Bye Bye Theory

Can you ever be friends with your ex? Affair-turned-ex had asked me once. He was the big, protective one who never left a chance to scorn the male friends I had. I liked that about him though. Because I would laugh at the way he would cringe with jealousy at the mention of names. Being jealous comes so naturally for the one you love, I thought. "Tell him you don't want to talk to him," he would cry hoarse when the phone did ring from an ex. The fact is, I was friends with an ex and he had problems with it. I didn't, for reasons simple. We had parted on mutual grounds and chose to remain friends. Maybe we were just affectionate for the period we were together. No torrid affair and no bitterness there!

I quiz my friends. One says, you can never be friends with your ex because the attraction never dies. "If you've had a very passionate relationship, then I think it'll be very difficult," she adds. Maybe, because after a point you are bound to get that energy level up if you keep in touch! And if the ex is doing very well, then you have every reason to be in touch, another joked. Yet another says, "I don't want to spoil my current relationship, so I cant be friends with my ex." The answers are varied.

I ponder. When you are with someone you love, you realise he is the perfect person to be. But when you move on and find another person, the love for the former wanes because you are not together. All that thing about "your love will be an eternal flame in my heart" dies down, albeit slowly. So in time it is easy and ok to be friends because the distance and the silence priorties your love and life too. So, it's the residues of love that is the deciding factor. But I have to add that there is the bitterness too. In such cases, they just become so inconsequential that they don't matter anymore. Maybe some exes will repudiate this theory, but sometimes the complexities of emotions can also be tidied up into a neat theory as this too!