Exes

So, I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately, and exes, specifically.

I know many, many people, both men and women, who say that when a relationship has ended, they've maintained a speaking relationship with their ex. They are friends or friendly or occasionally have lunch or dinner with each other.

And I wonder how the hell they can do that.

Because I cannot. Not on any level. If a relationship is over, it is over. Completely. I can't imagine staying friends with someone with whom I'm no longer involved.

Once a relationship has moved beyond friendship and onto lover/roommate/fiance status, I cannot see myself taking such a huge step backwards to just friendship again. For instance, I can't see myself sitting across from Andrew at a restaurant, asking after his friends and family, and not imagining either a) that sexual romp in the middle of the baseball field or b) the huge fight where we ended up chucking glasses of Kool-Aid at each other.

Do you follow? It would be like pretending that all that came before it somehow either didn't matter or isn't important enough to be remembered. I suppose one could say, Dari, get over it, get past it, move beyond it. To which I say, NO.

I don't want to stay friends with someone who I've given head to a thousand times but who could cheat on me with some slut he met at work. I don't want to have a drink with someone who, the last time I had a drink with, we had four hours of sex and I was sore and walked funny for two days, only to discover he had lied to me about major events in his life.

Call me silly, but I'm like that!

Because for whatever reason we had for breaking up, they were big enough for me to walk away from them. And trust me, it takes a lot for me to walk away. I'm not like that. Through thick and thin, good times and bad, I'm there. But if you've hurt me enough for me to walk away, then you aren't a good enough person to be my friend.

Is it wrong to think that way?

We've all had friends and boyfriends/girlfriends come in and out of our lives. I believe everything happens for a reason, and the reason why you became friends with that dude you worked with suddenly isn't there when you are no longer working together. Some friends and lovers are transient, and I'm okay with that. If I had to deal with every friend and lover I've ever had, I'd have no time to pee. It's just that simple.

But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about someone who has made me laugh until I couldn't breath, and cry until I fell asleep, only to wake and cry some more. The person with whom I've attended family reunions and weddings and funerals. That I cried with when I found out I wasn't pregnant. How does one wipe away all of those intense encounters that indelibly left a mark on me to just become friends once more?

I can't do it.