Breakup Girl isn’t exactly boycotting Valentine’s Day. No, she’s personcotting the holiday. Now, this has nothing to do with the fact that she’s alone this year. She just thinks: Why can’t couples treat every day like Valentine’s Day? Spread the love! To that end, here is some stuff from BreakupGirl.net to help celebrate this Monday — and the other 364 days:

• Breakup Girl eCards and customizable candy heart eCards.
• Breakup Girl IRL greeting cards.
• Breakup Girl Haiku Contest 2010 winner and entries, plus winners from  1998,  1999, 2000, 2006, and more.
  • UPDATE: Tweet your own haiku with the hashtag #vdayhaiku!
• Breakup Girl on when is the right time to say “I love you.”
• Breakup Girl V-day comic: “Valentine’s Saint”
• Breakup Girl V-day comic: “Aliens Abducted My Heart!”

In honor of the occasion, this week Breakup Girl is posting advice letters that highlight some of the essential themes in our nation’s presidential history, especially those embodied by those great leaders we honor today.

What are the principles governing dating? How have the “rules” been amended? Two letters from people seeking to form more perfect unions.

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’m in the process of ending a four-year relationship (ten years together overall). Due to severe heartache, I’m not looking for a more serious relationship. However, should there be an occasion where I agree to date someone from time to time, I’d like to know the “rules” of the game. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the dating scene. What are the rules these days? Are women supposed to let men make the first move/call/email? Are women supposed to play hard to get? Dating was much different when I was 18!

— Joy

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been divorced one year, and I’m totally confused about “dating in the 90s.” (I’m bald, average looks, late 40s, overweight.) I don’t know what is expected of men today. Do you have any advice on: meeting single women, asking them out, phone calls, dinner, movies, cards or flowers, kissing, sex, week-end trips, over-nighters, and looks?

— Lost in the Midwest

(more…)

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been married for two years. I have a child of six months. My husband works a job where he is gone long hours. He expects me to stay at home and clean all the time while he gallivants after work to a bar or to drink at a friend’s house. He thinks he doesn’t have to give up any money from his paycheck so that he can have a “slush fund” for himself. I am really upset with his attitude toward our family life. Should we talk about separation?

— M

Dear M,

Yep.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Dear Breakup Girl,

Thanks for telling it like it is! You have a lot of heart too.

My question is simple but not easy. My boyfriend and I have been dating for the past few months and we are already talking about moving so we can live in the same city. Unfortunately, he is in Chicago for the next two years because he just started his own business and I am living in L.A. right now.

We met in a museum in San Diego while he was on a business trip and I was out having a good time by myself after getting hurt by a dumbass ex-boyfriend. I have no money and he is offering to help me move sooner by helping me financially. I have always been a “pay my own way” kind of girl and want to work the money up myself over the next year.

However, it is excruciating (!) to consider being apart for another year. We are very in love already, he is 26 and I am 27 and we are thinking of marriage in the next few years. I intend to have my own place when I move to Chicago since I also believe in not living together until you are at least engaged (!). I love him to pieces and vice versa! We just want to be together, but I feel there is a principle here that I don’t want to break. He doesn’t see any problem with helping me move sooner. What do you think, Breakup Girl?

— Languishing in LA

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Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been going out with the same guy for about nine months….including the time we weren’t actually “going out,” just messing around/while I was “cheating” on my long-distance love, and so much has happened since I met him that I don’t know what to think or do or anything.

I care deeply about him, I love him, blah blah blah…but my parents hate him and want me to dump him and have for a while now. I can’t even talk to him on the phone without them turning it into a huge issue involving lectures and comparisons to various evil figures in history. My Dad insists he’s seen a pattern in many men, and that my guy is in the early stages of what is likely to become an abusive relationship.

My guy is mean to me sometimes, but we’ve been getting along better lately, even though I sometimes want to kill him….see, I’m lost! He’s so cute and I laughed my butt off at your comment, “I never want to see you again…unless you’re wearing those jeans,” because that is SO true about how I feel sometimes. I’ve broken up with him before, tried to other times, and he starts to cry and whine and make me feel awful. I hate that!

So, I guess my question is, should I break up with him, how can I do it without being mean, and what the hell am I supposed to do since I still love him? And his clothes…I don’t want to give them back! Okay, that’s all, I suppose…please help!

— Vera

(more…)

(But Sometimes I Can Leave Stuff Out)

Dear Breakup Girl,

I can’t figure out how to tell my boyfriend I want to break up without hurting his feelings. He has really bad breath, aggravates me about if I like him or not (which I did until he annoyed me with the question too much), and he wears makeup to cover acne (he thinks I can’t tell, I guess). What to do?

— Darlene

(more…)

Dear Breakup Girl,

My fiance and I recently split. I did the deed, as he became at first distant, then emotionally abusive, then completely absent in body and soul. I’ve returned my wedding dress, sold my wedding ring (I paid for it, I can sell it), and am in therapy. So what’s my problem? He still lives in the building I’ve inhabited for nearly 14 years. We rented separate studio apartments, and when we were together, one was our bedroom, one our living area. He has no plans to leave the building. We no longer speak. I don’t know whether to leave, stay and get over him, or send hate mail. What would you do?

— Deborah

(more…)

Seinfeld, Schmeinfeld. Now there’s a comedy documentary featuring/involving no fewer than five beloved alums of Breakup Girl LIVE, including the magnificently talented and dare we say dashing Rob P. (alter ego of Defender Stratocaster), who wrote and performed all Breakup Girl music ever on stage and screen.  (Oh, wait! Seinfeld, in fact, also performed at Breakup Girl LIVE. True story! And a really long one.) Anyway! Kristen Schaal!

Sadly, it’s not out until June, so we can’t say it’s the perfect Valentine’s Day escape into refreshingly funny alternative jokes about why you’re alone. But in the meantime, enjoy the new trailer, and watch this space for more!

Tagline: Alternative IS the mainstream. W00t! Tell that to your high school.

More info: TellYourFriendsMovie.com.

(Meanwhile: UR FUNNY!)

For sheer pith, of course, nothing can match Breakup Girl Haiku. But Morning Glory of Jezebel has given us a veritable Valentine of (swollen) purple prose, by pointing us — through this post — to the Tumblr Romance Club. There, as MoGlo puts it, “sometimes embarrassed but always funny consumers of erotic literature…write book reviews summarizing their paper conquests.” The sheer hilarity of these descriptions is BG-post-worthy enough (“Larkspur is a fair maiden on the Chrystal Isle in the Avalon Sea whose father is a dolphin shifter [he can take both forms]. This is pretty irrelevant to the plot, but they mention it, so I thought I would too.”); go now and read through the whole site. I’ll wait.

OK. See, what I adore about those Tumblr posts — and frankly, what makes for the best humor in general — is the (heaving, pounding) heart behind them. These writers are fans, fans who get what’s funny about these books and who get sincere unironic pleasure from them. They don’t kid because they snark. They kid because they love.

But anyway, so the original Jez post took to task a recent USA Today article that advised gentlemen (PAY ATTENTION!): “If you want to show the woman you love how much you care, take a page from a romance novel: look into her eyes, focus on what she says and really talk to her.” This gave MoGlo pause. “Wait a second. What? Act more like dudes in romance novels? Aren’t dudes in romance novels kind of… rapey?”

She’s referring, in part, to this Romance Club review:

BUT! When it comes time for the sexxing, Kit decides that he’s had enough of the wooing, and straight-up says that he will have her, even if it means raping her.

*RECORDSCRATCH*

Now, to be fair, Rue gets into the whole thing, but STILL. YOU CAN’T JUST DO THAT. It’s gross, and not only that, it’s totally unnecessary. Kresley Cole has a sh*tload of paranormal alpha heroes, and not ONCE is there even a hint of coercion. Our girl Zoe Archer has paranormal historical alpha heroes, and they do not rape. Because unlike Kit, they manage to be both hot AND not a total f*cking *sshole.

I was enjoying the book up until this point, since there’s a lot of really awesome historical dress and house pr0n, lots of fun Independent Woman action from the heroine, and lots of dragons. But at this point, I don’t care how much Rue likes this dude. He dropped an r-bomb. That is not sexy. Ever. No.”

First of all, I am totally borrowing “*RECORDSCRATCH*.” Second, amen. Third, an update. I’m pleased to note that Romance Club responded to the Jez post with this caveat: “…[T]he rapey review I posted this morning was a complete coincidence, and really, the genre has for the most part moved FAR beyond those kinds of plot devices. Free sh*tty books, while always hilarious, are not the best examples of the genre. I’ve reviewed several books I’ve absolutely loved, and none of them have any kind of forced sex whatsoever.” Good to know. No. really!

And just to circle back to the top, it turns out — if this study is any indication — that women are more attracted to pirates who really listen men whose feelings are unclear. NOT BECAUSE WE “LIKE” TO BE JERKED AROUND. But simply because when you’re not 100% sure if someone’s into you, you spend more time thinking about them, which in turn only heightens your interest. (Clearly this gargoyle did not get that memo.)