Breaking up: From Talking to Tweeting

The other day my friend "Jane"mentioned that a mutual friend "Don" (who she had been seeing) had broken off with her, via text, in favor of an old girlfriend.  My first thoughts contained words that are really not fit for print (in this venue anyway) but honestly, this is not the first time I’ve heard of this, nor I am sure, will it be the last.  As dismayed as I am by this heartless way of dismissing someone who has been at least important enough to swap bodily fluids with, it did bring to my attention the idea breaking ups and how the awkward (at best) situation has evolved in just my lifetime.

My personal history of dating, the Age I refer to as YES (young, experimental and single) lasted almost exactly twenty years.  I had my fair share of breakup scenarios.  Below are just a few examples that come to mind:

1.       In person is probably the oldest form of breaking up with someone (unless cave people used drawings to signify their intent).  In person, has always been the classiest (in my opinion) way to breakup with someone but has recently become a bit old fashioned what with all of the technology at our finger tips.  Why suffer the mortification, risking tears and a public scene when merely sitting at your computer and sending off a message might achieve the same goal?  How someone might breakup in person varies, of course.   There are several ways I can think of:

a)      The productive conversation.  The most grown up and decent way to dump someone.  The productive conversation involves being realistic, not unkind and not leaving the door open with “we should get together sometime.”  True closure.  This usually takes two mature people.  In my experience, this is a fairly uncommon practice

b)      The sprawling conversation.  You know the kind… a lot of rehashing history and back peddling are involved… as are tears.  A common phrase used in this particular method is “its not you; It’s me.”   It is painful but closure can be achieved.

c)       The screamfest which manifests when someone has done something so egregious (i.e. catching the person cheating red handed) that neither of the previously mentioned approaches are a consideration.  I once threw a beer in the face of someone (at a bar) who drunkenly admitted he cheated on me.  At the time, the bonus of this was that it was February in Boston and he didn’t have a coat with him.  Now, of course, I know he probably deserved it but wish I had just turned around and left, with him knowing I was the classier of the two of us.

2.       The “Dear John/Jane” Letter.   Before the advent of electricity and all of the technology that now allows us to breakup with someone via the click of a button, the Dear John/Jane letter was THE way to dump someone – especially if your guy was unlucky enough to be at war.  Nowadays I imagine that this mode of breakup has essentially gone out of style.  It may be primarily used by kids still in grade school.  My personal Dear Artemis letter was in the form of a note being passed hand to hand by classmates in my senior English class.  You know that every kid along the way read the note, adding humiliation to the mix. 

3.       The disappearing act.  This particular maneuver has been achieved in a number of ways. 

a)      The most common is when the guy never calls again.  You think he will call; you have no indication that he won’t and then he just doesn’t.  Back in the days before cell phones, it was particularly difficult, because if you liked the guy, you were sort of made a prisoner in your own home because God forbid you miss his call because you had to run to the store for an emergency toilet paper run or something.  These days, we have cell phones which make us seem a little less desperate (if only to ourselves).

b)      I’ve also been stood up a few times… okay, maybe more than a few times.  Most of us have experienced the humiliating stand up.  We agree to meet, spruce up nicely, go to the predetermined location and then wait… and wait… and wait.  They never show up and you are forced to make some completely lame excuse to the bartender or waiter about how you must have got the date or time wrong.  I’ve actually received a few pity drinks that way (and actually a date as well!).

c)       My favorite in the “disappearing act” category is leaving the country without telling me.  Yes, it’s happened… at least twice (not at the same time!).  Both men were foreign; so in fairness, they were returning to their mother countries, however, neither of them gave me any indication that they would be leaving anytime soon.  This particular breakup stung a bit because it seemed so premeditated.  There are a lot of logistics to moving, never mind moving out of the country, and yet neither "man" ever let on that they were relocating.   Both just carried on as usual and then suddenly there were no calls and some sorry roommate was answering their door telling me that Ian or Paddy had moved “back home.”

4.       The telephone call.  Using the telephone to breakup with someone, rather than face-to-face has, I’m guessing, been used since about ten minutes after Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone… maybe even by him.  Personally, I’ve been dumped via telephone more than any other way.

5.       The email.   I started using email regularly in 1994 while I worked at MIT.  I remember shortly after learning how to use it, I got my first breakup via email.  I was outraged!  How dare the guy email me instead of breakup with me in person or via telephone (the only two acceptable forms of communicating such personal news as far as I was then concerned).  Of course, two years later, it was me using email to send the bad news to a guy I was seeing.

Now that I am married, the likelihood of me being broken with via the disappearing act, the telephone call or the email, is highly unlikely, although I suppose not impossible.  Supposedly Britney Spears broke up with Kevin Federline via a text.   I’d like to give my husband Emmett more credit than that though should we ever be unlucky enough to face a breakup.  It’s more likely one of us would try the “it’s not you, it me,” line in a productive conversation.

Since getting married, I’ve heard dating nightmare stories from friends and family about people casually  breaking up in the most callous and removed ways possible.  Two such ways are:

6.       The text.   I imagine those who breakup via text normally conduct their relationship primarily over text (i.e. sexting).  I don’t know if that is true, it just seems to make sense.  Why else would someone just text you a breakup message when you can email, write a letter, disappear or call?  This seems like a very emotionally removed (and immature) way to breakup with someone…. Write a text and send the breakup message out into the universe.  Problem solved.  No conversation necessary.

7.       The Facebook/Twitter.  The meanest/most ruthless/most public way of dumping someone.  This way of breaking up has been written about ad-nauseam recently (Wired magazine has even published a “how to” article on it!).  People are posting  breakup notices on Facebook or alerting people to their intent by updating their profile to indicate that they are no longer in a relationship with so and so.  Facebook may be slightly less offensive than Twitter… but that would depend on how efficiently someone used their 140 character limit.

I have to wonder with Facebook and Twitter becoming a more common way to dump people, what will be next?  Will there be (or maybe there is already?) a smart phone application where you just hit a button and the dumpee is notified via a pop up that they are officially single once again?

Everyone knows that breaking up is hard to do; it is unbelievably awkward (but sometimes necessary) to have to tell someone that they are not welcome in your life any longer.  I do believe how you decide to breakup with someone is a testament to how mature and unselfish you are.  If you are able to put your own discomfort aside and productively discuss the situation, it speaks volumes to the kind of person you are.  If you decide to Twitter someone out of your life, well then that also speaks volumes (to everyone who follows you!) about what kind of an insensitive jackass you are.  The question is, when it comes to breakups are you a talker or a Twitterer?

Postscript:  Today that guy Don who broke up with my friend Jane told me that the relationship he had foresaken Jane for had fallen apart and he now felt bad about the way he had text-dumped her.  Ironic, no?

How Do You Fight?

Kathleen Turner & Michael Douglas in War of the Roses

Recently Emmett and I got into a fight.  The details are not important; however, let’s just say posting videos to Face Book when you’ve had a few drinks is not a good idea.  But I digress… The skirmish led me to thinking about fights.  How do you fight?  Are you a controlled fighter (being very careful with your words, not raising your voice, letting the other person talk) or are you an out-of-control fighter (screaming, hair pulling, posting pissed off messages on Face Book)? And, most importantly, how do you resolve your fights?

First let me say that I believe fighting (not physical of course) can be healthy in a relationship.  It is an opportunity to really clear the air.  Fighting, done right, can actually strengthen a relationship because people believe so strongly what they are saying that a lot of important issues can be handled. As anyone who has been in a relationship knows, stewing about something or using the silent treatment really isn’t helpful in resolving issues.  Stewing causes resentments and when resentments build up, there can be a volcanic eruption of emotion.  That, most definitely, is not good for a relationship.  Those huge emotional eruptions can sometimes spin out of control and uncontrolled fighting is the worst kind…think of that movie War of the Roses!

I think most people can agree that fighting is just not pleasant, whatever kind of fighting you might engage in; however, it is sometimes it seems unavoidable.  So, if you must clear the air, and an adult-level conversation seems out of the question (because let’s face it, sometimes “talking” about it doesn’t seem to get the message across), what kind of battle do you engage in?

I’m pretty sure that how you fight is often rooted in your culture and how you were raised. Think about it. Some cultures are known for their fiery temperaments and an impassioned throw down might be acceptable in their households; whereas, an argument in a Yankee home might consist of the silent treatment, or cutting someone out of your will.  In some cultures a dispute might be resolved by coming to fisticuffs while in other’s a good game of chess might settle the matter. 

Personally, my style of fighting depends on whether I’ve had time to contemplate the situation or not.   If I am taken by surprise, I attack back in a very flustered way with a bunch of unorganized thoughts.  I get red in the face and can feel my ears burning.  If, however, I’ve had time to consider the situation and plan it out a bit, my style of fighting is decidedly different; I am calm and rational. I do not yell, though I do raise my voice to emphasize my displeasure. 

I usually have several points to make and I almost never cry.   It’s almost eerie how I am able to separate my feelings from the argument and remove the emotion when I’m fighting.  I’m sure that if I were to cry during an argument with Emmett, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.  I think he might just concede the fight to stop me from crying. Hmmm… maybe I should try that tact.

Emmett’s style of fighting has changed a little of the course of knowing him.  When we first met, he would just plain shout if he was trying to drive home a point.  It is how he had operated in past relationships and it had just become a normal way of working through issues.  Since I am not a shouter, I think that over time, he began to engage more in a discussion should we disagree.  There are times when he reverts but generally speaking, he has come over to my way of resolving disagreements.  We have both come to agree that yelling at someone is the equivalent of attempting to dominate them with your point of view.  It is clear that you are not engaged in listening if you are too busy yelling.

An international paper-scissors-rock competition

My sister Ellie (who lives in Japan) has been with her husband Toshi for over ten years.  She claims that they hardly ever fight.  They are both so laid back that it is easy to believe.  She does admit that they have disagreements from time to time. When they can’t agree on something, they use the old paper-scissors-rock (also known as Jan-ken-pon in Japan) to resolve the issue. Most times it works.  I asked Ellie where she got that cool idea from and she told me that some businessmen in Japan use Jan-ken-pon to resolve disputes.  Now that is interesting.

Large Trees Under the Jas de Bouffan
by Cézanne

Years ago, a very successful Japanese businessman named Takashi Hashiyama wanted to auction off an extensive collection of artwork featuring artists such as Cézanne, Picasso and van Gough.  Mr. Hashiyama asked both Christie’s and Sotheby’s to submit a proposal to him of how they would manage the auction.  Both auction houses submitted in-depth proposals but in Mr. Hashiyama’s opinion, they were both equally good.  He asked them both to participate in a match of paper-scissors-rock to resolve the situation explaining "it probably looks strange to others, but I believe this is the best way to decide between two things which areequally good".

Christie’s consulted the eleven year old twin daughters of their international director of impressionists Nicholas Maclean who instructed Christie’s to pick scissors because everyone expects you to pick rock.  Sotheby’s said it was a game of chance and didn’t go with a strategy.  They selected paper. Christie’s won the match and earned millions of dollars in commission.

Emmett and I don’t fight very often, but when we do, it is often over the most trivial nonsense such as “how to hold a fork when using a knife to cut your meat,” or “is ain’t a real word?”  We do not use the paper-scissors-rock method but we often use the internet to resolve our disagreements.  Google has been a real marriage saver.  We are usually both so adamant that we are correct, that we need a non-partisan, objective, way to get the right answer.  Nine times out of ten, we are both correct to some degree.  In the case of the proper way to use a fork and knife, there is both a European way and an American way, both perfectly acceptable.  In the case of the word ain’t, it’s a newer word added to the dictionary because it was so commonly used.  It was improper but is now a “real” word.  Although I still think ain’t sounds ignorant, at best, it is not improper to use it apparently.

In a perfect world there would be no fighting. Everyone would agree.  There would be no wars and we would live in Utopia.  However, this is the real world and disagreements are bound to happen every once in a while.  Since fighting does seem to be a way of life, isn’t it a good idea to examine how it is you fight? Are you effective in your style of fighting?  Is fighting an exercise in futility or do you gain something positive from an entirely unpleasant discourse? 

 No one is saying that paper-scissors-rock resolves all issues, but maybe there are other ways such as rolling dice, Googling, coin flipping, drawing straws or, maybe even good-old fashioned talking it out. The argument Emmett and I had this weekend was resolved by talking it out (and a little yelling on my part to be honest) but maybe next time we’ll do ten paces at dawn (just kidding!) or tic-tac-toe or some other way to figure out how to live in peace with each other.  In the end though, I guess it isn’t how we resolve the issues so much as the fact that when we do (because we always do), the making up is always the best part.

Emmett and me in South Beach, 2006