Musings on Life and Love

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Friendship. It’s so many wonderful things. It’s caring. It’s affection. It’s laughter and inside jokes.

It’s also the last bastion of the freshly dumped. After all, how many breakup conversations include the phrase, “can we just be friends?”

So why do we go along with such a “request”? Are we that desperate? Do we get so attached that we’re willing to settle for friend status just to stay in someone’s life? Take the story of Jackie:

Jackie is a strong, independent woman (usually). She is also the victim of a recent breakup. Robert, her live-in boyfriend of three years, has decided that he needs time to “figure things out.” He still wants to be friends, but he needs to take a break from the relationship.

Jackie reluctantly accepts this arrangement, and the two continue to see each other once or twice a week, essentially at his discretion: she makes herself available when he calls, and only sometimes is he available when she calls.

Months pass, and Robert still hasn’t figured out what he wants. Though Jackie makes a few half-hearted attempts to date other men, not surprisingly, these dates go nowhere. She continues to pine for Robert.

So, why does Jackie put up with Robert’s wishy-washiness? Perhaps a better question is, what is going on inside Jackie’s brain…. Read more…