In honor of those going home for the holidays and taking a friend we re-present BG’s New Adventure featuring BAD BOY! When this story was originally scripted in December 2000, the hijinks ensued over a holiday meal; When it was retooled last year for Lifetime Mobile, the story was shortened to five pages and the holiday angle was taken out so it would be readable at any time of year. Today we link to the finished story, AND for the first time anywhere I am sharing one of my original Breakup Girl scripts (below). Happy Thanksgiving!

Continue reading Bad Boy

or Read the original script!
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Parents just don’t understand on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am an eighteen year old college student, and I am in love with a 34 year old man. We are currently involved in a relationship which is keeping me very happy. Our relationship is perfect. We have been together for one and a half years and he has never hurt me and I know he truly cares for me. My problem is that I come from a conservative family who would never support or understand my situation. If they ever found out they would lock me up or do anything they can to stop this relationship. I am eighteen years old and I feel that I am old enough to make my own decisions. I am tired of living a lie. I love my boyfriend so much that if I ever lost him I could not go on. Yet, I know that if my family ever found out, I would lose him. I am so torn apart and don’t know what I should do. Help.

— JW

Dear JW,

Yes, living a lie is exhausting. But so, notes Belleruth, is dealing with batsh*t parents.

And that — the Parent Trap — is the issue here

As BR says: “This is not about being Romeo and Juliet. This is about separating from parents. You can kid yourself and them and make out like this whole thing is anguish all in the name of love. But the truth is, if you just leave things alone, they will run their course. This relationship will either end or it won’t. The longer it lasts, the longer you have a case for it being a ‘grownup’ thing. And even if it doesn’t, you will still feel a little more grown up and individuated and — hopefully — move on to, dare I say, more appropriate relationships. Whatever issues you have with the ‘rents will surface with this or something else…until you feel like a genu-ine grownup.

And Breakup Girl can probably tell you that this usually takes a few years beyond 18.”

Love,
BG/BR

Unsettled on November 2, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have a problem. I’m almost 24, and am feeling very unsettled with life at the moment. Some major changes have happened over the last year or so. My relationship of 5 years ended, I finished University, made a cross-country move, I got a job, got laid off, got another job, changed my religion (from Christianity to Paganism) and made some great friends in my new city who all subsequently moved overseas. I now have no friends and am finding it hard to meet others (and yes, I have done all those things like join clubs etc).

But, that is not my problem. I want to travel. I am currently saving money so I can get going. I will be going to Scotland to meet up with one of my friends who left, and we will then backpack the world. Pretty much going wherever we feel like. I have wanted to do this for ages, and am not about to change my mind now.

My problem is this. I am reaching that age when people expect you to settle down, buy a house/apartment, get married, start really shooting up the corporate ladder etc. But, I am not in the least bit interested in all this mundane reality. Not yet anyway. However, I am finding increasing pressure to start settling down, look for a boyfriend and potential future husband and ease into full adulthood. The family (who I am once again living with to save money for my big adventure) constantly drop broad hints about this. But I am not ready, and quite frankly don’t know if I ever will be. At the moment I could quite easily spend the next 10 years picking olives in Greece, sweeping floors in Mexico and building walls in China. Is this vision unrealistic? Am I too old to be doing this now? Is 35 too old to really start your adult life? How do I make the family understand? All these questions! Yet, in my soul I know this is something I have to do for myself. If I don’t I will eternally regret it.

Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.Thanks.

— Edana

BG’s answer after the jump!

Meeting the parents on October 5,1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here’s one I haven’t yet run across in your advice column…say you have a great relationship in every way, but as it evolves you find out the Jew/Gentile thing prohibits a future (read: marriage/living together). So why is he letting you both get in deeper when he knows he can’t take you home to meet his mother because you’re not ‘ethnic’ enough??? But you’re both so far into adulthood that how to raise any children isn’t even an issue and you both know that nothing this good has ever come along for either of you? Should the taboo against marrying a Gentile outweigh a chance for a dynamite love and friendship? I’ve pondered this for several years, still no peace of mind on this one. Thanks.

–Too WASP But Willing to Change

Dear WASP,

For this question about meeting the mother, how about we meet with Breakup Mom?

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Sh*t is about to get real on August 17, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

First I just have to say I really enjoy reading your advice and it has helped me through some tough choices. Now I had better get to the point. I am 17 y/o female who lives in Canada and I have been “dating” a 19 y/o guy from Germany. It is an online relationship. Neither of us believed in “online love” until it happened to us. First we were friends and then one thing led to another… we have been together for a year. Anyway we both really love each other, but sometimes I feel he loves me more. I know he is great– sweet, honest, loving, funny– but for some reason I find myself overlooking those things. Lately I have been stuck on “do we have a future together” and “is he the one?” You are probably wondering why I am worrying about such major issues when we only have an “online” relationship. The answer is, in fact, he has an opportunity to come visit me in about 3 months. We had began to plan a couple other trips early in our relationship but for various reasons, namely money, things didn’t work out. I am glad that they didn’t then because I wasn’t “ready” for such a big step. Now though, the latest opportunity seems great! When I have first heard about it I was so thrilled beyond belief. But now the time is approaching that he must buy a plane ticket, etc. within the next few weeks. I am now beginning to panic. A major problem is asking my parents, whom I don’t have a very open relationship with. (Maybe Breakup Mom has some tips.) Lately (in my panic state) I have been wondering more and more about if he is “the one” and if its worth us meeting. It will cost him a few grand and his holiday time, but it is costing me nothing. Still I don’t know if we should meet. Can you PLEASE help me… I need an answer ASAP and well if you can’t help then somehow I’m going to have to decide on my own. *Scary.*

Thanks a million.
— Confused in Canada

BG and her mom respond after the jump!

Judging by appearances on July 13, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Hey well…..I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to deal when your parents won’t accept your boyfriend….C…..I live in a very small town…..and well….every1 has to live up to every1 else’s expectations….and if any1 here is just a little different…in which this case my boyfriend has a eye-brow piercing…and his ear’s pierced….and well no-one around here can accept it…so since no-1 else can except it…..my rents can’t…..I just want to know a way I can get them to actually see what kind of sweet, gentle guy he is….and that I love him…if you have any advice at all it would be sooo greatly appreciated…Thanx.

— Kristin

Breakup Girl to the rescue, after the jump!

Heavy stuff from June 22, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Well, me and my girlfriend have been going out for 11 months and tommorow it would be a year. I have been to a shrink about 1 month and stopped because I felt fine, but I wasn’t the problem I had to go to a shrink for — it’s my biological dad (I never knew him and he died by gunshots because he stole drugs from a gang member), but before all this I tried to meet him. Plus when I was about 12 my stepdad cheated on my mom and I looked at my stepdad as a real father (he also had a child with this other woman). Well I was wondering me and my ex-girlfriend got in a lot of fights and the reason we broke up is because of us fighting. Well I always snapped on her for the stupidest reasons so it was my fault mostly, but when I went to the shrink this never happened I never snapped or anything. So she said she needed time to sort things out so is it over or is there a chance and if there is another chance how can I stop snapping at her? Thanks.

— Chris

Dear Chris,

Okay, everyone, since we’ve been on the topic of melo/drama recently, how many of you have just put your situation in perspective?

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Dear Breakup Girl,

I’ve been going out with the same guy for about nine months….including the time we weren’t actually “going out,” just messing around/while I was “cheating” on my long-distance love, and so much has happened since I met him that I don’t know what to think or do or anything.

I care deeply about him, I love him, blah blah blah…but my parents hate him and want me to dump him and have for a while now. I can’t even talk to him on the phone without them turning it into a huge issue involving lectures and comparisons to various evil figures in history. My Dad insists he’s seen a pattern in many men, and that my guy is in the early stages of what is likely to become an abusive relationship.

My guy is mean to me sometimes, but we’ve been getting along better lately, even though I sometimes want to kill him….see, I’m lost! He’s so cute and I laughed my butt off at your comment, “I never want to see you again…unless you’re wearing those jeans,” because that is SO true about how I feel sometimes. I’ve broken up with him before, tried to other times, and he starts to cry and whine and make me feel awful. I hate that!

So, I guess my question is, should I break up with him, how can I do it without being mean, and what the hell am I supposed to do since I still love him? And his clothes…I don’t want to give them back! Okay, that’s all, I suppose…please help!

— Vera

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Read; weep. Nothing to add.

World of Warcraft is definitely not for someone facing the end of three decades of marriage. Yet I am all of these things as well as a Darkspear Troll mage, with my home in the Barren Lands, a savanna populated with livid pink T-Rexes who wear blue necklaces and matching earrings. I am Level 21 (out of 70), just high enough to get out of the newbie playpen and die suddenly as I stray past cave bears or mega-spiders. /snip/

In many ways, “WoW” was weirdly evocative of what I faced in life. I was newly alone and, like my avatar, dependent on the skills I had, not the ones I wished for. At each turn, I seemed to be facing new dangers. Often, I died. But I rose again and again, finding within myself a bedrock strength that even this calamity did not erase.

My son and I learned “WoW” together. While he commandeered the keyboard, I sat beside him, to help him choose a path…My son has a generous, intuitive spirit. Though I’ve done my best to seem normal, like a weather vane he reads my moods. For weeks, I walked like the Undead through the routines of family life. I felt as gaping as the creatures in Undercity, a “WoW” metropolis, with their chests ripped open to expose neon-colored hearts….Then my son would invite me to play, his voice shiny with intentional cheer. I would find myself with his arm curled around my neck like the tenderest, toughest vine. His fear of what was happening to us moored me to earth. The end of love is a voyage to an unknown land, with mysteries and dangers that I had to learn to navigate…

So here are my “WoW” lessons, thanks to my son:…

Nope, sorry! Click here to behold Robin Kirk’s amazing essay in its full, gory, glory.

Ripped from the headlines! Turns out our True Confessions retrospective last week has a breaking-news counterpart: efforts to reprint a Massaponax, Virginia high school yearbook in order to remove anonymous R-rated secrets and confessions scattered throughout the pages (along with “quotable quotes,” sometimes [mis-?]attributed, often containing sexual innuendo). Such as:

“I have sex with people just to feel wanted.”
“I worry all the time my ex-boyfriend will use the naked picture I sent him to ruin my life.”
“I had an abortion and my mom doesn’t know.”
“I’m pregnant with my best friend’s boyfriend’s kid.”

Much of the ensuing uproar seems to have focused on the content as “inappropriate,” with parents scandalized and administrators rushing to defend the school as a place where a lot of “good” things happen, too. To be sure, stuff like “I smoked so much pot I woke up high” pretty much is inappropriate for the yearbook. But to me, this is not (just) about keeping “treasured high school memories” clean and pretty. It’s about listening to — to the degree the confessions are true; but why wouldn’t they be — what may constitute, in part, an end-of-year cry for help. If the grownups involved trade their whiffs of moral outrage for a bit more of this, from the principal — “If these things are going on, we want to be supportive and we want to help those students and provide them with appropriate resources” — then future Massaponax graduates might be more likely to succeed.