A few weeks ago I broke up with someone I'd been seeing since September (let's call them "Alex"). It was complicated, but in short: it had been quite intense and sexual and I had very strong romantic feelings for Alex; they didn't have those same feelings for me, so we agreed it wasn't fair on either of us to continue seeing each other when that mismatch existed and neither of us was going to be able to change. So while technically it was mutual, I was/am absolutely devastated.

Alex said during the breakup conversation that they would like to be friends if/when I'm ready. I'm having trouble untangling how I feel about that. I've never been friends with an ex before, but I have very few proper exes (my ex-husband who cut contact with me for various reasons, my teenage boyfriend, and my recent abuser, all of whom there are legitimate reasons not to be in contact with; other than them I've only ever had FWBs, one night stands etc).

Alex has lots of exes that they are friends with. I get the impression it's easy for them. I know that a lot of poly people are able to do that, and it makes me worry that I'm Bad At Poly (tm) that I don't have any exes-who-are-now-friends. (Side note, this breakup has me questioning whether I'm poly at all or can call myself that, especially as I'm now functionally single and not planning to date for a while, but that's a whole separate panic attack.)

I guess I'm trying to work out how I go from feeling romantically about Alex to seeing them as a friend. They are a really special person and I want to have them in my life — but then I'm also aware that I'm saying that right now because I'm in love with them and wish I could have them back. So there's sort of a paradox here: as long as I want to see them, I probably shouldn't, because it's not going to help me get over them.

Partly I'm bringing this here because when I've asked for advice from friends who aren't poly (or in spaces that aren't poly etc) the consensus has been "just block them and never see them again" and I don't know if that's actually useful. I guess I need to figure out if I can do this and if so, what are the questions I need to ask myself? How have other people handled this?