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Seriously, how awkward is the break-up convo? In the words of 90s one-hit-wonder Nada Surf, “even if you’ve gone together for only a short time, and haven’t been too serious, there’s still a feeling of rejection when someone says she prefers the company of others to your exclusive company.”
Sometimes, I think finding out that your mate has cheated is a blessing in disguise, because you can sidestep the entire “this isn’t working” discussion and end things in an explosive fight instead. Of course, for those of us who just had to choose nice, faithful boys, it can be hard to let the poor guy down. So, we make up excuses. Sometimes we even lie.
If you don’t think your man can handle the truth (”You’re obviously not going to get any better at foreplay,” “If I have to waste one more Sunday watching football with you and your frat boy buddies, I’m going to slit my own throat,” or, simply, “I can’t wait to bang Johnny from Journalism class, as soon as I get out of these shackles,”) you may want to/be forced to fabricate a reason for ending your exclusive relationship.
Junior year of college, I was in a dead end relationship. I had chased my boyfriend, and won, and within six months, I was bored. I tried so hard to instigate a blow-up, but it never worked. Instead of the ever-dramatic, uber-conclusive “Get out!”/ doorslam combo, my ex started crying and pacing around the halls of my dorm room, where a concerned RA took pity on him and returned him to my doorstep.
I considered a plethora of lies to catapult me back into the singles scene. “It’s not you, it’s me” is too generic an excuse, and when I tried to play that card, the guy started promising to change. I tried to use money as an excuse, arguing that I needed to pick up more shifts at work and spend less money on nights out. That one blew up in my face, since we worked together, and he thought that more work for me would also mean more time we could spend together; he also suggested saving money by staying in and watching movies. By this point, cuddling with him was making my skin crawl, but of course, I bit my tongue and sat through Quentin Tarantino’s Four Rooms. Since he was a pothead, I considered using narcotics as an excuse, but, as a partier myself, I would sound hypocritical, unless I vowed to cut booze out of my life.
How was I ever going to end this one?
Truth be told, it took an ambulance ride and a percocet prescription to get back into the singles scene. I kid you not.
My blessing-in-disguise came in the form of a dislocated knee. I had to take a leave of absence from my waitressing job, where my ex was a cook. Bonus: no awkward post-break-up interaction! I ignored the guy for a couple of days, and then told him that since I was incapacitated, I thought it would be too difficult to continue with the relationship. He was working full-time, after all, and I had to hobble around campus on crutches and crash, exhausted, at the end of the day.
I pretended I was more upset than I really was and said I was going to throw myself into my schoolwork for the rest of the semester. In reality, I was at the bar most nights, crutches and all. But at least I was single at the bar on crutches. It is sad that it took bodily harm to end my relationship, but sometimes there are no other options.
Am I alone on this one? Anyone else ever have some ridiculous story to get out of a relationship?
11 Comments
Haha yeah I always have a hard time breaking up with guys too, especially nice guys. But I just always use “It’s not you it’s me. I need to focus on school”. Then of course I would go to bars almost every night to celebrate being single again.
Ouch. You guys are not doing these dudes any favors by not telling them what is really wrong with them. If you did actually have the balls to say, “Listen, you suck at foreplay.” maybe his next girlfriend would be silently thanking whoever it was that whipped the boy into shape. I feel that it’s a girl’s duty to let a guy know where he went wrong so that he’s not doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. It’s not a comfortable thing, but at least you’re being honest, and maybe even doing a good deed.
Seriously, what’s wrong with saying “This isn’t working.”?
I agree with Molly.
It’s ridiculous to make some huge elaborate scheme to break up with some one, and it rarely works as well as planned.
Be a woman and say, “Sorry, I want to be single.” and leave it at that.
I am going with Molly and Sarah. Tell him what’s up. If that’s too hard, just tell him you’re not happy. If he wants to know specifics of what is making you unhappy, I think you owe it to him (and yourself) to be honest. It just seems incredibly passive aggressive to try to pick fights and make him break up with you.
I agree with Molly, Sarah, and Claire.
Honest communication is the key to a good relationship, and also the key out of a bad one (at least in my experience).
“The Five Love Languages” by Dr. Gary Chapman is a book that helped me learn to communicate with my partner better. And not just my partner, but everyone in my life. Excellent read, try it out.
i don’t enter ‘committed relationships’ unless i’m 100% head over heels. i hate causal dating…that doesn’t make you my BOYFRIEND. if you make things clear and be straight forward you can avoid the crutches…too bad for the percocet tho
lol.
First off I love reading the girls point of view on things, this is one of the first web-sites i read when i get to work.
Second coming from someone that just got dumped it is always better to hear the truth from someone then to have the person you dated lie to your face about why they are breaking up with you. This just happened to me, not only could I tell she was lieing to me when she broke it off, i found out a few weeks later that i was right, she did lie to me about her reason for breaking it off. This just made me mad and instead of ending as friends i F..ing hate her. If you tell someone that you want to focus on your school work and not a relationship, then you are only giving that person hope for the future. Just tell them, “dude i think you are a tool” and move on. If the guy can’t handle the turth about why you are leaving him then there is something wrong with him.
I dont think telling someone the truth is gonna make them hat you less. Being dumped sucks, no matter how it happens.
I think in any relationship it is important to tell the truth. This especially goes for a longer relationship. When I dumped my guy after 9 months I told him all the reasons why and the problems I had with him. I know it sucked for him to hear it and I felt like a bitch, but he needed to hear what he was doing wrong, otherwise he won’t change for the next girl and he will wonder what he did that made me dump him. If its another guy, say so. Just tell the truth. In my situation it was a combination of another guy and just losing that lovin’ feeling.
I once told my Jewish ex-boyfriend that I had to spend the summer with Jesus. It worked.
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