When A Guy Just Wants To Be Friends After Dating

When a guy just wants to be friends after dating, he thinks he can’t reciprocate your feelings and be with you romantically. He can only bond as a friend as a relationship with you doesn’t give him the kind of romantic satisfaction he’s looking for.

This isn’t your fault. His romantic expectations are just different from yours. Whether it’s the way you express and expect love and intimacy, communicate, handle stress, compromise, or envision your life with him, he doesn’t think you make a good romantic match and believes you’ll be better off as just friends.

This means he thinks you’re emotionally incompatible and that putting you into the friendzone will make it easier for him to feel free and independent. It will allow him to get the best of both worlds, which is a friendship without the romantic aspect of it.

So bear in mind that when a guy just wants to be friends after dating, his feelings are completely gone. He doesn’t feel the chemistry, romance, and desire to bond and get to know you better. In his mind, it’s okay to break up and pursue friendship because he feels that the incompatibilities he faced are too significant to ignore or change.

Prolonging a relationship with you would only continue to make him feel pressured and unhappy. And that he’d rather not feel. He can feel more positive emotions right away if he wants to. But to feel them, he needs to keep you away from him romantically.

He can do that by offering you the second-best thing he can offer; friendship. Friendship is, of course, better for him than it is for you as it allows him to keep you at a desired distance. Not only that, but it also helps him deal with any guilt he feels for breaking your heart.

If he feels bad about leaving you, he can talk to you and indirectly obtain your reassurance. He doesn’t even have to work for it. He can just talk to you and see that you still respect him.

Friendship may help him cope with the breakup in his dumper ways, but to you, it’s the worst thing ever. You may really like the guy, but you don’t need him in your life as a friend. Friendship with him will hinder your ability to love yourself and force you to focus on him.

It will make you more attached to him and deter you from letting go.

You can be friends after you’ve gotten over him if you think that talking to him once in a while is beneficial to you. But while you’re healing, you mustn’t act as just a friend. To heal and find inner peace, you need to pull away from him and show him you don’t settle for less than you deserve.

Don’t tell him that, of course, because it will make you look weak. Just let your actions speak for themselves. The guy will notice your strength and determination the moment you take your attention off him and put it on yourself.

He may not come running after you, but he’ll respect you more because he’ll see you’re not going to take a deal that doesn’t meet what you need.

In this post, we talk about what to do when a guy just wants to be friends after dating. We’ll share some tips on how to respond to him and when you can be friends.

Why does he just want to be friends after dating?

The simple explanation behind a guy’s desire for friendship is that it’s convenient for him. He doesn’t understand that friendship will be very difficult for you and that it’s not what you want. He can only see the benefits of friendship from his perspective and, therefore, do what’s best for him, not you.

He thinks that you feel as detached as he does and that downgrading from a relationship (or potential relationship) is in both of your interests. Little does he know that you don’t want that.

You want a relationship or nothing at all. You can’t just pretend like you never had feelings for him and carry on as friends.

Exes or people who dated briefly need to go through detachment phases first. They need to process the breakup and feel ready to be just friends. To be ready means to be okay with each other dating other people and having a blast without each other.

If you’re not at that stage yet, you can’t be friends. You can safely reject the guy’s offer by saying you want to focus on yourself for a while. You don’t need to tell him you’re brokenhearted, miserable, and depressed because it will guilt-trip him.

But you should quickly create some physical and emotional distance between the two of you and show him you know your worth. That will tell him you aren’t friends with exes or people you almost dated but got friend-zoned by.

You deserve better and you must act that way.

So if a guy just wants to be friends after dating, know that he stopped valuing you romantically. He may see your potential as a friend, but friendship doesn’t fulfill your emotional needs. It actually makes you hungrier for love and prevents you from detaching, improving, and reaching your goals.

Nothing sets you back more than false hope. That’s because false hope keeps you stuck in a loop of endless cravings, emotional setbacks, and stagnation. It prevents you from reflecting on yourself and people and making the necessary changes.

If you want to do what’s best for you, you need to back off. Opt for the cold turkey approach and slowly but surely get yourself back. Once you do, you’ll see that standing up for yourself by walking away from the guy helped you get over the guy and improved your life.

That being said, here’s what it means when a guy just wants to be friends after dating.

If a guy wants to be friends after a breakup, you have an important decision to make. You can either agree to friendship and act as before, agree to friendship but don’t act like a friend, or decline your ex’s friendship offer and say this isn’t the time to be friends.

To minimize the chances of your ex reaching out and breadcrumbing you, the latest options will probably get you the best results. It will help you keep your distance from your ex and prevent you from going back on your word.

It won’t be easy to start no contact with someone who rejected you and triggered your biggest insecurities and cravings. But healing from rejection requires a plan. One that doesn’t involve your ex—as your ex will make you look over your shoulder and force you to wait for your ex to feel something for you.

On the other hand, if you dumped the guy and he wants to be your friend, then he’s probably afraid of losing you and being abandoned. He thinks he wants to be friends, but what he really wants is closure and reassurance.

Talk to him and encourage him to accept the breakup and detach. He might not like it at first, but he’ll soon realize that he heals faster and feels better if he doesn’t talk to you.

So if a guy you dated just wants to be friends, know that you don’t have to be friends with him just because he wants to be friends. He decided the relationship wasn’t working for him, so you have every right to decide that friendship doesn’t work for you.

You have a say in this. And you must do what is right rather than what feels right.

If you trust your gut (the physical feelings in your body), you’ll make an emotional decision that will trap you in the friend zone with the guy you dated. The friend zone will then string you along until you or the person in question realize friendship isn’t working.

It might work for the guy if you don’t pressure him. But if you have romantic expectations of him, he’ll soon learn it’s too soon to be friends. That could push him to abandon you even as a friend and hurt you again.

Here are some things he might do if you settle for friendship:

• date other people
• tell you about those people
• refuse to make time for you
• meet up with you
• sleep with you
• give you false hope
• confuse you
• leave you when you need help and validation

The guy you dated may not realize that you’re still in love with him and that you’re not ready to give up on the idea of being with him. That’s why he could continue to pretend like you never dated and make you suffer and crave him more than ever.

As a dumpee, you mustn’t think that you can somehow impress your ex and guide him back into a relationship with you. Although he might eventually come back, it’s unlikely that he’ll come back after becoming your friend.

Climbing out of the friend zone with the person you dated will be extremely challenging. You’ll have days when you feel that you’re moving in the right direction and that you might get back together and days when you feel that you’re unimportant and that staying friends was a big mistake.

You can avoid these constant ups and downs by saying no to post-breakup friendship right away. By doing so, you won’t just keep false hope away, but also heal from rejection as quickly as possible.

When a guy insists on being friends with you

The guy might insist and perhaps even guilt trip you into settling for friendship. But no matter what he says or does, you mustn’t agree to his demands. If you’re not over the guy or if you don’t think the guy would make a good friend, you can safely reject his offer.

You can say you need some time to yourself and that you’re not ready for friendship. This will tell him you respect yourself and that you won’t accept or do the first thing he wants you to do.

Not all exes/dating partners deserve friendship. Those who treated you poorly certainly don’t. They must be kept far away from you so you can focus on yourself and figure out what you want from your future romantic partner.

It can feel tempting to put your happiness aside for a guy whose time and validation you badly crave. It can feel like you’re being selfish and not acting “mature.”

But this is, of course, not true. It merely feels that way because some people insist on staying friends.

They say things like:

• don’t do this, we get along so well
• I don’t see why we can’t be friends
• I’m friends with all my exes
• I don’t want to lose you
• I hope you don’t hate me
• Just talk to me a little bit

By reasoning with you, they try to make you look like someone who holds grudges and isn’t thinking straight. In reality, they’re just putting their desires for friendship before your needs to heal.

This shows how little your healing actually means to them.

So be strong and refuse to bend over backwards for a guy who just wants to be friends after dating. Being “just friends” will complicate your healing process and make you wonder why you agreed to be friends with someone who constantly makes you want to talk to him and be with him.

As a dumpee, you’ll be much happier if you set your own boundaries and stick to them at all costs. At least you’ll know you have control over your life and that you don’t take people’s pity offers.

Breakups are about regaining control of your thoughts and emotions. And you’ll regain them, rebuild your self-esteem, and improve your flaws quicker if you forget about your ex and do things on your terms.

When can you be friends after dating?

You can be friends with an ex or someone you dated right away if the breakup was mutual and neither of you has feelings or romantic expectations. In that case, you can continue to engage in conversation and see if friendship is even possible or rather, something you want.

Of course, friendship will complicate things when you start dating other people (your new partners won’t like that you’re friends with exes), but that’s a topic for another time.

The point is you can be friends after dating if you and the person you dated don’t need to get each other out of your systems. If you’re over each other already and think you’ll be better off as friends, discuss how friendship will work.

Will you support each other, be sexual, hang out alone, or hang out in a group? Talking about it will allow you to make sure you’re both on the same page and that you don’t hurt each other’s feelings.

You can also be friends or rather, on good terms after a breakup when you have kids and shared responsibilities with your ex. Occasional communication will be needed to agree on things that are in the best interest of both. Just make sure to talk to your ex only about essential things.

You don’t want to start a habit of talking with an ex just to learn your new/potential partner doesn’t approve of it.

Let u know what you think about guys who want to be friends after dating. Do you think staying friends is a mature thing to do or do you think it’s unnecessary and often difficult? Share your views in the comments below.

And if you’d like to discuss post-breakup friendship with us, sign up for coaching with us.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.