I always, always, always judged (harshly) the girl who wanted to "stay friends with her ex"
That is, until I was that girl.
And my best friend was my "ex"
And the situation was complicated further because, he wasn't actually even my ex.
We. Never. Dated.
But I digress...
For the sake of this blog, I am going to refer to him as, and treat him as though he were my ex. Because see the situation as it were, everyone, friends and family on both our sides were expecting it, looking for it, happy about it, and well really everyone, myself included, thought we were at the very least going to date. And where we clearly did not ever actually date, it somehow managed to be the most emotional, and difficult break up in my life. Moving on...
So one night when he, my best friend, looks me in the eye and tells me he's seeing someone else, and it's not me...my precious, fragile, pure world came crashing in. No, worse than that. It was annihilated. His words were atomic bombs laces with personalized poison. It was like someone just dropped the weight of the whole of the earth right onto my stomach. I literally almost threw up in public for the second time in my life. It's definitely the second worst night of my life. Hoping to never repeat either...
See during the time I was falling in love with him, we were falling into something deeper together: friendship. Where I was completely alone in the love, I was building a bond for life in the friendzone. He and I didn't do everything together, but we become stupid close. We talked all the time. We had inside jokes enough to fill a book. He was my personal chauffer, mechanic, confidant, tech support, he became my safe spot. I felt more comfortable around him than I have around any other guy in a very long time. Besides being in love with him, I grew to just simply, love him. (a post on this difference later)
So in that devastating moment he became my "ex", more than just my hoped for relationship status changed. Every piece of our dynamic changed.
Maybe my opinion on girls staying friends with their exes would remain unchanged if he and I had actually dated, but you better believe I tried like heck to salvage the last bits of our now very broken and distorted friendship. That night left me feeling more helpless and vulnerable than I ever want to feel again. I wasn't just losing my potential boyfriend, if I didn't work to put it behind us, I was going to lose my best friend too.
And you wanna know something?
I lost him anyways.
I still see him at least once a week.
We still talk from time to time.
We still hang out a little.
But everything has changed.
No I don't still wish we had or were dating, I've moved on in that regard.
But there's an underlined strain between us that hasn't gone away. Still a subtle awkwardness that hasn't waned. Its ebbed and flowed. Gotten better than come back with a vengeance.
Trying to mend a broken relationship is like...trying to glue back a broken mirror. You can still see your reflection, but almost all you pay attention to are the cracks. It's been ugly a time or two, me feeling ugly and loveless and lonely. Him withholding and being withdrawn. Me snapping, him snapping. Strain on him, strain on me, strain on our friend group.
We get to a good place, and something resurfaces. Right now, although he's the one seeing someone, I feel he's upset with me because I am becoming interested in someone else. I am starting to feel angry at him for that. He can't have someone else and get mad at me for moving on. That might not be what's happening, but that's how it feels. And we are no longer in a place where I can talk to him about it.
And before I would have. I would have shot him a text and said point blank what was on my mind. Because he's my best friend. And best friends talk.
But he's not my best friend any more, and I miss him.
I miss him.
I miss my best friend.
