Breaking up is hard to do

I’ve never been good at the Break-Up.  And by not good, I mean horrifyingly bad.  It’s like a train wreck.

I’ll spare you most of the gory details, but I will embarass myself share one example.

I was in college, working in a restaurant, and for reasons I now fail to remember, I agreed to go out with a guy I was waiting on.  A complete stranger.  It was very unlike me.

I didn’t even consider the unwise nature of this decision until we were eating dinner.  Actually just before the actual eating – more in the cafeteria-style pickup of said meal.  (Even this cheapness wasn’t an instant turnoff.)  The turnoff came more when Tolly Ho found out I’d never been there before and shouted through the microphone that I was a Ho Virgin.  Suddenly, I started questioning my own judgement.

The questioning continued during the longest, slowest, most painful dinner [lack of] conversation of my life.  And although we lived only 1/2 mile apart, he just ‘had’ to stop off at his place to get something before he could take me home. 

I panicked.

I don’t remember the exact details, but I know it involved me making up some bogus medical emergency, which completely backfired because once he got me back to my apartment he wanted to come up and make sure I was ok.  I panicked again, and the fictitious medical emergency escalated into something bigger. 

You might be thinking I needed to go to the hospital.  You are thinking that because you are quicker on your feet than I am. 

Slow brained me?  I had to go buy milk.

I’ll give you a second to let that fully sink in.

I broke up with someone by faking a medical emergency which required immediate milk intervention.

True story people.

As embarrassing as this lameness is for me, how much worse is it for him?

[Personal note: Hey crazy dude - In case you run across this, so sorry about the totally pathetic milk story.  I was young and immature and unsure how to tell you that you scared the living daylights of of me.  And also I thought that perhaps I shouldn't be so painfully honest with a scary stranger who knew where I lived alone. My bad.]

[Personal note 2: I hate 'my bad'.  Why do I say annoying things when I write that I wouldn't say when I speak?]

Moving right along… the Break-Up.  Not my forte.

And if I’m that bad when it comes to relationships, you can imagine that I’m probably not much better when it comes to friendships, either.  Thankfully, I’ve only had one very notably necessary friendship break-up.  I’ll call her Not-So-Undercover Racist Mom, because that pretty much sums up the whole story without me really needing to rehash it.

My modus operandi with NSURM was avoidance.  The first time she made her comment I was speechless and said nothing, because I was too stunned, and as we already know, I am not quick on my feet.  In my own defense, though - given a few more minutes, I’m sure I could have come up with some sort of milk-laden diversity rant.  

The next time I saw her, I brought it up, and told her that I was very upset about it and uncomfortable with her attitude.  She never made any other unsavory remarks to me, but the feelings never went away.  I felt dirty in her presence.  She needed to go.  And thus the avoidance.

She didn’t get the hint, though.

Unreturned phone calls – check.  Re-arranged schedule so we never had to encounter one another – check.  Moving an hour away and never giving out my new address or phone number – check.

Didn’t stop her though.  Over a year with no reply from me, and NSURM was still not over me. 

She had her kid write me a guilt-trippy letter. 

Are you kidding me?  I have guilt over things that happened hundreds of years before I was born, and I still did not have guilt over this.  What I had was annoyance that I was being pestered to death.  How obtuse can one be?  Did I really have to be so blunt as to say, ‘Hey, I’m so sorry, but that whole white supremacy thing you’ve got going on?  Just doesn’t work for me.  I’ve been hiding from you on purpose because I think you’re a jerk and I was trying to be polite and not have to say that, but now you’ve forced me to rudely come right out with it.  I do not like you.  Go.  Away.”

Thankfully, I *think* the ignored letter was the end of it.  And while I’m glad that’s over, it certainly was not handled well.  I need to do better.  So how is the Break-Up done properly?

I’m just not that into you?

It’s not you, it’s me?

Let’s just not be friends?

What does it?  What is the right way to ditch a friend?

In reality, I think it’s hard to say what is kindest.  I mean, I thought that just not calling NSURM back was being kind, since it meant she didn’t have to hear what I really thought of her.  Ditto creepy college guy.  But it didn’t work.

So is it better to come right out with the real reason you need them to go away?  I mean sure, that might help them in future relationships, so they don’t make the same mistakes over and over again and blah blah blabbity blah, but come on!  How hard is it to do that?

“I’m sorry, but I need to not be friends with you anymore.  You are smothering me.  You’ve tried to take me from acquaintance to best friend to some sort of moderately alarming, Fatal Attraction-esque stalker situation in which I am a female Michael Douglas, whom incidentally I have never really cared for, and now I am prepared to change my identity to make you stop.  Please, for the love of true friends like Milo and Otis, I beg you to just leave me the heck alone.”

Uncomfortable.

So tell me friends, how do you break up?  Are you smooth?  Are you blundering like me? 

How would you want to be broken up with?  Do you want to hear the cold, hard truth, or would you prefer that your ex-friend drop you fast and furious like Sandra ditched Jesse?

Would you get the hint?

Inquiring minds want to know. 

And I might need some ideas for next time.