Can You be Friends With an Ex?
December 15th 2006 02:18
Ok, fine. I may have stolen my question from Carrie Bradshaw, but its still pertinent, and I'm going to adjust it for more "modern" circiumstances.
Can you be friends with someone who you used to fool around with? What if you both never wanted more? Truely. Does it happen? I reckon it does. I mean, it happens that both people never want more than casual. Whether that mutal "luke-warm ness" can be translated into a friendship, its hard to say.
I have a bad tendency to like my friends. Sounds funny, right? But my friends have always been important to me. My life changes a lot. By my own choices, but still, it changes, a lot. My friends, however, are always there. They don't change. I try, as best I can, to keep my friends. So, I like my friends, a lot. And the decision to keep someone around as a friend is not really a choice or a decision at all. A friend is someone who made some aspect of my life more whole, more complete, more enjoyable, more comfortable, more exactly what I hoped. And so you can see the problem. Those casual fligs, they also accomplished the same things my friends do. Despite not wanting to advance the interaction from casual to formal, these people were still influential, exciting, comforting, enjoyable, and in some, important ways, enhanced my life (temporarily or perhaps, some more memorable than other, permenantly).
So what do you do when you feel that way about a friend who once was a lover? Does a friendship translate, or is a friendship more (or less) then what I have articulated above? How hard do you try to make that friendship overcome whatever past its had? Who actually loses more when someone decideds not to try out of principle, out of spite, or to make a point?
I have done it, but it always feels hollow. Things can be working out great in the new friendship but one off-remark, or one poorly placed joke and the whole thing rings false, shallow, built on self-deception, lies, swallowed pride, and paralysis. The trendy move on, I'm sure. They move on and they do it quick. But do they ever regret it?
Can you be friends with someone who you used to fool around with? What if you both never wanted more? Truely. Does it happen? I reckon it does. I mean, it happens that both people never want more than casual. Whether that mutal "luke-warm ness" can be translated into a friendship, its hard to say.
I have a bad tendency to like my friends. Sounds funny, right? But my friends have always been important to me. My life changes a lot. By my own choices, but still, it changes, a lot. My friends, however, are always there. They don't change. I try, as best I can, to keep my friends. So, I like my friends, a lot. And the decision to keep someone around as a friend is not really a choice or a decision at all. A friend is someone who made some aspect of my life more whole, more complete, more enjoyable, more comfortable, more exactly what I hoped. And so you can see the problem. Those casual fligs, they also accomplished the same things my friends do. Despite not wanting to advance the interaction from casual to formal, these people were still influential, exciting, comforting, enjoyable, and in some, important ways, enhanced my life (temporarily or perhaps, some more memorable than other, permenantly).
So what do you do when you feel that way about a friend who once was a lover? Does a friendship translate, or is a friendship more (or less) then what I have articulated above? How hard do you try to make that friendship overcome whatever past its had? Who actually loses more when someone decideds not to try out of principle, out of spite, or to make a point?
I have done it, but it always feels hollow. Things can be working out great in the new friendship but one off-remark, or one poorly placed joke and the whole thing rings false, shallow, built on self-deception, lies, swallowed pride, and paralysis. The trendy move on, I'm sure. They move on and they do it quick. But do they ever regret it?
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Comment by Hope
Gifted Parenting
Freelance For Life
Comment by Joanna
i imagine its pretty rare that you'd have an ex at your wedding. Good on ya!!