How do you decide whether to keep an ex — or merely someone you dated — in your life after the spark has gone out? If you have kids together, you might be co-parenting or at least communicating.
Dating coach Francesca Hogi told me that she often sees exes trying to be friends when one person still has feelings for the other and is holding on to hope of reconciliation; or someone is still hurt from the breakup, and that makes it hard to continue any kind of relationship.
She also notices women agreeing to be friends when an ex suggests it, just because they don’t want be disagreeable.
(Both of them, oddly enough, are professors of philosophy. But maybe he could've handled it with a little more follow up with a nice email — but it didn't contain an invitation. I wondered if he thought I wasn't hot enough, or smart enough, or whatever — if he was picking up on some fatal flaw o' mine. I thought that if the God-Believer didn't like me, well then, I didn't like him either. In that way, I was being kind of like the Frozen-Foods Aisle Sprinter.
Or maybe that's not odd — maybe they could think through the situation and realize that, tiny momentary disappointment aside, a friendship might be a beneficial thing.)In another case, however, I was aggressively — and rather defensively — turned down for a friendship by a guy who said, "Since you're not attracted to me, I don't feel comfortable hanging out. As I was getting ready to skip town, however, I decided, what the hell, I'd drop him a line. And right away, he wrote back, saying, "I'd love to be friends! We're gonna hang out as soon as we're both back in New York.