In the game of ultimate frisbee, people who stay to the middle of the field and lead the charge instead of breaking long for the throw are Handlers. As they do so, handlers might yell “Cut or clear!” — which basically means “get open for a pass, or get out of the way!” In ultimate, this admonition is generally considered obvious and annoying. In life, however, we are often entitled to yell, “get open to commitment, or clear your things out of my drawer!”

But when? What’s the middle ground between blind faith and brute force? How can you tell the difference between Not Ready Yet and Will Never Be? Will the act of pushing drive someone away?

Tough calls, all. And they’re pretty much case by case. But I will tell you this … though you’re not going to want to hear it. An ultimatum — if you choose to use one — is not about getting someone to do something. It is not bouncing the ball into the other person’s court — that is, out of your hands. It is not a tactic, not a strategy, not a plan. It is not setting a pick. An ultimatum is a statement of your purpose. It is, ultimately, your responsibility. Because, ultimately, your partner is going to do whatever s/he is going to do. YOU are the one who has to come through.

Remember what I told Cameo (who couldn’t get her boyfriend of 8 years to “commit” — nor her biological clock of 28 years to stop ticking)?

I told her to walk.

I told her, that is, to walk this way: “I don’t mean that you should say, ‘I’m walking out if you don’t commit! Look at me! Here I go! Yoo-hoo! I’m walking! I am so walking … sort of near that door! Waaaaalking! Watch me go…!’ I also don’t mean walk out the door, and then walk by his house ten minutes later to see if he’s committed ‘yet.’ I mean: walk.

What, does Breakup Girl believe that a relationship don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that ring? No. Does she want to promote the stereotype that a girl’s best friend is all a woman wants, needs, and hopes for? No. [First of all, I’d give the same advice to a guy. Second of all: ] I’m just going with what you’re telling me: that marriage and babies are what you want, and that they may not, alas, be available in your current (eight-year!) relationship. You can’t ‘get him to commit;’ go get what you want with someone who wants the same thing. And the thing is — I hesitate to say this, because I am in NO way advocating game-playing — but, well, when you walk, this guy just might realize that he is that someone.” In which case, I should add, you may walk – carefully — back.

This is just one example. I am not advocating some sort of mass walkout. I am just saying that — again — if commitment is what you want, you’ve got to demonstrate it, too…whereever it may leave you.

But in determining whether an ultimatum is necessary in the first place, you’ve got to break deep for a view of the whole field. In this month’s issue of New Woman, Dalma Heyn writes about her friend Jen, whose boyfriend kept talking about how scary closeness was. “Yet there he was at [Jen’s] place, doing the dishes, fixing the washing machine, loving [her] in the most obvious way. Instead of pointing out the discrepancy, Jen let him talk. [She’d] say, ‘Mmm, closeness is scary.’ … [She] didn’t jump on him or insist that he commit. [She knew] he just had these residual fears to work through. While tiling the kitchen floor, he announced casually that these tiles were so durable they’d last as long as their marriage did.” They were engaged before the grout dried. Huh.

See, in a sense, waiting can be as active as walking. If you actually think s/he will come around eventually, back off. If you really aren’t sure, get on his/her back. As long as you’re sure that you are prepared to make the ultimate commitment.

This column was originally published December 7, 1998.

Looking for some fun on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’m a 37-year-old graduate student who’s having the usual dating difficulties common among those of us who are old and grey and cankered. I know (since you mentioned it) that there’s a book entitled “How to Get Married Over 35” and I’ve had a look at that; the problem is that I don’t want to get married, I just want a date or three, and so the advice is just a trifle off the mark (I mean, I don’t want to meet a nice church going man who wants a mother for his three sons, as much as this would doubtless be another woman’s dream).

Therefore, I’m wondering if you (equipped as you are with superhearing, supersight and super-connection-to-this-particular-aspect-of-the-Publishing-world) happen to know of any other titles, websites, mailing-lists, what have you, that are focused on this particular segment of the dateless population (old farts).

There are tons of on-line personals ads, of course — but I’m not interested in sending erotic e-mail to a phantom on the other side of the globe. My fantasy life works just fine all by itself (after all, as you pointed out, fantasies are just that, and that’s why they’re fun). I’m looking for more concrete suggestions.

Do you have any? Suggestions, that is…

— Jo

BG’s answer after the jump!

A second chance on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

First off, I love this place I come back every single week to check it out…you do a fantastic job with advice..and this would be your cue to come in :).

About two years ago, this guy, we’ll call him Adam, and I were together. We were together for about 9 months. We had our ups and downs like any other couple but we managed to get through them and survive as a couple. I guess that can’t last forever though.

To make a long story short, he cheated on me. It was a very messy break up, name calling, bad mouthing, etc, on both our parts (I know, I know, sounds like something little kids do but..well, I did say it was messy). As we went along our ways, things cooled down. About 3 months after we had broken up, his friend, whom we’ll call Jay, called me up because Adam was crying because he wanted to talk to me. He got on the phone and told me how much he loved me still and how he messed up terribly and he was sorry..he wanted to get back together. At this point, I still had feelings for him and I really had to fight myself not to just jump back into a relationship with him. I knew that the feelings were still to raw in my mind and heart so I told him it would be best for us both if we took more time apart to really thing about things.

Well, it’s been nearly two years..we still talk and are good friends..lately I’ve been feeling as though I’d like to try things out again. We’ve talked about why we broke up freely (something we could never really do while we were together with problems we had) which leads me to believe that we’ve both matured while we’ve been apart. That time apart has taught me how to be mature about a break up (I’ll never go back to the name calling and bad mouthing after a break up again; it caused too many hurt feelings), how to be happy by myself (I’ve had time to practice) and realize that I don’t NEED him now, as I often felt then, but would LIKE to have him back in my life on another level. He’s been hinting that he would also like to try things out again and has told me that he’d never cheat again because of the mess it caused. My question is, should I give things a shot? Is it true, once a cheater, always a cheater? The trust has been repaired so I was thinking that it’d be possible for us to give things another go.

— Time after Time

Dear Time,

You’ve done all the right things; you’ve said all the right things — to each other and to me. If I had a Get Back Together List (hmmm…), you’d be at the top this week.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Just wondering on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

What does it generally mean when you’re constantly comparing your current boyfriend (unfavorably) with someone else, whether it be an ex-boyfriend or just a really good guy friend?

— Kiku

Dear Kiku,

That you want Breakup Girl to give you permission to break up with him?

Love,
Breakup Girl

Sucking it up on November 20, 1998...

Dear Breakup Girl,

My ex-girlfriend is getting married. This upset me, BG. When I heard it, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Seriously.

Since we broke up about 1 1/2 years ago, I’ve been in touch with my ex in a very lite sense of the word. We had a little post-breakup flirtation that nearly destroyed me since I fell for her again and she didn’t fall for me. She never really gave a reason for our breaking up other than “a lack of a gut feeling…” which drove me crazy. So for the last year or so when we’ve chatted it’s been about my family and her job and things like that, not about whether we were dating or not. So the first I hear of this new guy in her life is that she’s marrying him.

She’s been seeing this guy 7 months and all I know about him is that his name and his age. She’s my age (34) and she’s marrying someone twenty years her senior. I use the word Senior intentionally. She’s moving in with the guy in a house they bought together (this was the girl who wouldn’t let me keep underwear at her place after a 2 1/2 year relationship–who says it’s just men who can’t commit)? It’s a lot to process and I’m not sure what to say other than I’m happy for her (which I’m not) and I wish them the best (which I don’t). Someday I’m sure I’ll grow into a mature state of acceptance but right now I feel like Dustin Hoffman at the end of the Graduate. Except I don’t have a convertible or attractive older women hitting on me.

What does one do in this situation? Help me, Breakup Girl Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

–Bummed Out Boy

BG’s solution after the jump!

Getting messy on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I dated a guy for a year. It began as an almost exaggeratedly casual “dating” situation, both of us trying to be too cool for words, but dammit, we got along REALLY well. So, stuff happened-couple stuff like going on vacation together, and talking twice a day (we are on opposite coasts), and showing up together at functions and what have you. This guy is cute and sexy and smart and a wee bit spoiled, and my read on him was always that he was very attached to me and maybe even a bit in love, but that he wasn’t gonna fess that up to ME anytime soon. And frankly, I’m pretty much the same way, a self-protective goon. So after about eight months of this deepening but unaddressed relationship (led on by him , thankyouverymuch), I find out he’s had a one-nighter with some Norwegian au pair. I inform him that I know very well that we don’t have a formalized commitment, so he was well within his rights to do that, but I don’t like it, and so sayonara. Well, natch, he freaks, informs me he’s crazy about me, says it’s the only time it happened (substantiated by my independent counsel investigation of various mutual friends), says he wants a commitment, and we are off to the races. It gets a tad more serious (i.e. I meet the family) and then two months later he drops the bomb. His ex (six year relationship, he failed to pull the trigger, she bailed and married someone else and now there are photos of her in all drawers of his house) is coming unglued from her marriage and has been calling a lot and he’s “confused” and doesn’t want to break up but wants to be “truthful” about his “mixed emotions” and intends to go hang out with the ex. So being a strong 90s girl I dump him and tell him to call me when he gets his sh*t together. It hurts like hell.

Six days later I meet the sweetest guy on the planet. This guy cooks dinner for me, gives foot massages and washes my car when I go out of town. I cannot imagine this guy playing head games or being deceitful. He’s brilliant and the sex is amazing and I start to learn all kinds of nifty stuff I can expect in a relationship, like respect, communication, expression of tender feelings.

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Avoiding a crash on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I can’t seem to get my niece away from a bad relationship with her boyfriend. I remember hearing about what I think was some kind of hormone that bonds teenagers/people together. It sounds like the word “oxey- tonin, or oxey-tosen.” Can you help me? I’ve got to help my niece get away from her boyfriend. She recently had a car accident chasing him. She can’t seem to get over him. I am 45, my neice is 16. It’s so hard for her to take any advice from me. Please respond. I really need an answer. Have you heard of a “hormone” called oxytonin? Thank you!

— Mary

Dear Mary,

OXYTOCIN. It’s a hormone that females (human and animal) release during lovemaking and, Oedipally enough, also during breast-feeding and childbirth. In fact, scientists believe that oxytocin is one of the chemical catalysts for mother-child bonding. So it’s also as if, when you have sex, you imprint on the lucky guy as if he were your bitty baby bird. Helps explain why women — even post-trivial-one-night-stand — may feel this bizarre, misplaced impulse to feed it, help it fly, and to want it to come to depend on them for food and warmth.

I could tell you way more stuff about oxytocin, but I don’t think we’d be going down the right neural pathway. What you need is a catalyst for aunt-niece bonding. This website (though the focus may be a bit more 911 than is necessary here) might help you figure out what kind of “advice” will get through to her (basically, none), and instead, what questions you might ask just to get her talking — and thinking — instead of driving. That is what’s going to — weighed down though she is by teenage hormones — help her fly.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Detoxing on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Great site– First time reader, first time writer…I broke up with my boyfriend between 3 and 6 times — cannot be certain as I was sometimes drunk. Anyway, each time he did the whole flowers, love notes– even love FAXES (during one of the breakups I was in Paris).

Anyway in August he met someone else and all of a sudden he was like “I want to see other people.”

At the time I lived upstairs from him in the same building so I and had to see him/his apartment every day. It was too Melrose so I moved across town but couldn’t get him out of my mind. Mostly I hated him but recently I began to think I loved him deep down. I even had 3 dreams about him. I had refused to talk to him until last weekend– I made up an excuse to see him– I was not impressed with what I saw and the meeting went NOT WELL. Last night he called on my cell phone asking why I was so mean to him Sunday and saying stuff like HE misses me and you don’t appreciate what you have till its gone, blah, blah,blah….. I told him I hate him and not to ever call me again — but I can’t stop thinking about him…

I know I badly need to get a life, but apart from that — and therapy, which I plan to start this week — can you give me any advice on how to feel human again? I am so tempted to call him– he still has the Sneaker Pimps import CD we used to have sex to– I could demand it back but what’s the point if I know he is just going to torture me about having this other guy in his life….. What should I do?

— Scott

BG’s answer after the jump!

Going nowhere on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl

I have a problem. It’s an embarrassing problem, and I don’t know if there’s much I can do about it.

You see, I am unattractive, physically. Not for lack of trying, mind you. I exercise, I have good hygiene, I try to wear what flatters me, I even went so far as to get my legs waxed and my hair done. But the fact of the matter is that I’ve got some acne scars from my youth, I’ve got crooked teeth, and I’ve got the obligatory family curse of a huge ass. And these things aren’t the kind of traits that I can change without some plastic surgery, and when you work as an office temp, well, there just isn’t a way I can afford that sort of thing.

It’s really hard when you get constantly passed over when you’re out with your friends, or when you find out that one of them invites you out so that she can look better. It’s hard to know that inside, you’re as beautiful as any supermodel, and about a million times as smart, but no man will come near you because you are (in words I over heard once, coming from a grown man no less) “a big bow-wow.”

I’m tired of being lonely, and I was wondering what advice you had for a girl like me.

— Miss “Great Personality”

BG’s answer after the jump!

The Predicament of the Week from November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been in the same relationship for 3 1/2 years. Lived with him for 3 years, owned our house jointly for 1 1/2 years. About a year ago, I started feeling like maybe we should be considering marriage — I was happy in the relationship and it seemed like the natural progression of the relationship too. I was very open about it and told him how I felt — his response was that he wanted to enjoy his 20s (he is now 29, I am 26) and that he didn’t know if he ever wanted to get married, and he wasn’t sure yet if he wanted to marry me. He said that he saw his parents have problems, a lot of friends and their parents have problems, and he wanted to be sure it was the right step to make.

I accepted this answer. In the meantime, it has given me a lot of time to focus on my own feelings and wants and needs, and has given me a chance to see things about him that I don’t like, or at least recognize the fact that there were things I was unhappy about. For one, he and I do not spend a lot of time together: I am a part-time student as well as working full-time, so I am in class two nights a week. However, on two of the other nights, he goes to happy hour with his friends — ALL NIGHT, then drives home, and in his drunken stupor, wants sex. UGH. What a turn-off. I have told him how I feel about this, and he says its no big deal, that he can drink if he wants to, etc.

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