I saw a post on Facebook today that said “You can never be just friends with someone you used to love because a tiny part of you will always love them.” I don’t believe this on both accounts: you can absolutely be friends with someone you used to love with the right amount of elapsed time and you won’t always necessarily “love” them. With each instance of romantic love, the definition of what love is altered. My idea of love at 19 is nowhere even remotely close to my idea of love presently at (almost) 24. Since my experience of it and definition of it has changed, I no longer feel what I did when I loved at 19, therefore, that definition is obsolete. I no longer have romantic love for that person because the concept has changed and that idea at 19 is no longer representative of what love is to me. Please note that I am referring specifically to romantic love here. The love I experience for people as friends is completely different and feels completely different. And I have a select few friends that I am so close to that I have no problem saying “I love you” to and I don’t worry that they might misconstrue it because I know they understand the difference and I know that when I do say it, I mean it because they are amazing friends.
To say that someone is friends with someone they used to romantically love requires some clarification as well. There are the kind of friends you would hang out and watch movies with and then there are the kind of friends you would risk your life for to save theirs. It has been my experience, albeit with rather limited frequency, that becoming any level of friends with someone post-love takes a lot of time and evaluation of that person’s meaning, position, and importance in your life. It’s not always positive and not always negative. Things just change. People mature. Situations fade into the past. The removal of rose colored glasses can reveal people for what they truly are. This is an absolutely necessary part of growing up and I am much wiser for having experienced it in quite different circumstances.
So, can people really never be friends with someone they used to love because some piece will always love them? No, not in my book. Some people belong in the past. Some have just moved on, changed, and redefined. I know I have. There is nothing wrong with changing the way you view love, I think it’s absolutely necessary to evolve your idea of it until you are happy maintaining the important ideas of it for extended periods of time.
Love is a complicated thing. Love is a simple thing.
