My Great Post-Breakup Adventure: Part II
DAY 38
People keep telling me that after a breakup you can’t immediately expect to be platonic friends. My response? Why the hell not? (I’ve hated every one of my exes so much, that I didn’t really want to be friends, but this one’s definitely a keeper in the friend department.)
Apparently, there’s too many raw emotions still and it’s totally unrealistic. But I always say, you’ve got to live it to learn it and I like to find these things out for myself. Usually in the most painful and humiliating ways, of course. That way it sticks.
So when my ex finally responded to my IM insisting that if he would just tell me if this is how it was always going to be and if he was going to keep ignoring me forever, I promised I would never contact him again, I thought everyone who told me we couldn’t be friends could shove it.
He said that’s not what he wanted. He wanted us to be friends. Told ya, I thought silently to all the naysayers. But he needed time. Another week should do it, I thought. We chitchatted for a while, catching up on life. I smiled smugly to myself, thinking if only my friends had had relationships like ours, they’d understand. I told myself I didn’t want to be with him, I just missed his friendship. We said our goodbyes and I went about my day satisfied that we could finally return to some sense of civility.
But a few days later, I needed more contact. I sent him a friendly text. He responded. A few more days passed, and as my confidence grew along with my longing for some physical affection, I threw some flirtation into the mix. I silently insisted to myself that I didn’t want to date him, I just didn’t want to go out and have a rebound with some guy I didn’t care about. If we could just be friends and maybe hook up once in a while, that would be perfect. So I put it out there. He was skeptical, but I persisted.
I listed every reason why it was a great idea. But as is pretty common with my great ideas, this one turned out to be not so great.
To be continued…
