Going Greek on September 28, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Last year, I had a really big crush on this guy and I asked him out. Well, he had a girlfriend, and since I rarely saw him, I was able to get over it. Fast-forward to this year. Turns out he’s in two of my classes. I have to see him every day and on weekend trips (for debate, one of the classes we share). He still has a girlfriend, I think. The problem is, I just can’t get over him. He’s cute and smart (he quotes Plato) and all that. I just want to move on!

— Amanda

Dear Amanda,

That is totally annoying. In fact, “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable” (Laws, 808). Unfortunately, all there is to do is keep things platonic with him and set your sights on someone else in the Republic.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have just recently discovered your column…and I love it! However, I have an issue that I need to get a second opinion on. I have this boyfriend that I’ve been seeing for only a couple of months now. But we’ve known each other for 4 years and had crushes on each other all that time. Well everything’s good I suppose but there’s some things I have a problem with. OK, he’s the same age as me (21) but he has a 14 month old child. He rarely gets to see it but he does pay child support. I’m not sure why it bothers me so much…perhaps because he was a virgin until this girl came along and “seduced” him. He claims she “tricked” him and told him that she couldn’t get pregnant and that she was on the pill. And you know how dumb and gullible some men can be. Well he believed it and they slept together for the next three or four months. He even had the nerve to tell me how many times a day they had sex!! Well, needless to say she got pregnant and he realized what a huge mistake he had made. Now this whole situation really disturbs me sometimes. I don’t know if I just feel threatened by her…I mean I know he doesn’t want her back. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. It’s just that he has all this excess baggage that I have to deal with.

(more…)

Undecided on August 31, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a predicament! For the past 8 months I have been living with my boyfriend and things have been going fine! Except, I have a little crush on someone else. The guy, Chris, and I have been friends for about a year now, except that when we used to hang out we would flirt and I would imagine what it was like to kiss him… harmless stuff…we never DID anything. Oh yeah did I mention that he had a girlfriend… a long distance one, and I was on safe ground in my own mind with this invisi-barrier of girlfriend vibes around him! That is, until a few days ago. THEY BROKE UP!

Now I am afraid to hang out with him because I am scared that we will hook up cause of that tension that has been building for so long! I don’t want to lose my friend. AND to get back to the boyfriend part, I don’t want to lose him either. But I am so incredibly attracted to this other guy… am I kidding myself about having my boyfriend and drop it all and go with my crush (which may cause for a bizarre living situation!) I am so torn… (sigh). Please help!!

— K

BG’s answer after the jump!

Double trouble on July 20, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a huge crush on the most popular guy in school. He has a girlfriend. At the dance he and his girlfriend were dancing real close and making out. It felt like a stabbing pain in the back — and also like an aching, longing heart — because she is one of my really good friends. What can I do so I don’t like him any more? Is there a way to be friends and not break into tears when I see them together? Please help me.

— Kat

Dear Kat,

Don’t think of a purple elephant.

That is, of course, exactly what you did think of. The same happens when you say to yourself: “Don’t like Popular Boy.” Trying to not like him is the same as liking him. It takes just as much effort and energy, and has just as unsatisfying results. So don’t fight that feeling; let it be, recognize it, say hello to it, let it run its course. While you’re pursuing other options. Soon enough, that feeling you’ll get on your back will be the warm, sweet hand of the boy you’re dancing with.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Truer words were never spoken than on June 1, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have known this girl for a long time and she’s become like an older sister to me (she is a bit older than me) and I have developed feelings for her — not just her looks, but the way she moves, the way she talks, the way she acts, etc. What do I say to her that will make her like me without letting her know that I like her?

— Arson

Dear Arson,

Probably something like “I never want to see you again.”

Love,
Breakup Girl

Coke recipe? Check. Thanks, This American Life! But io9 has whipped up — and sampled — the elixirs you really need. (One even has caffeine!)

And now to go use them on Ira Glass.

H/T DJDistracted.

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

Breaking the ice on April 27, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I just started going out with this guy, but when I’m around him my mind goes blank and I have nothing to talk about. What do I say? Please answer!!

— Shelly

Dear Shelly,

Perhaps Breakup Girl is being old-fashioned, but in her day, you went out with someone because you had something to talk about. Maybe what you should say is: “Um, I’m not sure this is working out.”

Love,
Breakup Girl

Rick Springfield, sigh, was my second love. And now he’s written his first memoir, with nary a mention of me. This, I venture gingerly to say, is perhaps not a bad thing. Perhaps, much like a General Hospital subplot, we — the female eighth-graders of the world — collectively faked blindness to be with him? Then again, we don’t read celebrity memoirs for the articles, as it were, and yes, this one includes some very handsome photographs. Plus, as BG blogger Amy notes, “I sorta love him for a VH1 thing I saw, like 10 years ago, where these girls had a little dance they did JUST IN CASE they ever met Rick Springfield and he had them doing on stage with them as adult ladies. Come on, how can a guy like that be all bad?” He can’t. Let’s just put it this way: I wanna tell him I could ghost-write, but the point is prob’ly moot.

Anyway! Giveaway! I’ve got a copy of Late, Late at Night right here, with your name on it, unless your name is Jesse, courtesy of Simon & Schuster. And we’re gonna make this wicked easy for you. It’ll go to the first person who e-mails me with:

1) the best-ever quote from, title of, or sheer existence of a celebrity memoir

2) the best-ever brief anecdote about the death-by-disillusionment of a celebrity crush

3) a photograph of her or himself, preferably from the actual 1980s, that constitutes a homage to Rick Springfield

or

4) wild card: any other Rick Springfield-related awesomeness.

Beat you to this one, though. Same room: Springfield and Duchovny. BG’s head: explodes.

UPDATE: Reader Deb M., though too late for the contest, responded with an entire series of killer pics of her and Rick. Honorable mention!

A part-time lover from April 6, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have the biggest crush and the feelings seem to be mutual — at least they are on weekends. When I see him during the week he ignores me and acts like we don’t even know each other. The problem is that when the weekend rolls around he calls, we make plans, and become physical. I believe that he’s using me, but mutual friends tell me that he really likes me. In a way I know that what I’m doing is wrong, but I just can’t bring myself to turn him down. My question is: Is he just using me, or is he just shy? What should I do?

— Katie

Dear Katie,

Yo. You are not an AT&T cell phone. As in free weekend service.
Hang it up.

Love,
Breakup Girl