It’s the age old question that always brings lots of different opinions to the table when brought up. Instead of shouting ‘no way impossible’ or the ‘yes of course!’, I want to delve into the complicated ways in how we view our exes and whether we can truly have a friendship post romance.

It is always difficult when breaking up with a partner. Often that person has been the closest person to you during the period of your relationship, your best friend, your confidante and lover. I have always found it insane that we can be so intimately close with another human being and then after a break-up, poof, gone, vanished. All of those memories, moments and conversations just forgotten, and the two people have no choice but to move on and cease all contact with one another.

However, often when we experience a break-up, the dumper or the dumpee might say ‘hopefully we can be friends one day.’ I have always hated that line. I’ve always seen it as either the dumper trying to soften the blow, or the dumpee trying to cling on to some relationship with their former partner, despite both of them knowing it’s impossible.

But after making my way through my 20s, I’ve started to change my opinion around friendships and exes and actually, I think it can work quite well.

I think it boils down to a few things:

a) The depth of the relationship i.e. was it a fling or was it a very intense relationship?

b) Whether someone is still in love with the other/holds resentment to the other

For me, I have now had flings and exes (from intense relationships too) where I could very easily be friends with the other person. Even if there was initially some form of resentment there, we have worked through it and enough time has passed that we can actually just hang out. All the resentment and any emotional feelings have gone.

Weirdly, it is the friendships with these exes that I often find I can be my true self around. There is a certain level of intimacy and no formality that makes it so unique. I find it really easy to have a drink with my exes and speak my thoughts freely, with no judgment. These are also the friendships in my life that require zero to low maintenance. We absolutely won’t message everyday, let alone every month. It can simply be an annual check-in to wish the other well and perhaps meet for a coffee or a drink to catch up. But it’s nice – it’s comforting.

While some people might find this quite strange, I actually really value the friendships I have formed with exes. The sentimental side of me always tries to have no bad blood with anyone I have cared for in my life. But I totally appreciate that for some people, they don’t want to have any form of contact with someone they were once with, and that’s okay too. Some people see human interactions as black or white, whilst for me they are always a bit more colourful and entangled.

As I write this, I am currently going through a long-term break up where we are both navigating the difficulty of loving each other but knowing we are not a good fit. We cannot be friends. There is far too much emotion attached to the relationship for us to be around each other and be anything else but romantic. Even if plenty of time had passed, I cannot see myself being his friend – in fact even the thought of it makes me feel choked up and rather ill. He is definitely one of the loves of my life.

Maybe one day, years and years for now it could happen… but it’s almost impossible to imagine. I think with those intense loving relationships, where you know a part of you will always carry them with you, transitioning to friendship would be incredibly difficult. It would be unbearable to see the person you loved so intensely suddenly treat you in such a platonic way.

In essence, pursuing friendships with exes are incredibly complicated. When done right, they can be beautiful, fantastic friendships, as long as both of you are in agreement on the status of your relationship. Contrastingly, some relationships are too intense to even imagine a platonic friendship with them – there is a lot of beauty to that too. Ultimately, figure out what you are comfortable with and if in doubt, test it out. Life is too short to put people in rigid boxes.