See I don't think that is true. I think you can remain friends with an ex-love if you are truly over each other romantically, but still share similar interests. I'm in my 40's now and am still friends with my high school boyfriend and a one other boyfriend after him. We stay connected probably because of music (most of my boyfriends were musicians and I am a guitar player). Music kept us connected I guess. That's not to say that there was an easy transition from friendship to lover, then back to friendship. I mean, there was a cooling down period after break ups that came after the "I hate you and never want to see you again" period, but because our interest in music connected us in the first place, it was easy to reconnect on a friendship level after some time had past. I've been married now for 22 years and my husband, who is NOT a musician, is totally cool with this. Never gets jealous - thank goodness. There aren't a lot of other women who get the guitar thing (how I WISH there were!) so I have a lot of guy friends. My husband has a lot of women friends through work and his community service volunteer work. It's all about trusting and respecting each other.
THIS scenario makes all good sense to me. I REALLY should've put in some caveats. I posted too quickly.
I didn't mean it to be that you could never get over a love and in the end become friends. I totally get that!
What I'm talking about is when you have that break-up discussion/event/whatever and it's HIM doing the breaking up (this is key to me). If you're really into the guy and he's just not into you...he's trying to be nice about it and mentions staying friends. <--This I just can't understand. It would be too painful.
I think in general, maybe not all womankind, this would apply. Like anything, there are people who can handle the balance. I applaud them if they are genuine in keeping it to friendship (with no hope of re-kindling).
I have been there/done that in trying to be friends w/a guy fresh out of a dating r'ship. I fell hard and was deeply hurt that it was over. I did my best to not let the pain show and stay his friend although I was miserable in not being able to have the r'ship we had. It was no fun...it hurt.
I want to clarify - I never said men/women can't be friends. NOT saying that at all. I have plenty of male friends and my husband female friends - that we DIDN'T date.
Again, I was speaking in generalities and Jodi is way beyond any norm. I think she, like many, tried to convince Travis that she could be his friend, but only w/a secondary motive. I mean, look at her track record of keeping in touch w/all of them...strange to say the least. IMO
In the end, she had enough of the pain of not getting what she thought was due to her (as she went on and on about in her letter). She thought she could outlast and when she saw that it wasn't the case...