Let's just be friends

Not being able to live with someone out there that hates you is only one of the reasons for not wanting to totally dump someone. One of the others is the unpleasantness of the moment – we have strong social instincts that lead most of us to try and avoid conflict – causing another person bad feelings and seeing the result isn’t fun.
This is not, however, a reason to keep the person as your friend. You can first do the “lets just be friends” thing and then grow slowly away from the person. However, sometimes the lets just be friends routine is actually meant to leave you with a friend! Yes! People sometimes say the truth! Besides – any good socio-biologist will tell you that the female wants to win the male's support for her and her children – getting a friend is doing that without “paying” for it by commitment.

What it means is: "I really like you as a person, obviously enough to have dated you all this time. However much I feel we might not suit as a couple, I would hate to lose you from my life".

What it translates like in some male brains, for some bizzare reason, is "I am a sadistic bitch who takes pleasure in cruelly fucking with your head."

I'm friends with virtually all my exes. But that's just because I never developed a taste for self pitying adolescent dickheads. Hey, call me strange.

Guess what? I'm still friends with all of the girls I have dated. Maybe that's a weird concept, maybe I'm just not good datable material and much better as friend material, but that's the facts. With most there was a period of time when communication wasn't upheld, or that sentiments were less than favorable (say, six months of not speaking to each other), but all pulled throught that.

Though, I've chronicled one experience of this not being a painless process, I just don't see where the big problem is. Seems most people have this "all or nothing at all" attitude, but I feel that if I so much effort into being in a relationship, I'm not going to waste it on being angry. On the same note, I'm not going to start hating someone just because the situation changes.

Now, if they've done something before making this clear, I have problems with that. I've had to deal with being cheated on, with the "I was just so confused" aspect. And yes, hearing about how great some new boyfriend has taken its toll on me several times. But good friends are hard to find, and I refuse to let something as petty as them "never seeing them naked, ever again" get in the way of keeping them.

This has happened by me and to me on several occaisions. In my case, it happens because when guys meet me and vice versa, there aren't always the stereotypical scenarios on which we rely to determine what the interest is, or where it goes. By saying, " I like him as a friend," you render any attempt for intimacy that would lead to a relationship null and void, but the opposite is not always true. We can be in love with someone or have a crush on them or be dating them and their friendship is assumed; even if we're wrong, we want to think that the latter comes with the former.

As I'd expressed in guys who don't tell you they have a girlfriend, it is frustrating when you're put into a bracket, when your options are closed off for you. For me, my desire to keep exes as friends is minimal. I don't keep my exes around at all usually, and this is for both our benefit. I'm the kind of girl who when breaking up with a guy will say, " I don't want to hurt you or waste your time; this simply isn't working for me." Curt, perhaps, but I try not to string a guy along.

Then there are those in between people, people who are in themselves so amazing, inspiring, attractive, and intriguing that you cannot think of your life without them in it. You wouldn't be saying "let's just be friends" if someone hadn't crossed a boundary, or was going to very soon. Maybe you wanted all those cool things in him to add up to a perfect boyfriend, and maybe you realized that the reason why you hold them in such high regard is because you came together under the guise of friendship in the first place. This way of getting to know someone is so unique to romance. That person is more real, more intense, more open, and sometimes that leads you to think that real love exists there, love of a certain kind.

This is a misnomer. The phrase should really be, "Let's become friends."

It's a process. One that should be taken together, not alone. The person offering the phrase, though, wants the process to be an instantaneous change.

Well, I got news for you: It's not. You can't expect me to re-evaluate all my feelings, thoughts, memories at one instant assuming the stature of a friend.

Just because it would be convenient for you if I suddenly dropped off your dating list (so you can date others, maybe?) doesn't mean that it's going to happen. Sure, you've been thinking about it for a long time, maybe even weeks, and I even noticed some changes in you, but you have to allow me the same amount of time (if not longer).

Don't assume that since you've gone through the process that I don't need to.

And maybe next time you will discuss your feelings and intentions as you have them, when you have them, instead of waiting until you decided you wanted a change in our relationship.

I can tell you what this has meant in my personal experience. I have been through the "I just want to be friends" thing so many times, I just don't bother anymore. In fact you could say I've become a dick out of neccessity. It's a canned, hated line. It's sort of like "You're a sweet guy." or "You're like a brother to me". Yet they don't wan't to date a sweet guy, or a brother figure.

I was lucky enough to have a woman explain this to me, finally.

Why do women date jerks?
Because if a woman is perfectly happy in a relationship, and has nothing to complain to her other friends about, then she must come to focus on her own imperfections, and no woman wants to do that. Why focus on one's own faults when you can focus upon the faults of your man, and get laid at the same time?

It makes sense. But women still want someone to cry to, someone to bitch to, someone to take them out and buy them things, pay their way. So that's where the poor sap comes in that is "just friends."

What does "I just want to be friends" mean?
The translation is "I think you'd make a great kleenex, and will use you as such, but I'd rather be romantically involved with someone who doesn't give a damn."

And they will deny it until they are blue in the face, but the sad truth of the matter is they will use you for your wallet, your shoulder, and your ear. They will ask you for advice, but will never listen.

We become the woman's friend, thinking maybe there's a chance they will change their mind in the future. Maybe we'll get another shot at being their romantic interest. But instead we watch them go out with the jerks. We listen to them cry and say they wish they had someone that understood them, cared for them. We once again remind them that we do both, and they say we're such a good friend. We grit our teeth and watch them go back out again with the abusive arsehole that treated them so poorly.

Meanwhile we get to pay in time, money, and stress, without recieving any of the benefits. The woman goes to the abusive asshole for sex, and comes to us for affection, conversation, and consolation. After all, what are friends for?

The best we can ever hope for is that one vulnerable night were we get to be the rebound boy.

More and more of us nice guys have decided we're not doing that anymore. To hell with it all! Special thanks to Tom Likus for giving us our balls back!

What to say when they ask you if you can just be friends.
So... do I want to be friends? No. I've got enough friends. Nothing personal. Do I want to be lovers? Hell yeah! Do I want to be one and hope for the other at some point in the future? No way in hell. Tell you what, maybe I'll just become an ass myself... it seems to work better.

Then walk away. She'll call. She'll email. She'll promise it's not like that. She really does want to be your friend. oh please don't leave me she will cry. Continue to ignore her. She will begin to obsess.

Why?

Because the nice guy who used to be at her beck and call, and she thought would do so forever has just got his yarbels back. He's just walked away and now she has no precious outlet for her non-carnal needs. The wonderful part is, you don't have to do a single thing either. Trust me.

"Let's Just Be Friends"

Possibly the most hurtful thing that you can say to someone who's in love with you, on a par with telling a guy that his penis is far too small to satisfy you, or telling a woman that her pussy stinks of rotting fish. It often means, and will always be interpreted as, "The idea of sex with you repels me".

It may or may not mean that the person genuinely wants to be your friend.

If you are ever in a situation where you're tempted to say this to someone, a far kinder alternative might be to say something like: "I'm really sorry, but although I really enjoy your company, I don't think we (are / would be) sexually compatible".

Some typical reasons why I do not want to Just Be Friends with you:

(0) I'm not a masochist.

(1) I already have plenty of friends, none of whom leave me feeling miserable, angry and sexually frustrated.

(2) There is no worse feeling in the world than watching someone you are in love with picking up someone else.

(3) I'll get over you a lot faster if I don't see you, hear you, smell you or touch you.

(4) I don't want to even think about you having sex with other people, much less hear the intimate details.

(5) I don't want to see you falling in love with someone else.

(6) I don't want to hear you crying about how the person you chose over me mistreats you, in the full knowledge that you won't leave them unless you meet someone just as bad.

(7) I'm not interested having all the responsibilities and none of the privileges of being in a relationship with you.

(8) I don't want to be your drink machine / meal ticket.

(9) I don't want people who *are* sexually interested in me being scared off because they think that you and I are a couple.

(10) I don't want you deliberately scaring off people who are sexually interested in me because you're jealous about me.

I remember that night we stayed up late and chatted on the phone about monkeys on Mars. I forget what exactly the fictional tale entailed. I know that it involved the icecaps. I started the conversation by saying, “What do you think about those icecaps on Mars?” Then I said something about how it was weird when scientists found monkeys ice skating on them.

We laughed, and the conversation lasted for hours. It was a good tactic to get over our fight. Then you said those words that lifted up my spirits—just to crush me, “I like this.”

I replied, “I like this too,” with a shy smile that you could not see over the phone.

“No, I mean I like this--just this. I don’t want to ever lose this.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I don’t want to lose you. I’m tired of fighting… let’s just be friends.”

I was crushed and did not know what to say, so I said, “I don’t want to lose you either… I want to be your friend.”

Needless to say, the monkey conversation came to a halt. The conversation ended, and we hung up a few seconds later. We remained friends and talked endlessly about The Simpsons, but for some reason, I still miss you. We no longer talk about nonsense. Now we rarely talk at all. We lost all of those things that we wanted to preserve.

And now, I find a website that is featuring Jesus action figures. I laugh at the sick joke. Now YOU can nail Jesus to the cross! And, of course I think of you and all of the absurd stories we have forgotten but used to share. I send you an instant message, with a link attached, and in return, I get your away message. “Bangin’.” Gross… You’re with the girlfriend, naturally.