I’m sorry, but if we have done any of the following and are not presently dating, I cannot be friends with you:

(a) Talked about marriage.

(b) Considered what color eyes our children might have.

(c) Seen each other naked so many times, we could draw each other’s bodies with our eyes closed.

Everyone uses the line, “I hope we can still be friends.” I’ve even used it. But the truth is I don’t want to be friends with someone I have seriously dated. If I have spent years – or even months – of my life with a person who I really believed might be “the one,” I have no interest in being “just friends” if we break up. One of us is likely to get jealous or secretly wish things would work out. If we cannot be what I thought we might be, then I’d rather have my memories of “what might have been”, than the awkwardness of a pseudo-friendship.

I just don’t see the value in dealing with all the baggage of a friendship built out of a relationship that didn’t work out. There might be a part of me that always loves you, but I don’t want to be your friend.