in the past couple of years, which was a first in my adult life. There had been major life events I heard about through the grapevine so how could I call him a friend? We used the word for years but then it lost all meaning as our actions didn’t bear it out. If initially, post-breakup, being ‘friends’ is a bitter pill to swallow, by now it was sugar. It meant nothing.
After a while, my silence was deafening. His random attempts at contact tried too hard. It was all off and that’s not friends. That’s exes. Things change and this is what we had become. I had to face it—correction, I wanted to—but what did I want?
One thing I knew about my life was I wanted it to be free of unclear situations and this friend request had that written all over it. I had been making choices with honesty for a while now. Not enjoying the singes from playing with fire, I was no longer choosing chaos and I liked how my life was going. Finally. From what I saw of the human experience gray areas were murky waters that most don’t handle very well. We are human after all. As Oscar Wilde said, “I can resist everything but temptation.”
And so I saw his friend request and sat on it. I realized lately that I tend to jump to conclusions and be rash about things (score one for growth), so I considered. I didn’t robotically accept because we’d known each other so long and cared for each other and so why wouldn’t we be friends on Facebook? Not so fast. Something about accepting it, like our recent exchanges or lack thereof didn’t feel right. It lacked the sincerity and honesty that had been the hallmark of our relationship, which only illuminated the distance between us. The best part of us was that we were real with each other and there was no B.S. and with the choice before me, I saw a chance to make it right. I thought about what had been, where we were and what I wanted in my life. When former love, deep romantic love ends, what remains?
In our case: not friendship. Posed with ‘Accept or Ignore,’ I came to the thunderbolt realization that no, we aren’t friends, Facebook or otherwise, and so I clicked ignore. And the world didn’t swallow me whole and I felt good. We had let go of each other and time waded in, and that’s OK. So was keeping it this way. Of course, things could change but for now, things were fine this way. Clear. This whole episode gave me a calm and strength I hadn’t expected. I felt a weight off my chest and felt strangely closer to him. If I saw him, we would be fine of course, there was no animosity, but for now we weren’t Facebook ha-ha jokey friends.
