Maybe One Day We Can Not Be Friends

There is a debate raging across America’s heartland. It’s being discussed in our homes, our schools, our offices, the halls of Congress … okay, maybe not the halls of Congress. I’m not talking about the presidential election or health care reform or even American Idol. I’m talking about the perennial and heated question of whether or not one can or should be friends with her ex.

The funny thing is I always thought I fell squarely on one side of the debate. I always thought I was the girl who stayed buddy-buddy with her exes. I was all (cocky voice), “Yeah, I’m friends with like, all my old boyfriends.” How kind of me, huh? Especially as I’m always the dumpee rather than the dumper.

Liar. I was lying to myself and to the people I said it to. Only recently have I adjusted my thinking and accepted that, in most cases, I’m actually not friends with my exes—maybe friendly with them, but not friends—and that’s okay. This has kind of rocked my world.

Truthfully, there are only two guys I’ve dated who I am sincerely good friends with now, and that’s only after time and distance. We are past the weirdness, but only because we both realized early on that we were not meant to be together. These were not my life’s great loves or drawn-out affairs. This was a matter of dipping our toes in the water, feeling it was kind of chilly, and deciding to float on the raft and sun ourselves rather than take a swim. Catch my drift?

My ex/friends were exes in the denotation of the word but not the connotation. There was not excessive hand-wringing and sobbing uncontrollably on the bathroom floor when these courtships ended. There were a few tears because I am an overly emotional person, but there was no separation anxiety, no rehashing of past wrongs, no coming back together only to be painfully torn apart again. I do love these ex/friends, and I do not use that word lightly, but I love them in a platonic way that does not involve me wanting to take off my clothes.