His generosity of spirit mystified me. Was he one of those rare souls who exist on some higher Age of Aquarius plane far above the rest of us green-eyed mortals or was his heart made of stone?

Try as I might, I cannot befriend an ex. When it comes to a meaningful relationship, I get deeply attached, incapable of channeling my amorous feelings into platonic ones when the romance ends. My stomach always drops - and so do many others - upon hearing the words "we can still be friends."

In the fall of 2003, my long-term boyfriend and I broke up. Our relationship had been intense and volatile and, by the end, was in tatters. I was afraid of being alone and relied on him for emotional support and intimacy, so I didn't have the guts to end it myself. It was a blessing when he did, but still, I was knocked out by a crush of feelings: hurt, rejection, humiliation, loss, jealousy, possessiveness, and self-criticism - not least of all because he took up with a girl 20 years younger than me.

For the next year and a half, he and I had nothing to do with each other. I vacillated between missing him to wanting him dead. I got a new, long-distance boyfriend who put up with my endless obsessing about why my last relationship ended. Friends told me I didn't have to suffer. Try to be friends with my ex.

Not a chance. That would be settling for the booby prize of love - the boyfriend-turned-buddy.

"I'm always too wounded, too lost in yearningness to be friendly with an ex," commiserated the writer Daphne Merkin. "My romances are always so high-passion. I'm always throwing myself from a mountaintop. If two people can be friends after a relationship, it means they're both shallow."

Or they're deluding themselves. Although a post-romance friendship seems so modern and mature, it is also unnatural and phony, a denial of the deeper, very genuine heated emotions that even courts of law acknowledge by offering more lenient sentences for crimes of passion.

A platonic pledge by the one who initiates the breakup may be meant to express ongoing fondness but, to me, it always sounds like benevolent condescension. It's also a selfish way for the person cutting the ties to wean him or herself off the other. To act out that dependency through the guise of friendship is thoughtless and passively controlling, allowing the jilted to hold out false hope that the one he or she loves will return with open arms.

Even people who believe themselves to be immune to self-doubt and jealousy discover otherwise. A year ago, a lawyer, 50, separated from his wife and quickly started dating a Victoria's Secret model. But when his wife got a boyfriend, the lawyer flipped.

"Sexual tension never really goes away," he explained. "There's this visceral feeling of rejection and inadequacy. What does this guy have that I don't? I was filled with hate. I would scream at her and tell her to sell the house. I didn't want him sleeping in the house that I lived in and am still paying for. All the things I told other people I wasn't came to be."

I thought I was over the hurt three weeks ago when finally, I met my ex-boyfriend for dinner at the Silver Star diner. He had broken up with his girlfriend and we had started communicating. Throughout the meal, he kept receiving text-messages from a new woman he was courting, conferring with me before replying. I made every effort to act neutral.

When we were done eating, he signaled the waiter for the check by invisibly scribbling on the table. "Is your hand starting to cramp up holding that imaginary pencil?" I joked after the waiter left, pointing to the frozen position of his fingers, still pinched together like crab legs.

"She's just like you," he laughed, referring to the new woman. "Like the way we were. She and I can crack up all day and be talking about nothing."

I smiled brittlely, a brick-size lump suddenly rising in my throat. How could she be like me, us like them? Was I so easily replaceable and un-special to him? My attempt at friendship was a fraud. My ego was still at stake. Back home, it was my turn to text-message him: "We can't be friends. Ever."