Hey Brian,

I’m sorry to hear about the end of your relationship, but I am glad to hear that you are on the mend. Breakups are tough. I am in kind of the same spot… my ex-boyfriend broke up with me. There were minimal hard feelings on both sides and I had a fantastic time hanging out with him, so I wanted to be friends with him – but college is about to end super soon. It’s even worse because I won’t be seeing him next year and he lives too far away to feasibly see him.

My question is this: what are your REAL motivations for remaining friends? And this might be harder than first glance. I told myself for the longest time I wanted to be friends with him because I liked him as a person. And I definitely do! But now that I have given myself more time before acting rashly, I now realize the biggest motivation for becoming friends was because I still have feelings for him and the thought of life without him scared me. That is not a good reason to want to remain friends.

The best friendships (and all relationships) are those with similar and equal footing. You are still in the grieving stage (though props to you for making the steps to getting better!), so my hunch is that you and your ex are not on equal or stable grounds yet.

But I think there is always hope! Don’t worry too much about the “time running out” thing… Is she essential to your happiness for the next week, month, year? No. Is she/the chance of being friends going to disappear if you don’t create a friendship right away? Nope! Things are going to fall in place, but in order for that to happen, you have to fully focus on yourself and not the goal to “become friends”. (I’m a super goal-oriented person, and combined with the “time limit” thing… well, this realization was hard for me, personally, to truly understand.)

You mentioned that you have mutual friends, and not to mention the whole world of social media and stuff 😛 I think your paths will cross again, and when they do, you’ll know if you’re ready to fully embark on a friendship. Don’t rush it now. In my instance, I think that if I pushed too hard to remain friends with my ex, I would have ruined a chance of friendship in the future. Now we aren’t in contact, but I do know it’s a necessary time to do some growing without each other. I didn’t do anything crazy or clingy to make him avoid or hate me, so the possibility of reconnecting in the future, in a healthy way, is now actually feasible.

As for diffusing awkward tension for the time being… I think things are going to be awkward no matter what for a while – unfortunate side effect of breaking up, I’m afraid. Make sure you have a good friend to stick with, try going to only bigger as opposed to closer/more intimate group gatherings if you know she’ll be there, and that you are going to have a good time for YOURSELF and not just to see her. If you really focus on getting yourself, things will get less awkward with time 🙂 In the meantime… get excited over your summer and college! (It’s seriously a blast! You’re going to meet so many new people and experience such cool things.)

When you are 100% healed, and both of you are willing to put effort towards being friends, then you are then in good place to start anew. Being friends with an ex is definitely possible, but I think time to reflect without the ex in your life is necessary!

Hope this helps a bit (: