The Eternal Debate: Can You Ever Really Be Friends with Your Ex?
LatestThis week’s episode of Girls was a marvel, offering a perfect snapshot of the horror of the rebound date, and more importantly, reviving the age-old question of whether you can ever really be “friends” with an ex. On the latter quandary, I say the jury is still out.
I say “friends” because I have never quite figured out what it means to still be buds with someone you used to sleep with. I used to be friends with nearly every ex I’d ever had, a move I always saw and defended as sophisticated—mature, even. If you care about someone enough to have a long-term relationship with them, how could that not be based (at least in part) on liking them as a person, independent of the romantic side of things? And if that is the case, how could you not want this person in your life anymore simply because the romance didn’t pan out? Even an uneasy friendship seemed better than scorched earth.
Of course, that was easier said when I was the person who wanted out of the relationship. And yet, there is still such a high appeal in putting bad feelings aside, in transcending the pettiness of breakups in favor of friendships, or being the bigger person. But how does this ex-befriending work? How do you trust that the person is really your friend? Are they secretly hoping you’ll get back together? Are you? And what about your new partners? Is it fair to expect them to endure you continuing to meet up or talk privately with an ex? Do people ever really pull this stuff off? What if the next person they date is one of your best friends?
The concept of “friends with an ex” also depends a lot on what you mean by friends, anyway. Best friends? Monthly dinners? I had a boyfriend who was still best friends with an ex. He insisted nothing more was going on, but they would often text each other that they missed each other, she flirted with him constantly and acted really jealous in front of me, and after we broke up they hooked up again. So. Yeah. “Friends.” They were just friends.
Unless both people are truly over it, being friends has always seemed a bit tricky. That was the case with last’s nights GIRLS, where the former partners of Mimi-Rose and Adam intersected to hilarious, awkward results. I don’t always like the reality the show lives in, but I have always appreciated the reality of each character on the show. It’s gotten especially interesting to watch Hannah confront Mimi-Rose who is, in essence, the seeming antithesis of everything Hannah is.
In a previous episode, we learned this by seeing how chill Mimi-Rose was about her abortion. Anna Merlan covered it here, noting:
Mimi-Rose is taking shape as a sharp, almost too direct contrast to Hannah: she’s self-assured, confident, pulled together, she gives TED talks, and she doesn’t need saving, mothering, or to be carried by a shirtless Adam through the streets while suffering a mental health emergency. She’s so self-sufficient, she tells Adam, it didn’t occur to her to let him know about the abortion until after the fact.
Part of the beauty of this episode is watching that carefully constructed façade that is Mimi-Rose crack a little. In fact, everyone cracks a little in this episode.
We start out seeing Hannah on an upswing—life seems to be good after the breakup with Adam. She’s keeping calm and carrying on, beginning with landing a job as a sub at St. Justine, where she nails the role of cool teacher keeping it current. Then, in the teacher’s lounge, she meets fellow educator Fran, a good-looking, affable guy who smoothly leads the conversation to a drinks invite that night.
When Hannah accepts, and later confides to Elijah that the breakup with Adam served a purpose—clearing her path to marry Fran—it looks like she’s now back in the game and maybe even fine with the breakup. So much so that when she and Fran continue to hit it off over drinks and she casually suggests they head to an art show she wanted to see that might be shitty, you don’t necessarily see what’s coming.