The song was met positively by music critics and debuted atop the US Billboard Hot 100, marking Grande's ninth number-one single and her second from Eternal Sunshine after "Yes, And?".

It earned Grande her fourth number-one single on the Billboard Global 200 chart and reached number one in 12 countries in places like Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

Elsewhere, the song peaked within the top ten in 22 other countries, including Australia, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

An accompanying music video for "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)", directed by Christian Breslauer, was released simultaneously with the single.

The concept for the video was inspired by the plot of the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and features Grande undergoing a memory erasure procedure to forget her ex-boyfriend, who is portrayed by American actor Evan Peters.

[2] Also in February, the singer announced that there would be no more pre-release singles from Eternal Sunshine, as she wanted her fans to "experience it in full this time".

[3] On March 1, Grande confirmed "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" was the second single from the album and posted a teaser for its music video on social media.

[4] In the clip, Grande sits in a waiting room and fills out a consent form reading, "You have given extensive thought behind your decision and give 'Brighter Days Inc.' the exclusive permission to remove this person completely from your memory."

[5] Republic Records released Eternal Sunshine on March 8, 2024; "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" is the tenth track on the album.

[7] Three alternative versions of "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" were released on March 13, exclusively for download: a cappella, instrumental, and strings.

[12] On September 8, 2024, to celebrate the six-month anniversary of the release of Eternal Sunshine, Grande surprise-released a live acoustic version of the song, recorded at Jungle City Studios.

Laura Snapes of The Guardian wrote that the song evokes "Call Your Girlfriend" by Robyn's "juddering synths and chiptune flourishes" with a final "jarringly retro" effect.

[23] Kyle Denis of Billboard described the song as "a dancefloor-quaking amalgam of dizzying strings and aggressive synths" wherein Grande sings about "the fuzzying of the boundaries between friendship, romance and the aching gray in between", pointing out that "it is missing a climax to really achieve the catharsis that its urgent instrumental gestures toward".

[27] In the United States, "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the chart issue dated March 23, 2024.

It also debuted at number four on the Billboard Digital Songs chart with 9,000 units sold, and earned 4.6 million radio airplay audience impressions in its opening week.

[32] It premiered via Grande's Vevo channel on YouTube at 10:00 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on March 8, 2024, ten hours after the song's and album's release.

[33] The video opens with Grande portraying a character named Peaches, seen sitting in a waiting room holding a consent form reading: "You have given extensive thought behind your decision and give 'Brighter Days Inc.' the exclusive permission to remove this person completely from your memory".

How the teddy bear came to be and its link to Peaches's relationship with her ex-boyfriend is then shown as the wall of the operation room divides into two and shows them both entering an arcade.

She performed "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" live for the first time, alongside "Imperfect for You", also from Eternal Sunshine.