Changing his tuna on October 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been seeing a woman for quite some time (>4 years), but we’ve always had a long distance relationship. We’ve always been up and down, but now that she has followed me to a new city, things have been more down than up. I’ve given her a 2 month “adjustment period,” but I’m still confused. At times I think she’s the one, and at other times I want to check out the rest of the fish in the pool. To make things more confusing, my new job combined with being new-meat-in-town has made me a chick magnet (not trying to brag– this is new to me).

Other hang-ups include: We’ve decided that I’m the one who needs to commit, ’cause she feels completely commited. We’re both very busy professionals who value our own time and have little free time. I’ve always thought (and my friends agree) that she’s the type you marry. She was a rebound-chick that kept going and going and going… There were times that I nibbled at other fish when we were apart, and once I got baited. There’s a part of me that’s a mako and another that’s a white baby seal. Positives include that she may be the nicest girl I’ll ever meet, and she really is the type that I should marry. We also have some very good times together. I’d like some insight of yours.

— Don’t Stand So Close to Me

Dear Don’t Stand,

When it comes to the question of marriage, using terms like “type,” “should” and “positives include” has all the romance of Arthur Treacher. Hey, Mr. Meat, cut bait (gently), and go fish on Friday.

Love,
Breakup Girl

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn hears from Marty, who had a terrific first date, but hasn’t heard from the woman since.

As the date was ending, she told me she had a good time with me and that she’d like to go out with me again in a few nights. I went home on Cloud Nine thinking that she was every bit into me as I was into her. I’ve not heard from her since.

Is  the woman being coy, or is she just not that into him? Did Marty misread things, or should he pursue this further? Read his full account at Happen Magazine, along with Lynn’s thoughts, then add to the conversation in the comments below!

The Predicament of the Week from October 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl:

I’m a longtime reader of your page, and your advice has always helped me to figure out what’s going on in my own life. Many thanks. But now I am in a state of complete and total perplexity (which I gather is not that unusual for grad students). Here’s the situation (if it can be accurately depicted in text):

I’m in my mid-20s. I’ve been friends with K. for nearly two years, and we’ve become very close. She’s a few years older than me. A couple months after we first met she started dating this other guy, younger than I am, who for the last year has lived in another city. (Also a grad student, and yes, we are all in the same field. Note to ANSBGS[“Professor Rebound”] it seems it’s always in the same field.) Six months ago, they got engaged. But K. never really seemed comfortable with the idea of being engaged; in fact, the more I learned about her, the less she seemed like the marrying-and-settling-down type. (And he seems way too eager to settle down. K. herself has said this to me).

I’m very much attracted to her, and it seems mutual, but of course we never explicitly admitted it. Until a certain point in April, when we went out one night and ended up pretty much revealing our feelings for each other.

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Fudging the results on October 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Had a girlfriend of two years end it by saying she needed more of a “roller coaster” type of relationship. A woman dumped me for telling her she looked nice in blue. Another for bringing her bottled water while she worked outside on a hot day. Another woman who telephoned me all the time dumped me after I called her for the first time. Another gal looked me up after three years, flew 500 miles to visit me days later and told me I was the only man for her. After tearful kisses at the airport and a vow to return soon, she refused to talk to me ever again. Another lady constantly told me how much she disliked me and how unsuited we were as a couple, but resisted all my suggestions of ending the relationship. I finally had to insist. Tip of the iceberg stuff here.

For whatever reasons, many women are apparently self-hating nuts. If one man disrespects another man, animosity results. But if a man treats a woman poorly, she makes excuses for his behavior. Women seem to flee affection, honesty, stability and attempts at mutual respect.

No, I am not one of those too-nice guys, but neither am I willing to be a cold, selfish, drama-inducing jerk in order to have a relationship. Given my experiences over the past ten years and those of every man I know, I conclude this: Many women want to want someone, but they do not want (and will not tolerate) someone wanting them.

Please tell me I am wrong.

— Mike X.

Dear Mister X.,

Are you sure you want me to tell you you’re wrong?

Let me back up and explain what I mean.

(more…)

Coded messages from October 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I don’t know what to do. My girlfriend of a year and a half has just abruptly left me. I had not been able to contact her in about 4 days due to conflicts with my work and school. Finally I get a hold of her, and she just drops a bomb on me. “I want to see other people” and “I need to find myself;” furthermore, she is already dating someone else without even contacting me to initiate a breakup. This just came from nowhere! I broke down at work, my life was shattered. I begged her for explanations, and none were offered. I don’t know why she has done this.

We met when she was a junior and I was a senior in high school. I helped pull her out of a deep depression created two years prior by a previous boyfriend who date raped her. She had dated no one since, and she reclaimed her virginity for those two years. Yet she was always downcast, antisocial, and she wrote the darkest poetry, which she shared with me. One day in our Physics class, I sensed her pain and all I did was extend my hand. I’ve never understood why, but she responded by placing hers in mind. We later spent many nights talking and crying. I felt her every emotion, I could truly empathize. We entered a relationship, and soon we fell in love. I have always feared that as I’ve watched her heal, grow, recover, and mature, that she would one day be strong enough to move on. I feared that I was just some kind of tool to get her out of depression and to a point in her life that she no longer needed my help and companionship. This past Sunday has seemed to confirm my most haunting thought.

But everything seemed so perfect with her. We shared so much and bonded in so many ways. The only thing that ever strained our love was distance. I went away to a college about 2 hours away (which isn’t so far that things should just end). We survived a whole year of commuting and staying committed, and staying in love. She graduated and enrolled in a college near her home so she could keep her job and live at home. With me still going to school 2 hours away, it seemed understood that we would continue the long distance relationship.

But something has happened, and I haven’t a clue what that something might be. (more…)

A long one from October 19, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been reading your site for months now, and I love it. I’ve been feeling the urge to write in, but I haven’t actually had any questions to ask. You just remind me of a good friend of mine who moved to Seattle a few years ago. I figured I could send in a “Look! It can get better” letter for your collection.

I’m in my ninth term at college now, and the story goes way back to the beginning of college. I never had any relationships in high school. All the boys were so… young. So was I, but gee, you’d never have gotten me to admit it. So I get to college and poof! Suddenly there are all these smart, interesting people around. Amazingly, some of them are attractive, and some of them are scary, and some of them are both. But the only way to stop being scared of something is to just deal with it, right? Besides, all the scary people are the fun ones. These guys aren’t into drugs or guns or anything. They just know what they think and like and refuse to waffle about it. Plus, they’re fun. So they decide I’m an interesting person and we start hanging out. One of these guys is *incredible*, tall, funny, extroverted, incredibly handsome, dances, gives great hugs… oh yes, and he just came back from another coast to discover that his fiancee has been cheating on him, just to see what it’s like to be with other men. So this incredible guy decides that A: Relationships suck, and B: Sex is good. And starts seducing anything interesting (successfully; he even gets the girls to go after him). Ever see a man with a neon sign that says “BAD PLAN” in bright glowing red letters? There’s one. So the friend you remind me of spent a year telling me, “Bad plan! He’s notinterested! Run away!” and telling him, “She’s too young! She’s not interested! Run away!” And then the rumor mill decided we were going together, manufactured our dates, our proclivities, and our fights, much to our amusement. Can you say, OBSESSION? I knew you could.

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Sometimes it seems that all we want from a relationship is for our partners to be — or learn to be — as cute and nice as we are. To react in a consistent manner to our stimuli. To learn to speak our language. To help us out by getting snippy if we’re not paying enough attention, yet to say “me love you” from time to time, no matter what.

Okay, that’s not a relationship, that’s a Furby.

For those of you who don’t have children whose lives you saved by buying them one (i.e. they held their breath until you did), Furby — who looks like the three-way love child of an Ewok, a Gremlin, and Gleek — is the latest world domination strategy from Tiger Electronics. Last year, Tiger brought us the Giga Pet (like the Tamagotchi), the world’s most stressful toy. Now think Giga with fur … and a brain. As you interact with Furby, Furby will respond, learn tricks, wiggle its ears, open its eyes and raise its ears when excited, react to other Furbies (collect ’em all!), speak back and on its own, learn English as a Second Language (first: Furbish). For real. Unlike Giga, Furby does not die if ignored; instead, it whines for attention. So I’m not saying you won’t want to kill it.

But matter how you may feel about Furby, we are talking serious wizardry. (And to think Breakup Girl held her breath until she got Simon.) And yes, consumer-wise, Furby is the next Tickle Me Elmo — which, by contrast, now has all the appeal of the rotary phone (unless, of course, Furby turns out to be the next Felicity).

As for those of you who grew up rolling hoops and playing catch with hog bladders, don’t forget that there is also: Adult Furby. Last week, BG got an suspicious mass email hawking the artificial intelligence programs “Virtual Girlfriend” and “Virtual Boyfriend.” Not only will these cyberBetties and Baldwins remember your name, your birthday, and your likes and dislikes, they also “take off different clothes.” (Think Giga … without fur.) Even more realistic: (1) “each time you start the program…they have a different personality,” and (2) “you can say things that will upset them.” Keen!

So what does Furby have to do with love, Breakup Girl style? First of all, okay, okay, I want one. AS A TEACHING TOOL. The point: for worse and for better, we all Furbicize in our relationships. Meaning what? That to some degree, we grow and change and wiggle our ears in reponse to our partners’ stimuli. We develop learned behaviors, we acquire new languages (with words like “pooky.”).

But here’s the key difference: we don’t necessarily have a “different personality” each time. Often, the things and theories and habits that our little chips pick up from our first partner (such as “I suck at relationships”) carry over to the next, and the next — thus getting reinforced, if not all but hard-wired. We develop patterns that become so ingrained we don’t even see them as patterns, and even if we do, the idea of dismantling them seems tantamount to dismantling our very selves.

A version of this column was originally posted October 19, 1998.

The days of our lives, including October 12, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

This past year my life could have been a soap opera of the popular kind. It has included all of the standard characters; the bitch (me), the poor, explioted b/f (my ex), the hunky-but-mean crush (my HUGE mistake). Well, that’s the characters, now to the plot.

Me and my bf (let’s call him John) had been together for 1.5 years with everything that includes; almost breaking up, getting back together, going on vacation together, visiting his family who lives more than 1000 km from here, you know, all the pair-things. But then one day in all my stupidity and ignorance, I cheated on my bf. To my defence I will only say that this other hunky-but-showed-out-to-be-unbelievably-selfish guy is one who I had had a crush on a while before my bf and I got together, and my feelings for this guy weren’t totally non-existing (but mind you, I was NOT in love with him, it was just a stupid mistake; actually the biggest mistake of my life so far…). I would also like to stress that it was a no-sex thing, just kissing-and-clothes-on. I am not trying to excuse what I did, I am not proud of it. But as John is quite conservative on this, the whole thing ended with us breaking up, and me being THE BITCH.

(more…)

Pushing things on October 12, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

There’s this guy I dated — saw him on a Monday — it goes well and I really like him so we date again the following day, he asks me to call him so we gab on the phone Wednesday and Thursday for like forever, we see each other again on a Friday and he gets to spend the night at my house. During this time I am beginning to go crazy over him. Then suddenly on Saturday morning, he decides to go, telling me “I’ll call you.” The call doesn’t come — on Saturday nor on Sunday. I decide to call Sunday and invite him to dinner and 30 minutes prior to the appointed time that Sunday evening he cancels, saying he has to take his mom to some sick friend’s house — and again there’s the “I’ll call you” at the end. I give him a call on Monday, talk a bit, no mention made about the dinner I COOKED and at the end, he says it again — “I’ll call you.” What do you think this “I’ll call you” thing means? Is that doublespeak for “go away, get out of my face, I don’t want to see you again?” Help, because I’m finding myself falling for this guy (I dare NOT call it love; I think it’s infatuation, but when I get this … I get hit BADLY). More power to ya.

— JT

Dear JT,

At the risk of legalistic hair-splitting: he said he’d call, but he didn’t say when. And you didn’t give him a chance.He leaves Saturday, and what, you expect him to call from his car phone while he’s still in the driveway? Come on. This whole affair has gone way faster than the speed of sound — the sound of a ringing phone, that is. You may have met-him-on-a-Monday-and-your-heart-stood-still, but y’all moved forward pretty quickly — contact every day, then da doo ron ron on Friday? Yee! Now look, Breakup Girl does hear about all sorts of relationships that start out like, “He came by to tune my piano … and he never left.” Fine. But those miracles tend to be mutual. You, on the other hand — you said it yourself — get infatuated.

And listen up: as intoxicating as infatuation may be, you know what else is really fun? The divine agony of … waiting. Of letting things build up. Of wanting wanting wanting what you can’t have … until next week. Of finally hearing the ringing phone sing, “Someone’s thinking of you!” I am not suggesting that you should play coy/hard-to-get as, like, a tactic. I’m suggesting that taking it slower is more delicious and satisfying for you, that it’s a way of letting yourself fall good and hard … for someone who’s gonna be there to catch you. Even when he’s got a bottle of wine and a baguette — to go with your yummy dinner — in his other hand.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Not quite broken up on October 12, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Please help me! I am 22 years old and my boyfriend, 23, recently broke up with me. We have a long story which is complicated to get into, but we have gone out for about 2 1/2 years. We broke up about 2 months ago, but it didn’t seem to be completely ended then. We saw each other every weekend and still do. When we are together he acts like we are going out again. We sleep together and even make love. He has even asked me to go back out again but I try and be strong because I am not sure if it is what he really wants. I truly want him to be happy, but I want him back also. When he first broke up with me I was heartbroken and I let him know this… I made him tell me why and I told him I didn’t want to break up. He told me at that time that he wasn’t sure I was the one and that he needed time to sort out his life. We are both each others first loves and I feel as if I pressured him too much and asked for affection constantly. I have to admit that throughout our relationship I may have pushed him a lot because I was afraid of losing him. It seems like when he first broke up with me I pestered him because I wanted him back, so he backed off. He did not call or anything. Eventually I tried to let him go and I have not called him in over two weeks. Now he calls me every day and even gave me a gift. We spend the weekends together sometimes and act as if we are going out. If I dare bring up that fact he asks me why I have to define everything. He told me recently that he needed to break up with me because he feels as if we have done everything together and that the only thing left is marriage, which, in his current situation, he is not ready for. By current situation I mean we are both recently out of college and starting new jobs. He has many debts such as school loans and etc. to pay off. His thoughts on marriage is that he would like to be stable before he gets married. He even told a friend of ours that if we were both 28 and stable he would marry me in a minute. I want a life with this man. I can wait for him, but it seems like I am doing it the wrong way. Should I let things stay the way they are, remain friends with him, or just let him go completely and have no contact? I guess I want to know if we still have a chance. I feel as if I am losing my Mr. Right. We are great when we are together. We fight a lot but are so good at making up. We are best friends and tell each other everything. He has never hurt me or cheated on me. He loves my family and they love him, and the same goes for his family and me. I am close to desperate to know whether my relationship has a chance.

— Alice

Dear Alice,

Bad news, he’s truly not ready. Good news, he may be someday. From the way you describe it, at least, it sounds like he genuinely loves you and, simultaneously, genuinely can’t deal with making the maximum commitment right now. That’s why as far as hopes go, yours may not be false. Still — very important — I think the way to play this one is not to think about What’s Most Likely to Get Him to Come Around, but rather, What’s Most Likely To Not Make Me Insane. You don’t have to cut off all contact, but neither should you just play house. That way, both of your heads will be clearer in the short run. Which bodes well for the long run.

Love,
Breakup Girl