You were with him for a while.

Long enough that you’re really invested now, right?

He knows you -- all of you, and you know him. Maybe you’ve spent holidays together, seasons. Maybe you’ve developed a routine, and you know what he’ll order off of any menu in town, and he knows what kind of mood you’re in based on the song you’re listening to.

But, then, something changed. For some reason -- any reason, really -- things ended and the “breakup” began. Because let’s be real, breakups are a process. They may happen in an instant, but learning how to live with the aftermath of the devastation, my God, that’s a process.

Maybe you knew it was coming, maybe not, but he looked you in the eye and said he “still wants to be friends.”

Friends.

Friends who just spent the last few months, or years, really getting to know each other’s families, personalities, habits, desires, fears, and ambitions.

At first, it actually made sense. “OK, let’s downgrade the relationship. It’s the same as ending it, because it’s different, right?” Wrong. Like slowly sawing through a limb is less painful than hacking it off with an axe.

It’s bad either way, but, surprise, chopping is going to be a whole lot less excruciating.

Friends and lovers are separate, but not equal.

My friends haven’t seen me stripped and emotionally naked in the way that you did. Friends haven’t tasted me in the morning. Friends don’t know the whispers that make my heart twirl. Friends haven’t let me in the way that you have, and they sure didn’t share this thing that we had -- whatever it was. I don’t kiss my friends. I don’t love my friends the same way that I love you.

You still want me in your life, but you want the dynamic to change. And you want that to be OK right now. You justify the mess, saying, “life isn’t fair,” and I know that’s true, because if life were fair, the person I need to make it all OK wouldn’t be “just a friend.”

I do something good: I want to text you. Something bad happens: I want you on the other end of the line. I want you to be the person to know what happens to me throughout every day. I want to share it all with you.

But, now, I have to think twice before I dial your number or type out a text, in fear of being overbearing or seeming unstable -- like I can’t function without you. Maybe true right now, but I’ll learn. Friends don’t have to hesitate.

I’m attracted to you physically, and I can’t do anything about it because that’s not what “friends” do. Someday down the line, I’ll have to pretend I’m not thinking about you when I’m with someone else.

Oh, and the thought of someone else touching you makes me nauseous. The thought of someone else being your go-to, or being the one you think of when you see something funny makes me cringe. Is she going to get the messages that I used to? Does she get to borrow your sweatshirt? Is she going to replace me?

I want you to be happy, I really do. But I want you to think about me, too.

Imagine this: If we’re “friends,” we’re supposed to go out together (a whole different kind of going out, mind you). If this involves alcohol, and things get a little flirty--you say you like my new haircut, I laugh a little too long at your joke that wasn’t actually funny--it seems alright to have a casual hookup right? Wrong. Again.

When you wake up and reach for that guy you still love, and he tells his “buddy” to leave, it’s like breaking up again.

That’d be when the wound of the breakup begins to become infected, because I’m busy nursing it, slowly sawing away at that limb. Instead of facing the pain and embracing it -- truly feeling it -- I’m trapped in the agony of a breakup that goes on and on, and never ends.

I have enough friends.

I had a void in my life that you filled, and nobody else can fill the same way. I wasn’t, and I’m not, looking for any more friends. I have enough people to go to midnight dinner with. I have enough people to talk to about meaningless drama and hold trivial conversations with throughout the day.

And, as if that weren’t enough, I now have to remold my life so it’s not shaped by your outline. I have to rethink the future and think about it without you. I have to change the picture, and how am I supposed to do that if you’re still around? Because if you’re nearby, there’s hope.

The intensity with which I love you won’t go away. And it hurts to try to pretend that now, as “friends,” it doesn’t bring so much pain that it’s a true, physical ache.

I can’t imagine my world without you in it, but I have to. Because I also can’t imagine a “friendship” tearing me apart stitch by stitch.

So, no, we can’t be “friends.” This time, the history trumps the present, and maybe, once that limb I chopped off is gone and the wound is simply a scar, I’ll be surprised to realize I don’t even miss it.