I have been in love with my girlfriend for the past four years and am still very much in love with her. Unfortunately, she has decided she is no longer in love with me. We have lived together for the entire time; now we are apart for the first time. She is my whole life. How in the heck am I supposed to fall out of love with her?
— Rich, Lost in Love
Dear Lost in Love,
Oh, Rich. If Breakup Girl had to answer only one letter this week — this month, this year — it might well be yours. Your question speaks for all dumpees, ever.
On the other hand, Breakup Girl secretly wishes she could yell at her intern for losing your letter. That’s because (a) she wishes she had an intern, and (b) now that you’ve raised the eternal question, she hesitates to say that she has no easy answers.
Filed under: Advice — posted by Breakup Girl @ 8:50 am
Ask Lynn, Breakup Girl’s alter ego’s advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), is now being updated monthly rather than weekly. Now, you’ll get two new letters at the start of each month. This month’s theme seems to be communication and the weirdness thereof:
1. He Loves Me Not? writes in because when she told her boyfriend of three months “I love you” he answered her … with the sound of crickets. But does what we say — or don’t say — always reflect how we feel? Discuss…
2. Rubbed The Wrong Way has cause to be for all the mixed signals she’s getting from an ex-boyfriend who’s regretting the breakup–but only sometimes.
Doree Shafrir at The New York Observer recently described, ruefully, the slacker boyfriend who totally got his act together — a little too late. “Maybe, I realized, I had seen him as someone who had potential but just needed a little tweaking,” she writes. “But it was sort of annoying that he managed to do all the tweaking after we’d broken up.”
Ah, the Butterfly Effect, as Shafrir calls it it: “One day he’s a pot-addled caterpillar barely hanging on to his barista job, begging off brunch because he’s only got $37 in his checking account, spending his nights ‘playing music’ (his band is going to start playing shows again really soon) and eating cheese fries, and then, six months after the breakup, he’s turned into a Monarch: lost 20 pounds, has a job as a graphic designer, his band is playing the Bowery Ballroom and he has a new girlfriend (tall, blond, wearing what appears to be the $282 Vanessa Bruno sweater you eyed longingly at Stuart & Wright) who, he casually mentions when you run into him at brunch, is the heiress to a paper clip fortune.” (more…)
Auction catalogs can tell you a lot about a person—their passions and vanities, peccadilloes and aesthetics; their flush years and lean. Think of the collections of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Truman Capote, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
In Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry, Leanne Shapton’s marvelously inventive and invented auction catalog, the 325 lots up for auction are what remain from the relationship between Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris (who aren’t real people, but might as well be). Through photographs of the couple’s personal effects—the usual auction items (jewelry, fine art, and rare furniture) and the seemingly worthless (pajamas, Post-it notes, worn paperbacks)—the story of a failed love affair vividly (and cleverly) emerges. From first meeting to final separation, the progress and rituals of intimacy are revealed through the couple’s accumulated relics and memorabilia. And a love story, in all its tenderness and struggle, emerges from the evidence that has been left behind, laid out for us to appraise and appreciate.
Filed under: Animation — posted by Chris @ 10:38 am
In honor of the coming apinkalypse — or just to help you get through the season — we’re finally posting our Breakup Girl cartoons to YouTube for greater viewing convenience!
Sure you’ve seen them before — but you’ve never seen them this blurry!
I am a happily married woman (and no — I’m not asking for advice on how to change that situation). However, close friends of ours (a couple) had a nasty breakup earlier this fall. I was initially close friends with the woman, but my husband and I also became close to the man, think he’s a lot of fun and intend to continue our friendship with him. So far, nothing’s been a problem with this — we just don’t talk about his ex-girlfriend. Do I need to tell the woman that we are continuing our friendship with the man?
After reading these letters I was impressed how you handled the situations with great level-headedness. So I’ll give it a whirl with my story.
I went out with this girl for nine months and let me tell you I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Everything about her was amazing to me. I knew we were going to break up because of our likes and dislikes. Our personalities were right on but we couldn’t decide on chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Sad. So here I am writing to Breakup Girl more than ONE YEAR later asking for someone to hit me on the head so I’ll forget this girl. Each of the few times that I talk to her she has always been so nice to me but I know she doesn’t want me anymore. I wish she would be mean. Anyway, If I can reason with myself like this, why haven’t I moved on?
A long time ago I went out with this boy. It wasn’t a bad relationship, it wasn’t a good relationship…it was an ugly breakup. After the breakup he actually slept with my best friend (whom I also no longer speak to).
Well, while we were dating he introduced me to many people. One of which I married (less than one year after we broke up). I have been deliriously happy for a number of years and want to put the horrible relationship behind me. I want to contact this old boyfriend and thank him for introducing me to the most wonderful man in the world and apologize for being a bit “bitchy” during the breakup. Is this the stupidest idea I have ever had? Am I looking for closure? Or rubbing it in?
e-mail to a friend in need
Out-numbered on January 28, 1998...
Now it can be 
From the book description:
, Leanne Shapton’s marvelously inventive and invented auction catalog, the 325 lots up for auction are what remain from the relationship between Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris (who aren’t real people, but might as well be). Through photographs of the couple’s personal effects—the usual auction items (jewelry, fine art, and rare furniture) and the seemingly worthless (pajamas, Post-it notes, worn paperbacks)—the story of a failed love affair vividly (and cleverly) emerges. From first meeting to final separation, the progress and rituals of intimacy are revealed through the couple’s accumulated relics and memorabilia. And a love story, in all its tenderness and struggle, emerges from the evidence that has been left behind, laid out for us to appraise and appreciate.
