Or at least that's what Daniela Bloch keeps telling her ex. 

by Daniela Bloch // Northwestern University

Maybe being friends was all we were cut out for, anyway. That's how it started in high school, before he became the Bleek to my Juno (minus the pregnancy).After a flirty senior year culminated in a drunken night, we finally decided to couple up. It was a rocky, horrible, right-before-graduation relationship (you know, the ones that end as soon as you purchase your extra-long twin sheets). He wanted to go to college unattached, so we split (still friends, of course), and I headed to Northwestern, ready to move on.

The feelings never fully disappeared on either side, though, and the summer after freshman year we decided to stop half-assing it and start dating, the long-distance way. We wrote emails and talked on the phone; we spent weekends and breaks together. It wasn't easy but we were crazy in love (like Beyonce and Jay-Z, but white and nerdy). We fell hard. And it was great. It seemed we’d never break up.

For a while.

Post honeymoon months, the relationship got rocky again. And after two months abroad in Beijing, my resentment and annoyance had cooled into apathy. I was neither attracted to nor in love with him anymore. When I ended it, I decided to test out a theory I’d been nurturing since my parents’ divorce: if you care about your friend enough to date him, what’s to stop you from being friends once it’s over?

Although furious about the break-up, he agreed that we should remain close friends. Now we just needed some ground rules. We already knew each other’s dirty little secrets—he knew that my boobs were glorified mosquito bites and that I cried at the sight of road kill. I knew that his toes were inexplicably hairy and that he left his cereal bowls all over the apartment, festering in stale milk and soggy cornflakes. We’d seen it all at this point, I said. So let’s just embrace that and be friends who can joke about those intimate things that normal friends wouldn't know about each other.

We gave it a shot. For a month we talked about that vacation in Germany, our love for Barack Obama, how best to run the Chicago marathon in October. We saw "Sweeney Todd" over winter break (note: to each his own ticket price) and joked about my unhealthy obsession with Law & Order: SVU. Being friends with the ex was easy!

So I thought. He soon turned sour on the phone, wavering between anger and melancholy. He demanded we not talk about the past and keep things fluffy, ignoring our history: the countless fights and the misunderstandings, but also the good and sweet things.

The next day he called to apologize for getting upset and proposed that we should keep talking like before. We tried again. But as soon as I brought up some stupid story from prom, he flared up. I was getting tired of his emotional diatribes. I didn't get it, but it turns out neither did he: three months into our post-breakup friendship, he admitted that he’d been expecting a reconciliation. Now that it was clear we were through, he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to kiss me or kill me.

Since I’m (clearly) relationship-disabled, I turned to friends and family for advice on how to keep the friendship alive. They all said the same thing: you have to cut contact and live your own lives; grow up and apart before you can be friends again. Since my theory had failed, I followed their advice, and at the moment the ex and I aren't on speaking terms. Maybe I'm naïve, but I'm sure we'll be friends again. Until we’re both ready for that, though—without any lingering hopes of reviving our relationship—we can’t be much of anything.
 
I sometimes wonder what he’s doing. I imagine he’s throwing darts at my picture. I guess I would too if I were him. If it’s cathartic, I’ll even send him some more for targets. (I’m not photogenic anyway). Hey, may he even burn me in effigy if that’s what it takes. Because I will make this work. It may be a precarious mission, but being friends after breaking up is not impossible. It’s just not easy, either.

Daniela Bloch is a junior at Northwestern University. She can be found at FedEx, shipping pictures to the angry ex.