When I was 15 years old, I met the guy I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Five years later, he is my best friend.
Becoming friends with your ex is tricky. First, you have to take into account your feelings and how the relationship ended. You have to make sure that you are secure with yourself, that you do not have feelings for your ex and that there are no hard feelings on either of your parts. A friendship like this will not work out right after a bad break-up, this also will not work out if you are lonely and need attention (which seems to be my problem). I believe a person can change, however, I only believe in long-term and gradual changes, which means a year or more down the road, that person is probably not the same person you dated, just like you’re a completely different person than you were last year.
I decided to become friends with my ex-boyfriend because there’s no one that knows me better. He knows my family and my friends, but more importantly he knows about my past. He knows how I handle myself and how I respond to certain situations. Becoming friends with my ex-boyfriend is the best decision I’ve ever made and it’s because I am able to be my complete self around him. I never have to put on a fake smile or put on a show. I just show up in sweatpants with a DVD of "Smokey and the Bandit" and we’re good to go for the next few hours as we talk about everything under the sun.
A lot of people believe that men and women are incapable of being platonic. Those would be the same people who think that if you’re “just friends” with your ex that it means you’re having sex with them. But neither of those things are true. The people who believe those theories are also the people that I seem to date now. I’m constantly reassuring the guys I’m dating or “talking” to that I’m not romantically involved with my ex-boyfriend, that he has a girl friend and that I’m not interested in him at all anymore. It really intimidates the guys I’m seeing that I have another man in my life that has seen me naked and only wants a friendship.
My ex is a completely different person than he was when we were dating three years ago. I am also a different person. And sometimes, when you change as people, your intentions change. No, three years ago, I didn’t want things to end the way they did between me and my ex. But I also realize that if we didn’t break up, I wouldn’t have had any of the experiences that I had just being a single girl with her best friends. And I wouldn’t have had the chance to meet some of the amazing people I have dated that I am also still close with.
The 15-year-old me was in love with a curly haired, glasses-wearing, transformer-loving nerd. But the 20-year-old me is blessed to be best friends with that same curly-haired nerd who has given me the strength, love and support that I need to deal with being a single 20-year-old college student with no idea what she’s doing with her future.
Whenever I'm sad, I know I can call him and he will help me out. If I have a bad date, he will laugh about it with me. When I have anxiety, he knows how to talk me off the ledge better than anyone else. When I'm happy, he's happy for me. The same goes for him, I know how to make him feel better, and how to make him laugh. He's one of my favorite people in the world and I'm truly blessed to be apart of his life. We are best friends and I will never be ashamed of the past that we had. The bond we have is incredible and I wouldn't trade it for a random guy that doesn't understand, or a group of friends that thinks I'm crazy for allowing him back into my life.
