Five Absolute Truths Of Breaking Up

You forgot the part about underwater orgasms and  theater sex and lounging all day nude and being really graphic and getting sloshed drunk for 12 days straight and addictions to various drugs… Oh wait, I forgot you don’t have to have that in every article about relationships. Hey, good article!

Wow, that was a much needed awakening. 

#5: I needed to hear that. I want to be friends so much, but space is probably what’s best. Thank you.

WORD to #1. I don’t understand those couples who are “broken up” but still live together.

I have a theory that friend’s can never be lovers. But, lovers can turn into friends (after broken up). It can only be done after each party is distant from each other for about half the time they were together. For example, if you were together for a year, then (as psychologist have said) you should start the ‘friendship talk’ after 6 months. 

What do you think? 

Feels good to read this article and go, “Well, duh.”

I really needed to hear #5 as well. There couldn’t have been a more perfect timing 

I wish the last one wasn’t true

Your theory only works if you live in a world without casual sex. But you can have great (and meaningful) sex without romantic attachment. Sex only disrupts friendships when the parties involved aren’t upfront with themselves and/or each other about their goals and intentions before the fact. I don’t accept your premise that the concepts of friends and lovers are, by nature, mutually exclusive. Sex doesn’t change relationships: people do.

For a couple months now I’ve been dating a girl that I met back in January. After we met we became quick friends, Facebook messaged a lot, and confided in each other while dating other people. After nine months of friendship, we were ready to take our friendship to the next level, admit that we wanted a deeper relationship, and become lovers. I have to admit, having never done it before, being friends first is the ONLY way to go. 

Nahhhhhh

Someone’s never seen a romantic comedy

hahahaha fantastic

I once heard that you should fall in love with someone you think is perfect, someone you started off with as friends, and someone who’s just like you. I’ve been in two of the three types of relationships, which failed miserably. It’s a bit bold of you to suggest that being friends first is the *only* way to go. I don’t think there’s a set formula for how healthy relationships should unravel.

Agreed. Communication is important, whether casual sex is present or not. Being upfront about your intentions and being on the same page is the most important.

bold use of the word “absolute.”

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You cannot have meaningful sex without romantic attachment. Nope. Sorry. Whomever told you they weren’t attached at all was lying. HOW can people ACTUALLY say this and believe it? You’re not the first I have heard say such a thing, but if you’re having meaningful sex someone’s getting attached, if you’re having “great sex without meaning” someone’s eventually going to be lying about not being attached, and if you’re just friends having casual sex the sex probably isn’t that passionate. 

People who genuinely believe that shit: Are you high or just …not in possession of a heart?

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they’re just weak people that don’t want to let go of familiarity

those type of people have hearts, they are just complete cowards who are too afraid to reveal them.

You can have great sex without romantic attachment, but you can’t have meaningful sex without romantic attachment. If the sex is meaningful there is some sort of deeper emotional connection, that’s why it’s meaningful rather than plainly physical. 

Look, there are different kinds of attachment, and not all of them are romantic. There are many kinds of love as well, and not all of them are romantic. We have all sorts of meaningful relationships in our lives, and most of them are not romantic. Is it such a leap to propose that people enjoy great sex without any expectation of or desire for romantic attachment, and can still be close to one another? That both sexual and emotional intimacy may happily exist without romantic love? Romance doesn’t have to be the desired end.

Romantic attachment, by the way, is NOT the same as “meaning”. There is so, SO MUCH meaning to be found in non-romantic relationships (e.g., friendships), and sometimes that meaning can be explored sexually. Not that it has to be, or always should. Intellectual and emotional connections—no matter how “deep” they are—are often at the source of such meaning. And there are those But, hey, if you think romantic attachment is the only worthwhile source of meaning in this life, then shit, my argument sure won’t hold. 

 @c04403b402203d30a1447f3fd6665a05:disqus : I never said anything about “great sex without meaning”. For me, some sort of attachment (not necessarily romantic) is usually key to great sex. For others, great sex may be in itself meaning enough. Or even just “okay”, uncomplicated sex. That’s totally fine! But those are really just personal preferences. As far as emotional hardwiring goes, some people genuinely don’t conflate love and sex. That doesn’t mean they love any less passionately, or have any less passionate sex—even outside of romantic relationships. It just means they don’t HAVE to be doing both at once (but doesn’t preclude the possibility). In fact, it only opens doors to sexual experience. There’s nothing inherently special about sex, but, if we’re open-minded, we can make our individual experiences as special as we want.

Point is, you don’t get to decide what’s meaningful to anyone else. That’s not even something you usually get to decide for yourself. If you have a meaningful experience, be it sexual or otherwise, then you have a meaningful experience. That’s all. You can theorize about why it was meaningful, but you can’t change the fact. The fact is that people DO have meaningful sex without romantic attachment. I’ve offered my theory. What’s yours?

I’ve found there’s two different kinds of friends I have when it comes to the opposite sex: people I almost immediately find myself attracted to in ~that~ way, and people I just enjoy hanging out with or w/e but couldn’t see myself dating.

What do you define as meaningful sex?

I once had meaningful sex with a friend after a really bad break up with someone else. It was meaningful for me because it was very comforting and it showed me something else beside the bad relationship I’d been in. But I had no romantic attachments to the person I had this experience with. So how do you explain that? And no, you can’t say that I secretly did have romantic attachments to him, because that’s not true.

Good job on the call-out. I didn’t mean to speak in absolutes. However, swept up in the feeling of love, I imagine it as the only way for me.

Well, it definitely builds up the emotional part of the relationship instead of playing on pure hormones.

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or they’re stuck in a lease.

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Also known as lessons learned from Seinfeld.

This is my favourite article on this whole site. 100% of people think they are capable of having casual sex with an ex. How many times does that work out? And in theory breakups are rampant among us!

Also in response to someone who wrote “sex doesn’t change relationships: people do” .. that is silly. Obviously people do.. they’re the ones having sex? That’s a stupid way of putting whatever it is you’re trying to say (your comment was way too long for me to bother reading what it was)

OH MY GOD this is perfect. I really really really wish I had read it when you posted it (or a month prior, actually) because if I hadn’t completely violated points 1, 4, and 5 my recent break-up would’ve been much quicker and smoother. 

Well, for next time! :)

Jamie