BREAKING UP, HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

(AND HOW DO YOU NOT DO IT)

About 80% of my male friends have the most irritating trait of ending a fling or half-relationship not with words, but with actions. As in; they just keep hearing less and less and eventually disappear completely from your life. This is called “ghosting,” and it is by far the most maddening thing a man can do to a woman.
Conversely, it also happens with women who don’t dare to make the breakup call and just let things fizzle out like a loveless candle. I don’t like it. With every fling, flame, or guy I’ve dated a few times, I always make sure to call and say, “Hey, I really enjoyed it, but let’s leave it at that.” The biggest argument for not making that call is that people don’t want to hurt the other, but the thing is that ghosting only hurts and pains more than just clearly stating how things are.

I really think you’re a great person, but I don’t really want it to continue, so let’s just leave it at this.

Look, ending a long relationship is always an unpleasant and painful process. You don’t want to just throw away the 2.5 years you cared for each other, so before you make that decision, you’ve done a lot of thinking and talking. But suppose you start dating someone afterward and oh, it’s really nice, but not your thing and you actually want to get out of it. Then you call, or if necessary, send a text with the very simple message, “I really think you’re a great person, but I don’t really want it to continue, so let’s just leave it at this.” Or something like that. Honest, clear, easy, straightforward.

By the way, I spoke to a rather notorious man who is known for breaking women’s hearts, and he said that ghosting doesn’t happen to spare the other’s feelings, but because the woman in question will always find you interesting and you can always fall back on her. This is, of course, quite to very grotesque behavior, but men are men are men. My best friend also wanted to dump someone by ghosting, but I put a stop to that, so I typed the text he had to send her.

You can’t look into each other’s heads, so assuming the other “will surely understand” doesn’t count.

You can’t look into each other’s heads, so assuming the other “will surely understand” doesn’t count. You have to express that; otherwise, it gets messy. Messy and painful. So for everyone (and for the lady who emailed me with this question in particular, as that is the reason for this post): you end a fling by saying that to the fling. Conversely, it is also maddening if you don’t know where you stand, so it’s not very classy to exhibit the exact same behavior yourself. And for anyone who still doesn’t quite dare, email me and I’ll write that text for you.