Put on some hot cocoa and curl up with this tale of Christmases Past and Christmases yet-to-be from December 14, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here’s my wish list, with some background and explanation. It all started last Christmas actually… I’m in college, my boyfriend graduated from the same school about a year and a half ago. I went home for Christmas (I’m from about 2000 miles away, so it’s a relative-distance relationship…40 minutes when I’m in school, a couple thousand miles when I’m not). At this time we’d been dating for almost eight months. Our relationship had been going mostly wonderfully, fairy-tale and all. It had been my longest relationship EVER, as before the longest relationship I’d been in had been for about two weeks. When we met, we became close friends quickly. He was smarting from his breakup with a particular psycho-hose-beast.

She was his first ever/serious relationship. Over the summer (while I was home) she called him, yelled at him for a while that he’d gotten on with his life (meaning she was jealous of me) and that was the last I’d thought I’d ever hear about it.

Well, it was the holiday season, so being the sweet sensitive person he is, he decided to send PHB a Christmas card in an attempt to “make peace.” Personally, I would have never attempted communication with someone who treated me that badly. I would have lost their address, everything. So, there I was at home, trying to deal with my family and distant friends (also depressing holiday traditons) and one morning I got a phone call. I had been out all night the night before, so I was still asleep when my boyfriend called. My mom woke me up to tell me that he was on the phone.

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Yule regret staying with him on December 21, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend seems to get mad when I talk to other guys, but when I try to talk to him he kinda ignores me for his other friends and the only time he talks to me is when no one else is around. He can never go anywhere with me, but I am always the one to ask. I just wanna be free from him. Do you think I should break up with him? I was gonna dump him, but thought I would wait until after Christmas because otherwise both of our holidays will be bad. I don’t even want a present from him because then I’ll feel bad. What should I do? I’m so confused! Please help!

– Nicole

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When will he pop the question? Many straight women in long-term committed relationships begin to ask herself — and all of her friends — this question. (Every straight woman, if you believe the hype.) When will he do it? Why hasn’t he yet? What can I do do make this happen? Where should I look in his sock drawer? Um when do I need to stop obsessing?

In Jag Carrao’s HuffPo blog “How To Be Engaged By Christmas,” we read some supposedly fail-proof ways to “get your man to pop the question” — and soon. I could relate to some of it, but other parts so didn’t feel right. It’s totally understandable to want to feel like your relationship is moving forward, it seems pretty manipulative to tweak your normal behavioral patterns to attain a sparkly rock on your left hand. Reading this blog made me wonder: have we really become selfish and retro enough to take this advice, or at least take it seriously?

Look, I have walked away from my fair share of stand-still situations. If you feel you are a hamster on a wheel looking out into the sunset but never quite reaching anything but your own cage, I totally agree that it’s time to bail. However, to say that you should have a ring after nine months of dating seems a little out-of-nowhere to me.

That, and the specific suggestions seem off, too. Like limiting the time you spend with each other, don’t accept his “game playing” (by which this means if he has had a terrible past relationships and has had the bejesus scared out of him … apparently this is by definition a “game”), and pretty much disregard his feelings altogether. By restricting your time together, limiting your feelings and going against your “gut instinct” you are in essence not presenting the real “you” — and isn’t that what relationships are all about?

What ever happened to just being happy? Society has given women this notion that they must get married within a set amount of time or else they are deemed as failures. Nine months, nine days, or nine years … who cares? Setting an oven timer doesn’t make you ready. If you’re going to be able to spend your lives together, you’re going to be able to talk about this. That’s what makes you ready. So when will he ask? Or when will you? If you want to get married in the first place? When the time is right. Hope that for Christmas, you get some better advice.

A naughty boy from January 5, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend and I had our six-month anniversary on Christmas and of course I got him a present, but he never got me one. He says he loves me and that he just has to go over and pick up the present, but it’s been a while since Christmas. He’s on house arrest right now so I understand that he can’t go out, but actually, he’s been out many times already. He says he loves me, but he could have at least gotten me a little something, right? What does that tell me about him?

– Cristina

Dear Cristina,

Among the excuses that Breakup Girl has heard for being late with a gift, being under house arrest is actually one of the most convincing. Then again, the 90s have brought us many ways to shop without ever leaving home: catalogs, QVC, online stores. Also, the invention of food has long allowed boyfriends under house arrest to prepare dinner in their own homes, however primitive, for their girlfriends. So I’m not saying this guy owes you some material item of some prescribed value. But he does owe you some gesture that indicates your value to him. In that sense, I’d say you need to find someone with a shopping list longer than his criminal record.

Love,
Breakup Girl

The presents of boyfriends past visit December 29, 1997…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend and I just broke up after a 3-year relationship. It was a mutual breakup because we just weren’t getting along like we used to. But we still have a tremendous amount of love for each other. This makes it especially difficult. He just gave me a brand new stereo for Christmas, after we broke up! He said he’s been wanting to get this for me for a while. But why would he do this after we broke up? We’re still “friends,” but I don’t want constant reminders of him around me. I’m still grieving the end of our relationship and need time to heal. But he keeps calling and now this huge present?!? Can you make sense of this?

– Amy

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A photo opportunity on December 29, 1997…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I really like this guy and I’ve asked him out before but he never answered. Other people have told him that he should go out with me but he never gave them an answer either. I am the only one of his friends who received a large picture of him for Christmas; everyone else got wallet-size. I feel all special — but I don’t really know how he feels and I don’t want to ask him out again because I don’t want to lose him as a friend. Please help!

– Nichole

Dear Nichole,

Breakup Girl is unfamiliar with — but intrigued by — this practice of giving photos of yourself as Christmas presents to people who are not your grandparents. I’ll trust you when you say that it’s possible to measure someone’s feelings for you in terms of surface area. But since he has not leapt at several obvious chances to go out with you, Breakup Girl wonders, gently, if the thousand or so words that that picture is speaking might go something like, “I know you like me but I really just think of you as a friend. I feel bad about that — and I do think you’re special — so I want to make it up to you and show you that by giving you a larger photo than everyone else.” See? So let him know you appreciate the photograph (don’t tell him it’s under your pillow), and focus on the friendship. If something more is meant to develop, it will.

Love,
Breakup Girl

More fruitcake from December 29, 1997…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I thought my girlfriend broke up with me last week. She said, “I’m not comfortable with the term ‘boyfriend and girlfriend.’” I was really bummed, it being right before Christmas and all. Then when I called her to cancel plans for a party arranged a long time ago, she said she still wanted to date…What is going on?

– John

Dear John,

What is going on is that girlfriend wants to have her fruitcake and eat it too. Apparently, the term she’s really not comfortable with is “alone.” She may not want to be committed to you, but she also doesn’t want to go stag to that party. Now, some couples (or semi-couples) do manage to have it both ways, but only when a “casual” thing is officially okay with both of them. If that doesn’t work for you, tell her you’re not comfortable with the term “just dating.” Either way, get to the bottom of it, communicate, straighten things out. As you now know, the most uncomfortable terms are “uncertain.”

Love,
Breakup Girl

Let’s wrap on December 29, 1997…

Dear Breakup Girl,

What should I get my boyfriend for Christmas? We have been only going out for a month but we are serious.

– Michelle

Dear Michelle,

Well, missy, if you’ve been going out for only a month, then Breakup Girl knows this guy about as well as you do. But your letter does highlight a common problem: meeting someone just before a major gift-giving holiday. There’s also the less common (but perhaps more serious) problem of meeting someone just before a non-gift-giving holiday, and giving him something anyway — planting a tree in his honor on Arbor Day, for example.

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Virgin/merry from December 29, 1997…

Dear Breakup Girl,

This Christmas I’ve been naughty AND nice. Two problems plague this romantic heart. I’ve been “nice” and supportive of an internet friend for two years now, the shoulder and the punching bag through thick and thin and foggy. We’ve met, declared long distance love on the eve and morn of our virginity, and been hunky-dory up till the twelve days before Christmas. But now the stuffing in my stocking is in another the-world-hates-me spin. My patience wears thin.

Now your favorite, the “naughty.” She’s 17, I’m 26 [you sigh here]. Girlfriends have been very rare on the granted end of my wish list (see: 26, virgin until recently) and the charm of this first girl only just began to wear thin/thick. Until now it’s been two kindred souls gulfed only by age and distance. I know my patience will be rewarded if I can only get back into the spirit of past, present and future, but it’s so difficult sometimes loving someone through monosyllables and gloomy glums. Time and experience will solve our yule-tide blues, but what can this elf do in-between seasons?

– Mikey Pooh in Missouri

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