< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

About six months ago, my girlfriend of two and a half years broke up with me. I tried to get back together, but for one reason or another, I had screwed it up. This isn't some masochistic thing, I really did screw it up. So I gave it up. But it got me down for a while -- two and a half years is a long time.

So for the past few months, I've been getting over it -- it's not a problem. So I've been becoming interested in a few different people -- people whom I like as friends. So I become friends with them, get to know them, like them, and then when I'm about to pounce, as it were, and ask the question, I find out that they're either dating someone else or unavailable in another way (although distance is the main thing, either me moving or them).

My question is, what the heck is going on here? It seems like everyone I'm interested in I can't have. Is this some kind of messed-up thing I'm seeking -- like I sense that they're unavailable and I like that for some sick reason? I find this hard to believe -- most of the time I don't know that they're taken. It's really getting old. I know that these people aren't lying to me. Just today, I went up and was talking to someone for about an hour, ready to ask her our, when she suddenly mentions that she's moving to France for a year. What the crap?

-- Corwin

Dear Corwin,

Easy, killer. My sense is that you're pathologizing/personalizing something that is part of life. Look around you, Corwin: We live among The Taken. You just haven't thought about this recently because for two and a half years, you were one of Them.

Debunkage #2: There's not necessarily anything "messed-up" about being attracted to unavailable women. Seems to me that it just means that you're hot for the babes who are NOT giving off the DATE ME DATE ME DATE ME MY MOTHER WILL PAY YOU vibe. Which is normal, if not advisable.

What I'm mystified by is this: if you really are getting to know and becoming friends with these people, then what questions (besides "the" question) are you asking along the way? Obviously, somehow, not questions with answers like, "Well, I enjoy flyfishing with my fiance." Yo, ask things that will get you your data, like, "So what are you doing for the holiday weekend?" (answer should include "boyfriend," if applicable) or "How long have you lived here?" (as in, "three years, but I'm moving to France right after the World Cup."). See?

Also, if you keep moving (as you seem to say in paragraph 2), why are you working your mack on girls who aren't?

Seems to me that you're not looking for unavailable women; you're looking for "proof," after the fact, that you suck at the dating thing. And that's the next thing you need to get over.

Love,
Breakup Girl

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >