Rant: Passive-Aggressively Dumping Someone

[Arthur Dent]

My favorite break-up story is the one my girlfriend told me about breaking up with a physics graduate student who wrote a long note with an extended argument including charts and graphs to explain why things had to end. Sadly, the letter has been burned.

[haltz]

I dunno about that. I got dumped by a girl who never really explained her motivation when everything seemed to be going pretty well (at least to me) a week earlier. I still wonder what went wrong.

What went wrong was that she stopped liking you. You aren't a bad guy, and didn't really change over the course of your relationship, acted like yourself because you can't help it, and she wasn't into it. There is no fork in the road, or decision or whatever. It's also really hard to put into words, especially without sounding horrible if you're on the other end. Which is why there are so many total bs breakup lines.

I stopped looking for explanations because it was making me crazy. Even when you get them, they aren't real and don't make sense. The few that probably are real are generally pretty hurtful.

I wrote a long-winded, sincere, logical email to a girl once fairly recently when I knew it was done. I pretty doggedly wanted to know why and how, and if there was someone else, because everything changed while she was out of town for a week. Anyway, I got back a really nice email that on about the second read-through was obviously nonsense. Then the suggestion that we cut off communication so she could move on emotionally. It was very unfulfilling, and I probably wrote seven drafts of that stupid email.

[heyzeus]

Hang in there Cronos. That girl didn't deserve you. Whatever her reasons, that's her loss and her issue. Keep being yourself, do the things that make you happy. A better lady is out there in your future.

[cardsfansince82]

Cronos-

What's your definition of what constitutes a relationship? I think that's an important distinction to make here.

[slide_into_first]

If there's power in a relationship, it's being the person who's less into it.

If there is a powerful relationship, both persons are self reliant.

[Cronos]

Cronos- What's your definition of what constitutes a relationship? I think that's an important distinction to make here.

If I may ask: why do you ask?

I'm not so sure I want to do that as I'm pretty sure that almost everyone defines relationships differently and that might turn this thread into many different directions.

[docellis]

would a universal definition be: a reciprocally acknowledged mutually exclusive pairing? meaning neither person is seeing anyone else nor intends to and that has been verbalized in some manner..?

anything not acknowledged as exclusive, at most, i guess, would be called "dating"?

[Cronos]

would a universal definition be: a reciprocally acknowledged mutually exclusive pairing? meaning neither person is seeing anyone else nor intends to and that has been verbalized in some manner..?

anything not acknowledged as exclusive, at most, i guess, would be called "dating"?

I'd say that's a pretty good definition that I'd agree with, IMO. I'd throw in that a romantic relationship has had at least some physical and emotional intimacy of some sort, though "dating" can have that as well.

[AdmiralKird]

Relationships generally end like this because one person is just awful at communicating, emotionally unintelligent, and doesn't understand what relationships are about. You'd know the reason(s) and not be left in the dark if this person was honest and open, able to express his or herself. But this girl obviously isn't, she plays her cards close to the chest and expects you to know where/when there is a problem and correct it. This crap isn't worth your time. So she was kind, smart, attractive, whatever...she's emotionally dumb as hell and its something she will never learn. It's her own damn fault things didn't work if she can't articulate them, unfortunately you are saddled with the pain. Go get drunk and rebound.

[Cronos]

Go get drunk and rebound.

Remember that opportunities like this one seemed to be do not come along very often for me, which is why it hurt as much as it did. Unlike others on this board, I'm not one who can just go out and hit the bars/clubs and find someone else immediately. Wish I could, but that's not something I'm capable of given what I have to work with.