Reggie Beefcake wrote:
wineturtle wrote:
Yes men and women can be friends after dating . Common? Only among the emotional secure.
...Or the emotionally insecure. I'm sure a very small percentage of people can actually be best friends with their exes, but most of the time, I'd suspect at least one party is not being honest about their true feelings towards the other person. I'd be extremely skeptical if a girl I was dating said her best friend was an old boyfriend. It is weird, and if they tried to play it off like it were normal, I'd consider that red flag #2.
I suspect your dating mind set is linear attraction> date>fall in love> marry>have kids>grow old watching the grandkids. Anything else is failure.
I date because I enjoy the company of a woman, I enjoy the dating experience I find beauty in spending the now moment with an enjoyable female. I do not expect each woman I go out with to fall in love with me and want to be mother to my children. I expect to come out of most of my exploratory relationships with a smile. I expect a friendship if we find love and life partnership is not there.
We should have value to each other as friends. We have learned about each other, how we laugh and how we cry, how we think and how we react. We have learned to be supportive and to be honestly critical. Our time has not been wasted. It should not be thrown away.
Learning where dating and boyfriend/girlfriend ends and planning for a life together starts is import and should be well defined. A committed dating agreement comes well before the very serious stuff of committing to plan to marry
Of course often the reason you do not go forward is timing.
One of you sees 'it' is not working before the other one does.
Accepting there is no quiet rocker on the porch listening to the grand kids tinkling in the pool can be hard. When both sides see the beauty of the friendship you have forged it's not failure it's a welcome learning experience. As you say when one of you unrealistically holds on all you have is a broken dream and the friendship possibility is gone .