Why Are You Inviting a Terrible Houseguest Back for Brunch?

A man can spend an entire relationship being rude, dismissive, unreliable and generally exhausting, and then after the breakup a surprisingly elegant thought may float into your head:

Maybe we can still be friends.

Friends—with him? This is a little like finally getting a terrible houseguest out of your home after he criticized the dinner, complained about the temperature, spilled something stinky on the rug and spent half the evening making you wonder why you invited him in the first place.

You finally close the door behind him, enjoy approximately six minutes of peace and, before you have even dealt with whatever happened to the rug, find yourself thinking, Perhaps he could come back for brunch.

Apparently the problem was dinner.

Maybe He Will Be Nicer Over Coffee

Friendship can sound wonderfully civilized after a breakup.

In theory, there will be no expectations, no arguments about the relationship and no more wondering where things are going. You will simply become two mature adults who occasionally talk, laugh and wish each other well.

Lovely.

Except this particular man was not especially good at the wishing-you-well part when he was your boyfriend.

He dismissed your feelings. He spoke to you in ways you would never accept from a friend. Maybe he lied, disappeared, insulted you, picked fights or had the curious habit of making you feel worse and then acting surprised that you were upset.

But now the romantic relationship is gone, and somehow friendship has been suggested as though changing the invitation will produce a different guest.

Perhaps he was dreadful at dinner but absolutely delightful around waffles.

Maybe all that disrespect was caused by the evening menu.

Give the man a blueberry muffin and let us see what happens.

Friendship sounds so harmless that sometimes we wave it through the door without stopping to ask whether the man has learned any manners. Yet if one of your actual friends repeatedly treated you the way this man did, you would probably not be thinking, How lovely that we somehow kept this friendship alive.

You would be wondering why she was still in your kitchen.

Somehow He Gets Invited Back In

And usually he does not come through the front door. He starts with a perfectly harmless little text.

Hope you’re doing well.

Very pleasant.

You answer because you are mature, gracious and not someone who starts throwing plates merely because a man has reappeared on your phone.

Before long you are chatting again, telling each other what has been going on, and then he makes one of those comments you remember very well from the relationship—the kind that sounds harmless from across the room but somehow manages to leave a tiny mark on the furniture.

Oh.

There he is.

The guest.

Before long, perhaps he is criticizing the man you are dating, asking questions that are none of his concern or becoming irritated when you do not reply quickly enough. He may even behave as though friendship has given him a charming little side entrance back into your emotional life.

No relationship responsibilities, naturally.

But access would be nice.

Quite a pleasant setup for him.

He no longer has to be a decent boyfriend, yet he still gets to wander into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and ask who you were out with last night.

And somehow you are standing there thinking, Is this what friendship looks like now?

It looks remarkably similar to the old dinner.

A New Invitation Does Not Create a New Guest

Of course, not every friendship with an ex ends with somebody needing to be escorted out of the kitchen. Some people really do discover that romance was the wrong room for them and friendship suits them much better.

But that is a very different guest from the one we are talking about here.

We are talking about the man who was mean when you loved him, careless with your trust and exhausting to have in your life.

Then the relationship ends and friendship appears wearing a little apron, promising everything will somehow be lighter now.

The trouble is that friendship is not a magical side door where manners suddenly improve.

He still has to know how to be kind to you. He still has to respect you. He still has to enter your life without knocking over the emotional lamp every time he visits.

Calling him a friend does not turn a cutting comment into a harmless one or make his presence less exhausting. You have simply moved the same guest from dinner to brunch and hoped the pancakes would improve his personality.

And perhaps one afternoon, while imagining another perfectly civilized coffee with the man who once made you miserable, the absurdity finally becomes visible.

You already know what he is like in the house. You have seen him at the table, and more importantly, you remember what it was like cleaning up after he left.

Maybe the surprising part is not that the relationship ended.

It is that after finally getting him out the door, you ever considered sending another invitation.