How do you tell someone you want to break up with them?

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quick

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You say I don't want to see you anymore. Straight & to the point.

― Gale Deslongchamps, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay. It's going to be tough tho. Because it's less that I want to not "see" her, than I want to stop this web of sex and obligations we've woven and just treat each other like we treat our other friends - w/respect for privacy, differences, etc. But I don't think this is possible.

So yes. Tell her I don't want to see her. I think so.

― Tracer hand, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

but I do want to see her, as in, talk, meet, react. but there is something not fun and not working and some of it has to do with the fact that we have sex, i am sure of it.

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I want to stop this web of sex and obligations we've woven and just treat each other like we treat our other friends — w/ respect for privacy, differences, etc. But I don't think this is possible.

Why can't you explore this with her first? Maybe she's thinking exactly the same thing.

― mark s, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

scream while nude in teh snow

― mike hanle y, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Erm is this the girl who used to prefer girls, tracer? And if so is *that* part of yr problem, or what you perceive to be hers?

― mark s, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi Tracerhand... You are in a different situation. Good luck to you& whoever you are talking about.

― Gale Deslongchamps, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yes, and - quite indirectly, but i think all the more forceful for its obliqueness - yes. i think she's got some counterintuitively fusty ideas about what a Man ought to Do in a Relationship. i never have quite gotten that partners-in-crime feeling which i really really like and want. BLECH

yes i shd explore this w/her first. we have done to an extent, though obviously not really effectively. going to go meet up just now - we shall see what we shall see. thanks birthday buddy :)

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

[relationship advice from someone's whose lovelife consists of ogling Sara's semi-naked friends]: Don't let yourself get into situations where you can have sex with her, don't see each other alone, etc, etc.

― Graham, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you're welcome birthday buddy: we are living proof after all that astrology = utterly and groundedly scientifical hurrah

fingahs x-ed f'you both

― mark s, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

of all the ways to break up with someone, mr hand. i am disgusted. obviously ms. hand didn't teach you no manners.

hmmmmmph.

― cheezwhizz, Saturday, 29 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracer, I think that writing down everything that is going through your mind and that is worrying you is very useful. It can really help you to sort out how you feel and what is and isn't important. Then you can send it to her.

I'm sure there are others who disagree but I think that doing things in letters is really good. The other person can't interrupt you so you actually get to say everything you want to. Handwritten is better than email though because you think more due to it taking longer to write and not having a backspace key.

― toraneko, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Hi. I want to break up. Now that that's out of the way, can we go get dinner?"

― Douglas, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

douglas, is that based on a true story?

― rod, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have just discovered that I'm kind of uncomfortable going further with my own situation here. I'm not being coy, and I do trust y'all with the info. I have to learn to be more patient with myself. There's a real burning thing I get sometimes, a bridge-burning thing where I just want to say the hell with it. Those vibes come from somewhere real but I have to watch myself.

cheez, what would you do?

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Rod: yes, and it worked just fine for me.

― Douglas, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Just be honest. If it's hard to say these things to her face, hand her a letter (but please don't decide to send it by email, that's just a coward's way out).

Don't take her to some public place to do it so that she "won't make a scene". People who do that deserve to have hot coffee poured on their lap, quite honestly.

Think about what you'd want someone to break up with you. Would you want a lot of sappy cliches designed to make you feel better but you know to be false ("it's not you, it's me", etc.), or would you want a little honesty that might hurt a bit but might at least lead to you two being able to have a friendship in the future?

Just some stuff to think about...

― Ann L, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tell her you're gay.

― Sterling Clover, Sunday, 30 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Get "really deep" into BLACK METAL.

― Gage-o, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hah! I was gonna post: Propose to lady but add:"There's only one condition: I wanna play the Merzbow box during the wedding!"

― helen, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I could take dave q's advice and make sure that I'm so drunk and stoned every time she sees me that she just gets disgusted and breaks up with me first. (Sterling: that would definitely NOT work)

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Good luck Tracerhand. It will work out fine I'm sure.

― Gale Deslongchamps, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tell her you just figured it out.

― Sterling Clover, Monday, 31 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, she'd think that would be even better!

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Then tell her you're painfully straight. Myopically so. Don't even like men as friends, you'll say. And then tell her you like those velvet paintings of Elvis, or Mel Brooks, or Michael Bolton, or all of the above. If the lack of adventure doesn't persuade her, the lack of good taste most surely will.

― David Raposa, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

a. you're married to the sea.

b. "i don't want to have to kill you, but i will."

c. all is revealed. flee.

― jess, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alternately, you could just grow a beard.

― Nicole, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Take her to a courthouse. Show her a statue of Lady Justice. Tell her that that's who you're married to. It worked for Batman.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Better yet, tell her you are Batman.

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tell her *she* is Batman and you always felt like Catwoman. Hilarious consequences!

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hi Tracerhand, Here is THE alternative and best way. Why not just take her for a walk and tell her what you are thinking? Perhaps then, you both can discuss what is in your hearts and go from there. If you really choose to not see her again, it would be better coming from you personally than a letter or an email. Person to person would be better and final.

― Gale Deslongchamps, Wednesday, 2 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

stealing jess' idea a little, you should tell her the following, tracer:

"brandy your a fine girl, what a good wife you would be. but my life my love and my lady is the sea."

― cheezwhizz, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The next time you rock the casbah, immediately prior to "arriving", call out somebody else's name.

― Trevor, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

wait til you're in a group of friends and then ask "OK, hands up who's in a steady relationship?" then when the person in q goes to put their hand up say directly to them "Not so fast". it's a classic.

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 3 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

your all gay

― seb couchman, Thursday, 13 November 2003 12:03 (twenty-one years ago)

grammatically that shd be "ur", seb

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 November 2003 12:33 (twenty-one years ago)

interpretive dance

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 13 November 2003 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

sigh

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 13 November 2003 13:39 (twenty-one years ago)

you do it while your having sex with them....ya know let em down easy.

― Chris B. Sure (Chris V), Thursday, 13 November 2003 13:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Nah, just after they've come & they wont give a shit then!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Thursday, 13 November 2003 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I took Gale's advice btw. It was very hard on both of us to talk through things and see the difft places we were at and what had to be done. And I am crap at shutting the door. I don't see her at all any more. She told me that we couldn't "be friends." I saw her on the street though about two weeks before I left New York. She was coming out of a movie theater with another boy and they were holding hands. She didn't notice me and we walked past each other.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 13 November 2003 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

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