After Dating: Can We Just Be Friends?

"Can we just be good friends?" How many times have you heard someone say that whilst telling you it is all over? There is an easy answer people -  No you can't. Not in a million years so don't waste your breath.  

How many of us have heard that hopeful little phrase "can we be friends"  from a soon-to-be-ex partner mumbling and stuttering before heading out of the door with their suitcase at 1000 miles per hour. And how many have replied "no"! Very few I reckon. How many more have agreed to this new instant friendship? Yes its true, the departing party thinks that it gets them off the emotional hook to suggest that you can be friends moments after damning your relationship to eternity whilst telling the bare face lie that so many of us have found to be untrue. Can we be friends? Of course you can't. So wise up instantly.  

What are you going to do , are you both going to do all the things your best friends do, are you going to party together, laugh and cry together, pick op the phone at 3am because you need to chat? No you aren't and the person who just suggested the idea already knows it.  

Its one of the brutal truths of dating but at least 60% of all people who leave their lover have said it and the rest of us have had to find some kind of reply. Inevitably it is "yes". We say yes because we want to keep knowing the person who is leaving, we don't want the happier times to end and we certainly do not want to stop seeing the person who has just told u we are finished. But the reason I write about this subject here is because the person saying it in 99% of cases does not mean it, never did mean it and has no intention of honoring the concept. You don't want to accept it perhaps or you are nodding in agreement that I am right, but I stand by it. Anyone who offers friendship as a mediocre present whilst retracting love deserves no respect.  

I am afraid that our friends are the people we have known from school and college, those we have worked with, those we have met along the way and stayed in touch with. The person breaking your heart isn't your friend, that is the person who is busy telling you all the reasons why it won't work between you, the reasons why its over and the reasons why they are leaving. The crux of the statement is linked to the person who is saying it , rather than the person it is being said to. The person who says it is the person leaving. They are also the person who feels guilt. And it is this guilt that is responsible for the utter garbage dialogue we must endure. At least for a short time.  

Now I know all this sounds harsh and you know that the person you are splitting up with could really be your best friend and it does happen believe me. But and its a big but, its so rare its almost impossible. The fact is you now have an almost unbearable legacy, your ex-relationship and this will act as  a wedge. The water from your salty tears will lubricate this wedge and drive it between you as you slip further and further away. I wish I could say that when an ex asks if you can both be friends that it would work. But it won't.  

The way we all deal with the traumas in our lives is through time and time alone. Though the comfort of true friends and loved ones helps too. But we must all settle the past before we can move forward and to do this, the best thing we can all do when someone we love leaves us is simple. We put them behind us - and that takes time too. The thing that always strikes me about someone who asks if "we can be friends?" is the sheer audacity of the statement. It is an unnerving ability to tell a lie at the moment when honesty is most called for, it is an attempt to console when doing harm, it is the domain of the person who wishes to deceive. Wow, I am sounding gloomy here.  

I came back and added this section after I re-read this article. It is worth pointing out that one of the reasons why we must say no to the request for friendship is because it is being asked for all the wrong reasons. Often the person leaving is scared and unsure of what they are doing. They don't really want to burn their bridges, well they are not sure they want to. They therefore try and keep a lifeline by asking if friendship is a possibility  - in doing so they are retaining a very small path back. Of course the point is that very few people who leave us can actually sustain a friendship afterwards even if we can. Friendships take contact and contact is the most painful aspect of leaving someone. Therefore the reality is that distant friendship may be a possibility but near future friendship is not going to happen.  

Okay, the thing is, I have heard that question too many times and never once did it stand to be true, never. People who have left have offered friendship whilst taking everything with them. The fact is, by not agreeing to such a mediocre offering, we retain our dignity, our calm, our composure and our peace of mind. We do not want reminding of someone who left us every day, so why begin down that road - why try and be friends? Instead, hold your head up high and show the person the door, after all, your true friend is the person you will one day choose to spend your life with, not the person just leaving.