Not even a friendship: the right not to stay friends in «Andrés»

There’s a sentence that turns up in almost every break-up, sooner or later. Sometimes one of you says it, sometimes the other, sometimes both at once so nobody looks bad.

We can still be friends.

It sounds civilised. It sounds grown-up. It sounds like people who have been to therapy and know how to manage their emotions. And in some cases it’s true: there are exes who end up as great friends, the kind who ring on birthdays and introduce each other to their new partners with real affection.

But there are other cases. Cases where that sentence is a trap, or an excuse, or simply a white lie that does nobody any good. Those are the cases «Andrés» is about, a song that ends with one of the most emphatic refusals I’ve ever put in a lyric: there will never be anything more, «ni tan siquiera una amistad» (“not even a friendship”).

The song’s page on the blog already explains how it’s built, with its capital-letter nevers and its murmurs. In this piece I want to talk about something else: the right not to stay friends, and why it is sometimes the healthiest decision of all.

Andrés doesn’t exist

First of all, a clarification I always think matters. Andrés is a character. His name is in the title because songs need someone to talk to, and a proper name makes everything feel closer, more concrete, more real.

But there’s no Andrés behind this song for anyone to point at. It’s a name chosen so the listener can give him whatever face they like. And I’m sure many people do. Everyone has, or has had, their own Andrés.

All my weaknesses

The song opens at the most fragile moment possible. «Como te he mostrado todas mis debilidades» (“Since I’ve shown you all my weaknesses”), the narrator says, and then adds that the other knows absolutely every one of his vulnerabilities.

I like starting there because it’s where any real relationship starts. To love someone you have to let yourself be seen. Tell them your fears, your insecurities, the things you’re ashamed of, the wounds you bring from before. Without that, a relationship is merely company.

But that same gesture, so beautiful while the relationship works, becomes dangerous when it breaks. Because the other person leaves with all that information. They know where it hurts. They know which buttons to press. They know exactly what to say to make you feel small.

And that’s what the narrator fears. He doesn’t spell it out, but he senses it: it would be natural for the other to have one last plan ready. Someone who knows you that well can do you a lot of harm if he wants to. And the narrator, who has already seen what he’s capable of, doesn’t trust him.

The last plan

I’m amused by how pragmatic the narrator is at that moment. He has no illusions. He doesn’t expect the other to behave well. He takes it for granted there’ll be something up his sleeve. One last move. A final blow to come out on top.

And his response is to warn him: you’re going to be thrown.

In Spanish the word is descolocado, and I love it. It doesn’t mean defeated, or humiliated, or destroyed. It means wrong-footed, like someone who had all the pieces in place and suddenly finds the board has changed. It’s a very small, very precise revenge: not doing what the other expects.

Because whoever knows your weaknesses expects you to react in a particular way. To cry. To beg. To come back. To accept friendship as a consolation prize. And the narrator, knowing that’s what the other expects, decides to do the opposite. To shut the door completely. Now that is wrong-footing.

Explanations to your face

There’s a line that, for me, explains all the anger in the song. The other refused to give explanations face to face. He preferred to leave everything to speculation.

That happens to an enormous number of people. A relationship that ends without a conversation. Without a why. With silences, half-finished messages, rumours that reach you second-hand. And you’re left speculating, going over what might have happened, inventing theories at three in the morning.

It’s one of the cruellest ways to break up, and one of the most common. You don’t need to be wicked to do it. You only need to be a coward. To not want the bad moment of looking someone in the eye and telling them the truth.

The curious thing is that, having left everything to speculation, the other expects to stay in your life. As a friend. As if nothing had happened. As if the lack of explanation were a trivial detail. And that’s where the narrator draws the line: if you didn’t give me a single explanation, I won’t give you a single friendship.

The faithful one, the one who always tells the truth

In the first verse there’s a portrait of Andrés that is pure irony: the faithful one, the one who always tells the truth.

The narrator says it, but he says it the way you’d repeat what someone goes around saying about himself. That’s how Andrés presents himself to the world. Faithful, sincere, honest. And the narrator, who knows him better than anyone, repeats the words with one eyebrow raised.

That gap between how someone describes himself and how he behaves is something that interests me a great deal, and it appears in several of my songs. In «Mi último ex era una IA disfrazada» the narrator dreams of a boyfriend who always tells the truth, precisely because the last one didn’t. In «Andrés» the problem is different: the ex boasts of a sincerity he only uses when it suits him.

There’s another line in the first verse I don’t want to skip: the narrator says he should have left Andrés in that brothel. I’m not going to invent what lay behind it, because the lyric doesn’t say. I read it for what it is: a blunt way of saying he should have left him where he found him, in the place he should never have taken him out of.

Your shitty sincerity

And so we reach the chorus, which is a door slammed with every letter: «Debido a tu mierda de sinceridad» (“Because of your shitty sincerity”).

I love how that phrase works, because it turns everything around. Sincerity, which in any other context would be a virtue, is here the reason for the final break. Not because telling the truth is wrong, but because Andrés’s sincerity is of a very particular kind.

Some people use sincerity as a weapon. They say hurtful things and then hide behind having only been honest. They hit you with what hurts most, knowing it hurts, and call it honesty. I’m just like that, I say things to your face, I don’t hold back. Yet those same people, curiously, are never sincere when it comes to explaining themselves.

That’s Andrés’s sincerity, as I read it. Sharp when it suits him and silent when it doesn’t. A sincerity that knows all your vulnerabilities and uses them. Which is why the narrator calls it what he calls it, with no beating about the bush.

Never, in capitals

After that phrase, the lyric repeats the word nunca, never, in capitals, many times over. I talked about that on the song’s page and don’t want to repeat myself. I just want to add something from this piece’s angle.

That insistent never is the answer to the sentence nobody has yet said in the song, but which hangs in the air: we can still be friends. The narrator gets in first. Before Andrés can suggest it, before he tries to stay in his life through the back door, the chorus shouts no. Never. Never. Not the slightest chance.

I find it very honest that the song doesn’t do half measures. After a break-up people often leave doors ajar out of politeness, out of fear, so as not to look bitter. And those doors left ajar end up doing a lot of harm, because the other uses them to come and go as he pleases.

The narrator of this song doesn’t leave the door ajar. He locks it and throws the key in the river.

The slightest chance

Let me pause on another phrase from the chorus, because it has a precision I enjoy: between us there won’t be even the slightest chance.

Slightest. It doesn’t say no chance, which would be the usual thing. It says there won’t be even the smallest one. Not one per cent. Not a tenth of one. It’s the language of someone who has done the sums and wants to make clear the result is absolute zero.

That precision makes sense when you think about who Andrés is. Someone who, with his last plan at the ready, would look for any loophole. Any ambiguity. Any “well, we’ll see” to cling to. And the narrator, who knows him, makes sure not to leave him a single crack. Not even the slightest.

It reminds me of those contracts drafted with great care because you know the other party will look for the catch. The song is written like that: no open clauses, no small print, nothing that could be read in the other’s favour.

Not even a friendship

At the end of the song, after the murmurs, comes the final sentence, syllable by syllable: there will never be anything more. Not even a friendship.

And that “not even” is what matters most to me in the whole lyric. Because it treats friendship as the minimum, the smallest thing that could remain. What’s left when nothing is left. And even so, the narrator decides: not that either.

Many people think denying an ex your friendship is an act of spite. That the mature thing is to part on good terms, say hello in the street, like each other’s photos. And in many cases it can be. But in others, refusing friendship is the healthiest decision you can make.

When someone knows all your weaknesses and has shown he’s willing to use them, staying friends means staying exposed. It means that person will keep access to your life, your news, your low moments. It means he’ll be able to use what he knows about you again whenever he likes.

Closing the door completely isn’t spite. It’s protection.

The temptation of coffee

There’s a moment almost everyone who has been through a break-up like this knows. A few weeks or months go by, and a message arrives. Innocent, nearly always. How are you? I was thinking of you. Fancy a coffee some time, no hard feelings?

And the temptation is huge. Because saying no seems over the top. Because a coffee is nothing. Because maybe this time there’ll be an explanation. Because you want to prove you’re over it, that it no longer affects you, that you can sit across from that person with a steady hand.

What often happens is that the coffee isn’t a coffee. It’s the first crack. It’s the last plan the song talks about. And someone who knows you so well knows exactly what to say over that coffee so you feel the way you used to: small, confused, waiting.

I’m not saying every coffee with an ex is a trap. I’m saying that, with certain people, the best answer is the song’s. No. Never. Not even that.

The guilt of closing

Closing a door completely has a price, and I don’t want to keep quiet about it. That price is often guilt.

You wonder if you’re being too harsh. If it wouldn’t be more mature to part on good terms. If your mutual friends will judge you. If parties will feel strange. In small circles, and a city’s gay scene sometimes is one, running into your ex is almost inevitable, and refusing to say hello can look like drama.

But guilt isn’t proof you’re doing something wrong. Sometimes it’s just the noise a boundary makes when it’s set for the first time. Over time, that noise fades. And what remains is the calm of not having to be on guard every time your phone rings.

No contact

This idea has a name that has become fashionable: no contact. Cutting off all communication with someone who has hurt you, so you can recover without that person continuing to influence you.

I have a song called precisely «No contact», which goes down that road. «Andrés» is almost its most visceral version. It isn’t a reasoned plan, with steps and guidelines. It’s a cry. But underneath it’s the same: there are people with whom you can’t have any kind of relationship, not even the smallest, because any crack lets them back in.

And I want to say something about that, carefully. If you’re coming out of a relationship in which you were truly hurt, in which your weaknesses were used against you, in which you were manipulated or made to feel you were mad, you don’t have to be that person’s friend. You owe them nothing. Not an explanation, not a coffee, not a birthday message. Your priority is you.

And if you feel you can’t cope, ask for help. Talk to someone you trust or to a professional. If at any point you find yourself in danger or thinking of harming yourself, in Spain you can call 024, which answers at any hour, or 112 in an emergency.

Thank your sincerity

There’s a detail at the end that makes me smile every time. Having denied him everything, the narrator tells Andrés to be grateful to his sincerity.

It’s a perfect irony. As if Andrés’s sincerity had achieved something. And in a way it has: it has made the narrator leave for good. That’s the only thing that sincerity has managed. Thank it, because thanks to it you’ll never see me again.

I like that the song ends with that twist, because it turns the slammed door into something almost elegant. It’s no longer a plain no. It’s a no with a dedication. A no with an itemised bill explaining why.

What the song doesn’t say

There are many things «Andrés» doesn’t tell, and I’m glad it doesn’t.

We don’t know how long the relationship lasted. We don’t know how they met, or what exactly happened at the end. We don’t know what that last plan the narrator suspects might be. The song isn’t a chronicle. It’s a moment: the moment of decision.

That lack of detail has an enormous advantage. It lets anyone make the song their own. Listeners don’t need their story to resemble the narrator’s. They only need to have been at the point where you decide it’s over, completely, with no cracks.

And that point, I think, is one many people know. It’s the moment you stop waiting for an explanation that won’t come. When you stop speculating. When you choose not to keep turning over what the other meant or failed to say. You close it, full stop.

When friendship is possible

I don’t want this piece to read as a manifesto against friendship between exes. It isn’t one.

There are many stories of exes who became wonderful friends, especially in the gay world, where circles are sometimes so small there’s no alternative. Some people share a flat with their ex. Some go on holiday with their ex and their ex’s new partner. And that’s fine. Every story is different.

What «Andrés» stands up for is something else: that friendship isn’t an obligation. That you needn’t accept it out of politeness. That if the other couldn’t look you in the eye, you don’t have to offer him a place in your life. Friendship is earned, after a break-up too. And Andrés hasn’t earned it.

Broken lines

One last note on form, different from the one on the song’s page. The opening lines are broken almost word by word. And you know. Absolutely. All my. Vulnerabilities.

Read like that, they remind me of how someone talks when they’re telling something that costs them. Whole sentences don’t come out. Fragments do, with pauses in between, as if each word had to be dragged out by hand. It’s the written form of a lump in the throat.

Then, in the chorus, all of that changes. No more timid pauses. There are capitals. There’s one word repeated with force. It’s as if the narrator, having admitted how vulnerable he was, suddenly found the strength to say no. First the confession, quietly. Then the boundary, at full volume.

That shift, from fragile to firm, is for me the emotional arc of the whole song in miniature. You begin by admitting you let yourself be seen. You end by deciding nobody will use that against you again.

A slammed door with a melody

I really like that this is a song. That the slammed door has a chorus, that the never can be hummed, that the murmurs at the end have their place in the lyric. Because songs have something conversations don’t: you can repeat them.

If one day you run into your Andrés and feel tempted to accept that coffee, you can put the song on first. Remember the chorus. Tell yourself never, as many times as it takes. Sometimes boundaries need a bit of music to hold.

I write my lyrics without AI, and the music and vocals are made with artificial intelligence tools; I explain it all on my About page. «Andrés» is on «Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK», the second album of the trilogy, and you’ll find it in the full discography. The lyric, with all its nevers, is in my lyrics, and its page is on the blog.

If you like this kind of goodbye, I also recommend «Ya no te quiero» (“I Don’t Love You Any More”), which says farewell at a different temperature, and «El castigo más duro» (“The Harshest Punishment”), which suggests something similar from another angle: sometimes the most forceful thing is simply not to be there.

Frequently asked questions

What is «Andrés» about?

About a narrator who, having shown his partner all his weaknesses, decides to cut him off completely. Andrés, an invented character, boasts of being faithful and sincere, but has refused to give any explanation. The chorus tells him there will never be anything more, not even a friendship. The lyrics are at gayfolkplanet.com/letras/andres.

Which album is it on?

«Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK», the second album of Mike Sain't Louis’s GAYFOLK trilogy.

Who made the song?

The lyrics are by Mike Sain't Louis, lyricist, composer and music producer from Madrid, written without AI. The music and vocals are made with artificial intelligence tools.