6) Why You Should Not Be Friends With Your Ex
"Can we be friends, though?" My ex asked, just after she broke up with me. I held my tears back and said, "I will think about it."
With a shattered heart and a scattered mind, I started thinking. A part of me wanted to keep her in my life because I didn't want to lose her.
Another part of me wanted to tell her to "Fuck off." Because it felt like she shot me in the chest, and while I was bleeding to death on the pavement, she had the gall to ask me, "Can we be friends, though?"
Ultimately, I chose to refuse her offer. Here is why that move was right and why you should do the same.
1) It Prevents Your Healing.
In love, your brain releases chemicals that make you feel elated. Naturally, your mind gets addicted to these chemicals. This addiction is usually harmless. But after a breakup, this addiction is disastrous.
Being in love with your girlfriend is okay. But being in love with your ex-girlfriend isn't. To stop being in love with your ex, you first have to get rid of your addiction to these "happy" chemicals.
To kill this addiction. You need to go cold turkey on love. To do that, you need to cut all contact with your ex (Go No Contact, Here read my post on that). Keeping in touch with your ex will keep reopening your wounds and prevent you from healing. Be patient, healing takes time. Falling out of love takes longer.
People usually fall out of love with their exes in a couple of months, sometimes a few years. The only people I have seen that don't ever fall out of love with their ex, are people who are still in touch with them. They get stuck in the perpetual friend-zone.
(**I use the pronoun 'her' and 'she' a lot in this post. That does not mean my advice applies only to women. It applies to men too.)
2) She Might Friend-Zone You FOREVER
Our brains love putting things in neat categories. It makes our lives easier. This categorizing system is so efficient that we end up doing that to people too. This is called 'Social Categorization' (Ad van Knippenberg & Ap Dijksterhuis, 2000). If you are lost in a foreign city, you will probably ask a police officer or a cab driver to help you. You chose them because your brain accurately categorized police officers and cab drivers as people who know the city well. Social categorization helps us like this in many ways. Hence, we have evolved to do this A LOT. It keeps everything from getting too complicated.
Your ex, who's most likely a human (I am hoping), will use social categorization too. Her brain will unconsciously remove you from the lovers' category and put you into the dreaded friend-zone category. Once you are placed in the friend zone, it will be hard for her to see you romantically again. Which makes reattracting her to be your girlfriend difficult. By refusing her offer of friendship, you make it clear that she can only be in your life in a romantic capacity.
(***I am not saying we always put people in one category. I am saying we tend to do this A LOT. There are obviously cases where we end up placing one person in three different categories, but our brains prefer NOT to***)
3) They don't feel the consequence of the breakup.
When you choose to remain her friend. It shows her that there is no consequence to breaking up with you.
This is the perfect situation for her. She can break up with you but still keep you in her life. She isn't losing anything then. You're one text away from being her booty call, a shoulder to cry on or her uber driver.
This prevents her from missing you or experiencing any pain. By not experiencing any pain from the breakup, she will never have to face her decision to leave you. If she never has to face that decision, she will never reconsider that decision.
But even more importantly, she is experiencing none of the pain while you are experiencing the motherload of pain. Every time she talks to you. She feels relief since it reassures her that she hasn't lost you. You feel that relief too, but that relief is accompanied by discomfort, longing, and a dull ache. This isn't healthy.
This unequal distribution of pain is because YOU are the victim of the situation, not the dumper. She has all the power here. To get your power back, you need to flip this power dynamic.
4) Flipping The Power Dynamics
Why do you think we always make a big deal about 'who dumped who' when a breakup occurs? Its cause it shows us with whom the power lies. In this instance, the dumper has all the power. As an added bonus, the dumper tends to feel less shitty at first because she was the one who CHOSE to breakup. On the other hand, dumpees feel extra shitty at first because the breakup was FORCED upon them.
If a thug forced you to run a mile at gunpoint. It would be a horrific experience. But if you chose to run that mile by yourself, you would feel accomplished. It would actually be a pleasant experience.
The only difference between the two scenarios is your ability (or lack of) to choose. When a situation is forced on you, you feel miserable and powerless. Hence, the dumpee feels worse than the dumper (in the beginning).
However, the dumpee can still gain some power back. He can reject the dumper's friendship, effectively balancing the power dynamics in the situation. Because in this situation, the dumpee makes the CHOICE of rejecting the dumper's offer.
4) You being her friend will not prevent her from dating other guys.
A lot of dumpees try to prevent their exes from dating. These efforts are wasted since they never work. If someone wants to date, they will. You can't convince your ex, not to date.
Trying to prevent your ex from dating will also make you look pathetic. Looking pathetic is not attractive. This will result in your ex losing attraction for you and will decrease your chances of getting her back. More importantly, you will see yourself as pathetic, and there is nothing worse than that. You won't respect yourself anymore. If you can't respect yourself, who else will?
5) You won't like it when they start dating
Imagine your ex telling you all about the cute dates she has been going to. Do I really have to explain why this is bad for you?
Even if you tell her not to update you on her dating life. Her dating life will make itself evident to you. Her social media posts, behaviour, and environment will inevitably reveal that she is dating someone. The truth always comes out one way or another. When that does, you will have a mental breakdown. And that will make you like those villains in B-grade movies with terrible backstories. Let's avoid that altogether.
6) False Hope
Many dumpers tend to say, "MAYBE in the future, we can date, but for now, let's be friends."
Let me use my highly sophisticated state of the art Bullshit meter to translate that sentence for you.
"MAYBE in the future, we can date, but for now, let's be friends."
The translation is as follows:
"If I can't find anyone else or a better situation, I will come crawling back to you, MAYBE, I don't know. So please hold my hand while I drag you along."
Your ex isn't doing that on purpose. She thinks she's being kind to you by leaving a door open. But that door isn't really open. It's a 'Maybe' door. 'Maybe' doors might or might not be open. You need to realize that you are too valuable to be anyone's 'Maybe.' If anybody makes you a 'Maybe' in their life, you should make them a 'Hell No' in yours.
Like my post? Then you will love the podcast episode based on this post where I share more information about the Topic and include many personal stories, case studies and tips.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6WPvj9DxSPeXnsG2EBlAXm
References:
Ad van Knippenberg & Ap Dijksterhuis (2000) Social Categorization and Stereotyping: A Functional Perspective, European Review of Social Psychology, 11:1, 105-144, DOI: 10.1080/14792772043000013