there are some very strong reasons why Partners breaking up generally try to remain friends to the person being however nicely rejected the promise of friendship can feel like an emotionally reassuring consolation prize we may no longer be able to share their bed have children with them or end our days in their company but at least something can be rescued From the Ashes we will continue to be able to call them when we like share our fears and go to the movies together to the person performing however nicely the execution the promise of friendship is equally
attractive we may be itching to eject the partner but we are not for that matter devoid a feeling we are as we might say in sentimental moments extremely fond of the soon-to-be-x we just don't want to end our time on Earth with them let alone reject all sexual possibilities in their name furthermore we're deeply attached to the idea that we're not monsters and as we know nice people always try to be friends with their exes the arguments may sound wise but from close up they are deeply fraught and in their own way a catastrophe for
both sides for the rejected party the step from lover to friend is an eternally humiliating demotion to go from the idea of a joint lifelong future to a dinner every second Thursday is to put it mildly a come down worse every sighting of the x is guaranteed to reignite Hope and then further insult what isn't acquiring a friend more an unwitting torturer as for the executing party the x is a constant reminder of guilt and ruthlessness one can't even ever be too kind lest one's intentions be misread and after a few drinks they burst into
tears or attempt to make a move the idea of trying to be friends constitutes a touching attempt to honor the best sides of a relationship in which two people invested heavily lovers can't so the thought goes simply vanish from each other's lives after all that friendship is invoked to memorialize an episode of genuine importance but looked at more dispassionately friendship isn't in any real sense faithful to love friendship with an ex does a grave disservice both to the memory of the relationship at its height and the merits of intimate friendship it's at once a betrayal
of everything a good relationship was and a slight on the ideals of friendship which shouldn't be built out of the remnants of another more Ardent condition what we should replace love with isn't friendship but that far more honest state civil distance that and a real assurance that their relationship in its best and most enduring light will always live on in the one place it can safely always do so memory [Music]
