The Predicament of the Week from August 31, 1998…

Readers will recall that Brad’s original predicament vaulted into Of the Week status the moment he recounted that the girl who wanted to hang out, hold hands, snuggle — and just be friends – went so far as to bake him a cake. (Thus serving up, for Brad, immense confusion, and for Breakup Girl, a veritable dessert tray of metaphors).A week later, the frosting thickened, and our man B. got in trouble for being nice-guy-shoulder/pastry-chef — not, say, Boyfriend — for the women he loved. And now, Brad is back, setting a BG record for number of P of the W appearances…and prompting a sugar-free response.

Dear Breakup Girl,

I really, really hate to keep bothering you. By now, though, you have realized that my life is nothing more than a soap opera — and not one of the easy-to-understand ones, either. No, my life has to be one of the most complicated soap operas around.

This time, it has nothing to do with Lynore or all those other girls that I’ve said anything about before. In fact, I still haven’t seen Lynore (that guy moved away, but she’s still living with his family and being antisocial, waiting for him to return). As for the other girls I have previously mentioned, I’ve not made any special efforts to contact them. I called a couple of them once or twice, but the conversations were filled mostly with silence. After hanging up the phone, I decided that if they REALLY want to talk to me, then they can call me themselves. Otherwise, I’m no longer a part of their lives, which is just fine with me.

Unfortunately for me, I have a lot of girls in my past, and one of them has come back to haunt me lately. No, she’s not the ex-girlfriend whose photograph I altered so that she had a huge, huge grin and enormous eyes like those of a surprised cartoon character. This girl is one that I had a huge crush on for almost three years. In fact, I had myself convinced that I was in LOVE with her for over a year of that time.

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Another celebration on July 20, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I broke up with my girlfriend almost 3 months ago. The breakup had been building, I was tired of trying to fight through all the intimacy issues that she and I both had. I felt I couldn’t go it alone so I suggested counseling for us. That request was met with an emphatic “NO” from her. I felt like there was no other choice but to break up. Unlike other breakups I’ve had, this one was distinctly non-emotional — no tears, no calling back just to “hear your voice”, no heartfelt attempts at reconciliation. Just silence. And it’s been that way for three months. Two weeks ago it was her birthday. I decided to send a card, just to show that I didn’t hate her and that I do have some class. I didn’t get a response. All I wanted was a simple acknowledgement/thank you. So now I’m pissed. I still have some things of hers, and I’m wondering, should I send them? Or keep them and continue the road to recovery? I really want to be civil, but I’m angry, so I thought of including with the package a note letting her know how completely classless I think she is.

– Dane

Dear Dane,

Now do you see the point I was making to Wondering (about expecting a particular response, not about Ziggy)?

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The ex returns on June 22, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I don’t know where to start. I started seeing this guy last fall. We liked the same things, and had fun when we went out. Things were good. Everyone at work saw us as a couple … and we were!! Okay, I knew there was an EX-GIRLFRIEND — and that he was still in contact with her. (I just did not know that they were in C-O-N-T-A-C-T.) Anyway, he brought her to our work the other day — like it was nothing. Like we had not been seeing each other since last October. They were holding hands and looking like the normal couple. I was crushed! He basically said, “We are back together” — nothing else!

I know that he is in the wrong, but why do I feel like it was my fault? My fault for not seeing any kind of sign. My fault for believing this guy was for real. My fault for falling for such an idiot. I know that it is not, but it sure feels like it.

How do I begin to repair this? My self-esteem, my pride, my dignity? How do I recognize the signs of a jerk before something like this happens? I just wish people had some sort of tattoo or something on them, so you could see whom they were right for, and therefore stop wasting time with STUPID people!! I need a Loser 12-Step Program. I need to stop the madness.

– Whatever

BG’s response after the jump!

Double dealing on May 25, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

This is kinda a horror story/survivor story. Last summer I was crushing on a guy friend so I sucked up my gut and told him. He e-mailed (how tacky) me back and took several pages to get across the meaning that he wasn’t interested. I then invoked the curse of e-mail breakups and sent it to all my friends with the subject heading “And I thought I liked this jerk!” Everyone (including him and I) swore to secrecy as no one wanted it all over our junior high. Then last fall I’m walking down the hall when some guy asks if I asked (we’ll call him Bob) Bob out over the summer. I later asked Bob if he told anyone, he swore up and down that he didn’t, and even suggested that my friends knew as well. So I asked the guy who’d asked me about it at school who had told him. His reply: “Bob, but don’t tell him because he’ll be really mad at me.” I told Bob that he lied to me. He e-mailed me back (again!) to say “Call it what you like.” So I dropped him like a bad habit and moved my attentions to someone more mature (and more likely to say things in person). He’s more cute, too. I’m having a blast flirting and not having to worry about having a boyfriend. Hence proving again that the good guys always (well, usually) win.

– Free From Lame E-Mailers

Dear Free,

Hmmm. I really do like the ending, but I must say that Bob’s email did not necessarily warrant the Curse. I mean, it may not have been what you wanted to hear, but it wasn’t a breakup. Also, I’m not sure how your e-forwarding move is consistent with your professed dedication to “secrecy” — like, how you can bust Bob for blabbing when you totally did yourself. Call it what you like, but I’d say it’s a big NO on number 1, above. Sorry.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Remember when breaking up with someone over the phone was scandalous? (What, you couldn’t be bothered to jump in your horseless carriage and look your ex-to-be in the eye?) Now, Jezebel flags the inevitable: not just breakups, but full-on divorces, celebrity* and civilian**, announced — for the first time, to the divorce-ee — via Twitter. Mercifully concise, I guess, but #tacky! “Please,” writes Sadie Stein, “don’t let this become a thing.”

Hear, hear. Though actually, for legal purposes, tweeting’s too concise. Quoth a lawyer at Divorce Saloon: “To say that you ‘twittered’ your intentions to divorce your spouse to your followers on Twitter and that that is somehow enough ‘notice’ of a pending divorce action? That that would be tantamount to ‘personal service’ as required by statute? I don’t think the day will ever come.”

All of that said, while I’m all for every discussion about maintaining civility in the bluish glow of technology, I want to say this for the record: our little beeping and blooping machines have brought far more friends, lovers, and allies together than they have torn asunder. Tweet on!

—-

* “In the past few months, Kelsey Grammer, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy and Eva Longoria all replaced the time-tested PR statement with a tweet. Maybe they feel like their fans deserve to hear it from them.”

** “Apparently one guy did this…without consulting the wife he was divorcing, writing ‘My wife has left me, I wasn’t good enough, isn’t that a shame’ before she’d had a chance to tell her friends or family.”

From Mesopotamia to Melrose, from Judah Maccabee to Judge Judy, the drive for revenge has been a primary force in human/Nielsen history. It is safe to say — though Breakup Girl’s college professors might have demanded some elaboration — that since the dawn of civilization, all wars (with the possible exception of the Cola Wars) have been fought on the basis of “No one does that to me and gets away with it!” or, put another way, “Nyah nyah!”

So, when you write to Breakup Girl and ask, “Hammurabi dumped me via tablet! How can I get revenge?” you are indeed participating in the grand course of earth-moving, life-changing, history-making human events.

Then again, you’ll notice that said course has not always been so grand. War is, like, bad. (When Breakup Girl wears her favorite Corcoran paratrooper boots, she is beingironic. Also see Double Standards.) And revenge is often, like, tacky. So BG is not going to Pentagon Paper any instructions for Oreo-ing cars or endorse any urban legends of vengeance like that one with the photos of the bride and the best man. This is not the Malcolm Ex (”by any means necessary”) school of revenge. If you want to do something truly dirty, hire Norm MacDonald, who, evidently, is not bitter. ) And that is why, when you ask the how-to-get Revenge question, my likely response is,”Well, actually, you can’t. Nyah nyah.”

Wait, come back. I’m going to explain. And I promise that the reward — if not the revenge — will be sweet.

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The Predicament of the Week from April 20, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

You won’t believe this, but I was your Predicament of the Week about 2 weeks ago. Hopefully, I won’t be again, but I guess I’m well on my way. You may recall that I was the one with the long-distance boyfriend who took off on a holiday to Spain at the last minute, cancelling out on me OVER EMAIL (way tacky), and then apologizing for the “prevarication”. Anyway, even though I tried (I really did) to cut him loose like the necrotic tumerous tissue that he is, I just couldn’t help myself, and lo and behold, fell right back into that nasty spider’s web he calls his bed. I’ve just returned from yet another rendezvous at yet another European capital (and believe me I’m tired of all this jet-lag), where we spent an idyllic three days “catching up.”

Here’s the problem. I’m still married, although my husband and I have agreed to separate, especially since he found out about the entire affair and is really upset and broken-hearted since “HE” was his friend for over 10 years. Sh*t happens I know, and I feel really, really bad about it. I feel even worse that it was over The Prevaricator, since I know it was totally wrong and God’s going to punish me for doing such an awful thing to my husband. What’s done can’t be undone at this stage, and that’s another letter anyway.

Here’s my dilemma. Mr. Prevaricator insists that I’m his “best friend,” which I don’t doubt, since that’s how this whole thing started anyway. The problem is that he thinks that he and I can maintain a “casual” sexual relationship. He also says that he doesn’t want me to see other men, but that I shouldn’t think of him as a long term relationship, even though he doesn’t want to lose me as his best friend whenever it’s over (I guess he means the sex bit). He doesn’t know when that might be, but just knows it will have to end eventually. I think he’s finally lost it, since it doesn’t make any sense to be someone’s best friend and have a casual sexual affair with them. BG, isn’t that an oxymoron? I mean you can’t unknow somebody, then re-know them a few minutes later as your best friend.

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Would you break up over Facebook? Like, not by message, or by chat, or by going out to harvest Farmville artichokes and not coming back — but simply by changing your relationship status from “in a relationship” to “single”? Well, YOU wouldn’t, of course, but that guy/girl might: As Mashable.com reports, “a recent poll shows that one out of four newly dumped Facebook users found out about the breakup by seeing it publicly broadcast on Facebook. Ouch!” According to other survey data (1000 people, 70/30 men/women) from AreYouInterested:
– Around 21% of respondents said they would carry out a Facebook breakup by changing their status to single.
– Nearly 40% of respondents have updated their status on Facebook so the person they’re dating sees they have plans.
– And almost 35% of respondents have used their Facebook status to make someone think they have plans, even if they don’t.

The second two of the above sound mad manipulative, but — while I’m not applauding either — they’re not that different from what we did when had phones (get this) ONLY IN OUR HOMES and we could make people think we were NOT THERE by simply not answering. Haw! But the Facebook breakup? Of course this isn’t the first BG has heard of such a thing, and it is pretty much inevitable. (As one Mashable commenter noted, “Since a relationship isn’t official until it’s posted to Facebook, it must only be fair that a relationship isn’t officially over until it too is posted on Facebook.”) But PEOPLE. It’s pretty much the new-tech equivalent of breaking up by outgoing message. (”If this is Stan, it’s over. Everyone else, please wait for the tone.”) TACKY.

What do you think? Are electronic breakups of any kind ever acceptable? When might there be an ethical difference among Facebook breakups, text breakups, Second Life breakups? Think about it: Why, really, is an IM breakup, which seems despicable, that much worse than a phone breakup, say (which BG defends under certain circumstances, e.g. to prevent someone travelling across the country to see you only to have you say “See ya”)? Let us know in the comments.

A real classic from March 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I have recently been dealing with a difficult breakup. The good news is that it’s not mine…

My boyfriend’s ex is, well, a psycho hose beast. Before we were dating, they had broken up, but she was still causing him a lot of pain and suffering. He was obsessed with her for a while, and then he finally seemed to be letting go of her. A while after that, we started dating. Things were mostly OK. She would come up in conversation occasionally, but I never felt seriously threatened by her. I know that she is bipolar, and can be a very nasty person for no reason.

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You know that charming but not TOO charming, witty but not TOO witty, flirty but not TOO flirty back-and-forth you’ve struck up with that guy at CouldThisBeTheOne.com? You might actually be flirting back not with that guy himself, but with virtual-virtual him: a correspondent hired to take care of the pre-meeting nitty-gritty online half of online dating.

The Washington Post reports that more and more singles (roughly 80% men) are getting some very personal assistants — whether their own secretaries or via a new cottage industry of ghost writers — to manage their online dating correspondence for them: creating their profiles and handling all  correspondence up to but not including the actual, real-life date. Why? Mostly, they tell the Post, because they’re busy. Really busy. And yes, to be fair, the online part of online dating — while efficient — can indeed be time-consuming. Then again, so can explaining why it was not actually YOU that they’d been flirting with the whole time. So.

Part of me wants to say “Hey, we’re all ‘busy.’ Make time, hosers.” But part of me can summon a little more rachmones than that. I mean, they’re trying. They’re not giving up. They’re not getting all Up in the Air and letting “busy” be an excuse for not searching at all. Tacky, maybe, but there’s some hope there, too. And I can always get behind hope.

What do you think? Acceptable compromise, or Cyrano-no?