Going it alone on September 28, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Hmm… where to begin. It’s not like this is exactly your typical BG-solved sitch, but then again, maybe it’s worthy of your superpowered consideration. File this under “Surviving when single.”

A bit of background. I’m 27 and single, which I’m fine with — or at least trying to be. It’s getting to the point, though, that lots of my friends are no longer single. I’m WAY fine with that. (Gives me hope.) My two friends from college, and my two friends that they’re married to (roommates married roommates — is that cute or what?) have recently moved into my area. The couples have stayed in pretty close touch. Now, I’m DYING to get together to catch up and reminisce, but there are a few problems.

1. Although I’m fine with being the “odd number,” it could make things a bit weird. I’d ask someone to join me, but talk about your “odd numbers” — have you ever gone along as a “second” out with a bunch of old friends? NOT pretty. How to defuse the tension of being “the lone singleton?”

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Going on strike, September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Once again–congrats on the wonderful website.

One of my closest friends has been living with a guy for several years. I don’t care for him, but I figure, if a friend’s boyfriend treats her well, that’s all that should matter to others. Problem is, he doesn’t, at least not in the following regard. I wouldn’t call him abusive, but he’s often verbally nasty to her in public. I’ve mentioned to her that it’s not a pleasure to watch him do his number, but my friend has a bit of a doormat problem. I want to say something to him when he starts in, but he’s very aggressive and I’d rather not have a bad fight. Any thoughts on how to say it in a way that gets the point across without things turning into a scene? Thanks.

— Unsure

Dear Unsure,

BOYcott. Tell her you’ll hang out with her, but not with the two of them, and tell her why. That way you get to keep your friend — and make your point.

BG thanks you for asking an excellent question. And so, I hope, will your friend.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Thinking of others on August 24, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a very interesting situation. My best friend and I are the same age (29). We even went to the same high school and lived in the same neighbourhood. We have been friends for almost ten years.

So here is the situation. I have dated several guys/men and even had some serious relationships. Two I actually lived with. Meanwhile there is my best friend going along with all these experiences that I have had in life. She has never had a boyfriend, she has never been kissed.

I always feel bad when I have met someone new and I want to share it with her. I always wonder if she is beating herself up because I can find someone and she can’t. I hurt her quite badly this spring. I met someone and I didn’t want to tell her because I thought it would hurt her feelings that I met someone again and she is still single.

Now I don’t want you to think that I am berating myself but neither one of us are raving beauties but we are very attractive in our own ways and I think my best friend is very attractive. She has a stunning smile and she is so funny and smart, God is she is smart!

I just don’t know what to say anymore. I go through heartbreak after heartbreak and she is always there for me and still she has not found someone.

What do you think of this?

— Pat

BG’s friendly advice after the jump!

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 responds to a Jealous Girl whose boyfriend recently commented on the attractiveness of a friend of hers at a party before they started dating.

Over the three years that my boyfriend and I have been together, I’ve managed to put [30 pounds] on. I am feeling insecure about myself right now, and when he told me about his initial attraction to my friend before we met, it made me feel jealous and hurt my feelings.

Should boyfriends be finding other women attractive? How should Jealous Girl deal with her insecurity? Read the full letter at Happen Magazine, then post your own thoughts below!

It’s all about the timing on July 13, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

So, it’s like this: Dated Mr. Steady, perfectly compatible for 6 years, lived together for 4+. We went to the same college and grad school, had every intellectual impulse in common, shared values that gave us unspoken ease together — the secret language. There were some dark spots, unfortunately and they sank us: he went from being the most successful guy in the world to having career paralysis that lasted for two years leaving him still solvent but unhappy. Our sex life was never more than tepid and got even quieter every year, but I wrote it off — what the hell, he’s my best friend, I’ll deal. Yes, that meant I suppressed all kinds of wandering/head-turning thoughts and had a series of weird dreams about standing at the altar and wanting to run away. But, being a momentum type person, I started to say it’s time to make some decisions about marriage etc….lemme know by New Year’s, two years ago. Which came and left, leaving us in ashen horror that it was time for someone to break the stasis. I booted him; he went quietly. No loss of love, just this realization that maybe this wasn’t it.

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The blind leading the blind date on July 20, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Several years ago a close friend set me up with her boyfriend’s older brother. Since she’d asked me very recently after New Year’s Eve — and my resolution was to “be more adventurous” — I accepted. I went out with this guy for about one month, this includes four dates. I discovered that not only did we not just hit it off — but he has some serious psychological problems. (He’d tried to kill himself three months before we met — this story ended our fourth date). ( To make it worse, I later discovered that she knew all about his little history, and set me up with him anyway.)

I broke up with him ver-ry gently, telling him I just didn’t have time for a relationship. He then sent me letters, underwear, called my mother, my boss — this went on for about a year and a half.

Badly shaken, I told the story to other friends. A friend offered to set me up with a guy she knew and only liked as a friend. I went out on three dates with him and just got the feeling that he was, well — a little too rigid. Like once he picked me up and twirled me around in the air (I think he thought he was being romantic, but I weigh like 180 pounds and I was more nervous about falling from the sky like a lead balloon). When I complained, he refused to put me down. I don’t like a guy who doesn’t listen who you say no, and I took it as a bad sign for the future. I don’t know, I just didn’t feel comfortable around him. I broke up with him, again politely. He freaked out, screaming “Someone tell me what is wrong with me? Why do I get this from every girl?!” My next door neighbor had to remove him. He sat outside my house in his car for like an hour. I don’t know what he was doing, but he just sat there. Creepy.

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Put out of her misery on June 29, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’m SO in love with this guy at my school. We have a REALLY small school, so everybody knows everybody else, and their business too. This means that “my guy” knows I like him. He used to flirt quite a bit with me. Then my friends told him I liked him. They told me that they told him. Then, one day out of the blue, he told some of my friends that he doesn’t like it when I flirt with him, and that he doesn’t like me “in that way.” They told me for one reason, and one reason only, so I wouldn’t get more hurt in the long run. My friends are very sensitive and caring, so I KNOW they’re not lying. I’m still hurt by this. Every once in a while he’ll talk to me, but not very often. Now that summer is approaching, and both him and I live on farms, we’ll NEVER see each other. I’ve had loads of guys ask me out before, it’s just that I only like one guy, and I CAN’T HAVE HIM!! How can I go about getting him to like me?? How can I get him to ask me out?? PLEASE HELP ME!!

— Hurt and Confused Chick

BG’s advice after the jump

It’s the cover-up on June 29, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

First things first, I think your page is awesome. But the real reason I’m writing to you is because I have a guilty conscience and I’m wondering if what I’m doing is actually wrong. Well see, there’s this guy that I like a lot but I can’t see us ever going out. he’s super nice, and he’s even pretty sexy. My best friend loves him and tells me all about how she fantasizes about him kissing her and being with him — me, I don’t have to wish, because we’re fooling around behind her back. The only thing that I feel bad about is that one time we (ME and HIM) were talking and he said that he wanted to tell everyone about us and I can’t do that because my best friend thinks he’s like a GOD or something, so I know it would hurt her. I meant to tell her the first time we kissed but when I called her she told me that he had talked to her that day and she got her hopes up about them hooking up. So now I don’t know how I should tell her about us. I know she’ll get REALLY mad if I tell her that we have been for a pretty long time, but I don’t think she’d care if I told her he’d just kissed me — she’d probably be psyched for me. So, is it okay to lie to her this once, or should I stay straight?

— Guilty?

BG sets her straight after the jump

Special shoutout from June 15, 1998…

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This letter just happens to have a male antagonist. It could totally be the other way around, yo! In fact, BG didn’t have to put in all the “s/he”s; the writer , bless her heart, already had. Boy-bashing: never done it, never will; don’t want to hear it from y’all. Same goes for “Staten Island.”

Dear Breakup Girl,

Okay, this isn’t so much a question as it is an observation. I have a very close friend, let’s call her Ally. She has been dating a guy, let’s call him Jerk. It fits. They’ve been dating for almost five years. He still doesn’t call her his girlfriend. He still says he has “commitment problems.” He has come right out and told her he never wants to get married or have kids, which she desperately wants. The list goes on and on. Ally continues to see this guy despite the times he’s treated her like garbage and won’t commit to even having her as his girlfriend after five years. They barely spend time together. I’ve seen the guy a total of four times in five years and she’s one of my best friends, so I see her often. Ally is a very attractive, smart woman; every man who meets her wants to date her. She just passed the bar exam and got the job of her dreams. She doesn’t need his crap, but she thinks she’s in love. According to her, this guy walks on water. When he pulls something really nuts, she’ll call me and complain, cry, etc. and claim she doesn’t want to speak to him, this time it’s for real, blah blah. She can’t see what an animal he really is.

My point is this. I can’t tell her what to do. She’s a grown woman (we’re both 32) and I refuse to. I have no problem listening every time something goes wrong, which is often, and just being there for her; that’s what friends are for. I am writing to you because I know how many people are out there in the same situation that she’s in. I’ve been there, too, and so have a lot of my other friends. The difference is that we’ve all come right out and said s/he’s a @#$% , but I’m gonna hang around anyway for a little bit. Then when that little bit was over, we faced the music. She is TOTALLY BLIND to what this guy does to her. She takes more garbage than a Staten Island dump site. I try to tell her that you can find someone worthy of your love and attention who won’t walk all over you. I’ve seen it happen, and lucky for me, I let go of all the idiots that gave me garbage and moved on.

So, for all you people out there (and you KNOW who you are) who think Ally is you, here’s what you do. You deserve the best. Don’t settle. Life is too short. If you find yourself saying, “Things have been okay between us for the last few days, weeks, months (whatever, pick one), so I can stay with him/her ’til s/he screws up again,” GET OUT. Now. I did and I sleep now. I used to not be able to sleep. Ally complains she can’t sleep through the night. HELLO!!! Maybe the problems with schmucko are filtering into your sleep cycle and making you miserable even in REM sleep! Here’s what I’m saying, people: It’s better to be alone and okay than with someone and miserable. I know you’ve heard it all before, but hear it again. BG, you get too many letters from people settling for less because they don’t want to be alone or whatever. Stop it!!! I finally followed my own advice and did just that last October. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. Blew off every moron. Good luck to you all.

— Aruba

Breakup Girl responds: Right on. A side point: let’s let this letter remind all of us, advice-givers included, that having the “dream job,” excellent friends who write to BG on our behalf, and other non-boy/girlfriend components of a Great Life doesn’t mean we’re magicallly fulfillled. I mean, it definitely helps, but it’s not automatic. Remember, sometimes the people who wind up wildly waving Super Soakers and howling gibberish on the roof of the Circle K are the ones who make headlines like, “Locals Scratch Heads: Soaker Citizen Always Considered Stable, Achiever.” Conversely, some people who have few friends, day jobs they consider lame, etc., are indescribably happy, alone or “with someone.” Who’s to say why? Who’s to say who is going to wind up with that nameless inner emptiness that lands us in the arms of Jerko/a? Just a thought. Thanks for your letter, Aruba.

Not just desserts from June 8, 1998…

Readers will recall that Brad’s original predicament vaulted into Of the Week status the moment he recounted that the girl who wanted to hang out, hold hands, snuggle — and just be friends — went so far as to bake him a cake. (Thus serving up, for Brad, immense confusion, and for Breakup Girl, a veritable dessert tray of metaphors.) This week, the frosting thickens.

Dear Breakup Girl,

Since I was your Predicament of the Week, I figured that just maybe you would like to know how everything has been going in my twisted little world lately. Where to start? It started when I made the huge mistake of deciding to bake chocolate chip cookie bars for Lynore. My feeling was this: she baked for me, then I can surely bake for her. Well, I took them to her after school one day. They were still warm. She ate five of them, I think, but only said “thank you” one time. In the meantime, her friends were eating them, and one of her friends (Kelli, who doesn’t come into play after this point, I swear) said that she wanted to marry me. Amber and Tina talked about how wonderful the food was, and how wonderful I was to have baked it. Not one more word from Lynore, though.

Then Stu dumps that new stupid girl and runs right back to Lynore. Lynore says sure, and leaps into his open arms. In fact, to escape her paranoid abusive mother, she moves in with Stu and his family! WHY NOT? Makes sense, RIGHT? I, of course, managed to mention to her that she was making a stupid mistake. Tina did the same thing, since Tina HAD DATED Stu, and she KNOWS what kind of person Stu is. Lynore just got this dreamy look in her eyes and said, “That’s debatable.” Well, I snapped. I said something about her intelligence being debatable, and I drove off very very fast. So now, let’s push Lynore aside for the moment. She’ll be back, though.

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