“We should just be friends.”
No matter where you are or what your identity, those five words either have or someday will undoubtedly hit your eardrums. This term is often a way to try and gently let another person down, and let them know that a romantic or sexual connection doesn’t feel potent to them or has run its course. In some cases, it’s a softer way to indicate that you won’t be seeing each other under any circumstances going forward, even though friends usually see each other. Other times, though, this is just a natural extension of your interactions with someone. Your rapport and dynamic may not be right for romantic or sexual connections, but as friends, there may be something exciting and wonderful between you. It can be a new beginning, in other words, not just a grim or half-assed ending.
Still, like so many things in life, establishing and maintain a friendship with someone you’ve dated can be a bit easier said than done. What does it look like? It’s a proposition that may sound tricky on paper but may be a bit easier to execute than you think.
So You Want To Be Friends…Now What?
I once went on a third date with a woman that I met on a dating app. I was so enamored with her and thought us getting to a third date was fantastic news…until she started saying TERF-y stuff on this particular outing. Later, as I reached my apartment, she texted me that a romantic connection wasn’t working out and she wanted to just be friends. I never texted her back: why would I want a friend who espouses that sort of rhetoric? I was offered to transform this dynamic into a platonic friendship, but that was not something I wanted.
On the other hand, earlier this year, I went on a date with someone I met at a local lesbian bar. She was quite nice, we had a good time, but afterward she let me know she wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship at that time. Because the date had gone swimmingly, she was a very friendly person, and we ran in similar social spaces, I gladly embraced the idea of being her pal.
These two deeply specific circumstances illustrate the ideal and less than ideal bedrocks to build potential friendships out of. Sometimes, people you’ve dated can turn out to be terrible choices for friends. Other times, it turns out you may have been destined to be the stars of your own buddy movie. It’s the specifics of a person, how you feel about them, and what you both want, that define whether or not you can and will continue as friends.
How do figure out what kind of relationship is in your future? Strike up a conversation about it with the other person involved. It’s better to flat-out ask about social queries rather than scrambling for signs of underlying intent (which may or may not be accurate). Ask the person what kind of dynamic they’d feel comfortable with going forward. After all, the words “let’s be friends” at the end — or lack of start — of a romantic connection can have multiple connotations. It could mean a genuine desire to continue being in a relationship with each other, just with a new dynamic. It could, again, be a softer way of another person indicating they need a breather or a permanent disconnect from you altogether.
In these exchanges, make your own intent and hopes for the relationship known. Make sure you’re both on solid ground with where you want your interactions to go from here. Both of you deserve and need to be on the same page. This way, you’ll know if “we should just be friends” is an indication of genuine yearning for friendship or just letting you down easy.
If you both want to create a friendship, lay out all your cards in this conversation, and be openly vulnerable when your friend-to-be shares similarly. How comfortable might you each be seeing the other person with a new romantic partner? Would doing certain activities together be too much of a reminder of the romantic past? What about communication? Is there a certain amount of texting that may make one of you uncomfortable? Do you just want to limit your friendship communication to just in-person interactions? Do you want to build a friendship more gradually, or dive right in?
Anything that’s making y’all uncomfortable or uncertain about the future, just get it all out there. Candor here can save you a lot of confusion and uncertainty for the long-term. It can also solidify what each of you wants from the other one going forward and how many parallels there are in those ambitions. From there, it can be significantly easier to ascertain how you two can craft a friendship within this social dynamic.
After these conversations, there’s some important things to consider and recognize.
Chiefly, don’t treat the other person too differently from your other platonic friends. True, you and this person went on multiple dates or even had a lengthy romantic or sexual relationship, and that’s always going to be part of your relationship history. You can’t erase that, but awkwardly and constantly reinforcing that reality won’t make a new vibe easy to establish. Just go with the flow like you would with other buddies in your life. The platonic connections you form with people are as vital and important as every other kind. That includes the friendship you form with somebody you’ve dated.
Still, this potential new connection can provide some confusing moments that may make you feel uncomfortable. That’s okay! Maybe your former date/lover wants to engage in activities often coded as just for couples, like cuddling. If this is confusing to you, ascertain how you feel about the situation. If you like cuddling with your newfound pal, then just go with the flow and enjoy it. It’s not written down in blood in some ancient book that only people in a committed relationship can cuddle.
However, if it’s something that makes you feel uncomfy, bring that up to your pal. It’s important to establish boundaries that you need, especially if you’re trying to establish a friendship with somebody you previously dated for an extensive period of time. Perhaps cuddling or any other little bits of behavior evoking romantic or sexual interactions simply remind you of a lost relationship rather than bringing you comfort. This is just one of several reasons you might be uncomfortable with these interactions. Whatever’s making you uncomfortable is valid and worth bringing up and working out together.
That even extends to not feeling totally comfortable or capable of engaging with a friendship with a former lover. If you can’t shake the notion that you can’t revert to just friendship with this person, that’s alright! To figure this out, it’s worth both of you contemplating this question: did you have a more low-key dynamic even when you two were an “item”? If so, a post-relationship/dating friendship can help build on those previous social dynamics. Carving out these interactions is just about expanding on those pre-existing parts of your life. If you both had trouble establishing a friendship dynamic previously, though, that might be a sign of rocky waters ahead for settling into a new, platonic existence.
Don’t just reserve openness and laying bare the facts when talking to your partner about this matter. Be frank with yourself, too, on why you wouldn’t want this dynamic to continue as a friendship. Maybe the dissolution of this romance seems to you like an opportunity to carve out a wholly new paths in life rather than evolving your connections with familiar faces. Sometimes, people we used to see every day gradually vanish from our lives. It’s a sad part of life, but also one that’s part of everyone’s existence. If that’s the route you want to go with a person you’ve dated, it’s a very common and understandable option to take.
The Specific Joys of Romances Turned Into Friendships
However, there is something incredibly reassuring about having somebody who knows you so well in an intimate, romantic context as a friend, even when that other context passes. Even if you just went on a few dates with this person, they’ve seen you operating in a mode and social environment few other people get to witness. Just the very act of putting yourself out there for a date exudes a level of vulnerability that doesn’t come around every day. With that groundwork underpinning your every interaction, friendship can be a rewarding alternate destination to romance.
These kinds of friendships can have a special level of honesty and understanding that you don’t find easily. This is especially true when you establish a friendship with people you dated — and maybe were sexual with, even lived with, or even created family with — for a prolonged period of time. Plus, in marginalized communities, it’s always better to have more allies than burnt bridges. As legislative bodies seek to strip the rights of neurodivergent, trans, PoC, and other oppressed people, why not seek camaraderie in somebody that didn’t quite work out as a standard date but is a wonderful person you want to be connected to?
In the best cases, these romantic or sexual connections transformed into friendships are reminders of life’s excitingly — though sometimes frustratingly —malleable and unpredictable nature. Strangers become participants in a first date. People in a “situationship” become committed lovers. Sometimes, those lovers stay together in that dynamic for many years, sometimes even decades. Other times, they may realize they’re better for each other as friends. Relationships are always changing and evolving, and life takes us all down unexpected detours on a daily basis, sometimes for the worse, but sometimes for the better.
Shifting a romantic bond into a platonic one can sometimes feel like a loss and that’s okay. Shifts in dynamics with another person are always emotionally trying. However, feeling that loss doesn’t make this development a bad thing nor does it mean that shifting a relationship into platonic territory is a “downgrade.” It’s just another of the endless examples of life sending people into out-of-the-blue terrain. Something so common shouldn’t be seen as terrifying or a letdown, but rather an exciting opportunity.
When I was younger (especially in my final years of high school), I would’ve given anything to be in a romantic relationship. I felt like that was the only way to achieve true happiness as a human being and connect with somebody. Over a decade later, I’ve become quite acquainted with the reality that romantic connections aren’t the only fulfilling ways to bond with other people. Friendships are vital. They offer so much joy and vibrant humanity to life. Some of the best friendships can even come from romantic connections that didn’t quite work out. And the best romantic relationships always have friendship at their core.
“When God closes a door, he opens a window,” so goes the old saying. In this case, when dating or sex ends, an exciting and potentially wonderful new way to bond with others can arise.
