I've always thought probably not. And not because of the whole boys and girls can't be friends for fear they'll end up in the sack predicament, but because generally, unless you've both been really, really grown up about things and simply grown apart, the chances are that one of you will have behaved quite badly during the relationship (ergo the fact he/she is now an ex) and the other has been badly hurt. Perhaps one of you may have behaved quite badly during the breakup. By which I mean me. I'm likely to have behaved really, really badly during the breakup. I'm the worst kind of ex, a near demented banshee straddling the line between "F*ck you, I never really loved you and anyway you were shit in bed" and "Please don't leave me to die alone, surrounded by cats and Bridget Jones movies and M&S ready meals for one". A modern day Miss Haversham, if you will. Seriously, ex's that trot out the well worn "I hope we can be friends" line to me have no idea what they are letting themselves in for.
It took me six years - YES, SIX YEARS - to get over the sexy architect. If I ever did, that is. My friends still know him as the love of my life, and can't believe that now, all these years on, we are able to meet up perhaps once a year or so and I don't go home crying into my cocoa. But we do, I don't, and it's great. But it took a great deal of time, patience and celibacy to get me to that point, and I'm glad to say that now, I actually look forward to our annual glass of wine and catch up, and no longer harbour any form of grudge against my replacement. Well not for most of the time anyway.
But this is different. I have got cheese in my fridge older than this break up and yet here I am galivanting around town with the beautiful JC (of which more to follow, no doubt). Me and MB really do seem to have crossed the line from lovers to friends without there being more than a smidgen of drama and histrionics. Since the break up we have met up perhaps 3 or 4 times a month, and its been fine. Really fine. But now you see this leads me to a bigger problem, and me being a worrier I need to analyse.
Does this mean that he was right, I was wrong, and perhaps the relationship was not right from the very start? Did I ever really, really love him in any proper sense? Or did I just enjoy his company, the relationship, the girlfriend status? Did I turn into one of those pathetic, needy women of a certain age so frightened of being alone they switch off the filter and settle for anything they can get? Certainly, I wanted it to work, but can wanting something badly enough ever make it right?
Having spent 5 years convincing myself that MB was The One, it has come as a huge surprise (and I will admit a little bit of a disappointment, perhaps tinged with a bit of relief too) to realise that he really, really wasn't. We went out for his birthday dinner the other night, and now the rose tinted glasses are off, I can see him for what he was and should have been throughout - a friend. Nothing more, despite my best efforts, but a dear and valued friend. And I hope that will continue, at least until the cheese finally goes mouldy.
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