There’s no such thing as an easy or kind breakup. By their very definition, breakups are messy and painful, ranging from the emotional equivalent of ripping off a Band-Aid to a Mack truck running you over, backing up, and doing it again. And sometimes being the dumper is just as hard as being dumped. While there are many books out there to usher the dumpee through a breakup, the rules of dumping remain somewhat unwritten. Below, an attempt to spell them out. Feel free to forward to the jerk who dumped you via text message on your birthday.
Note that some rules (marked with an asterisk) are hard and fast. No matter how low-down and dirty your S.O. may have acted, common decency demands that you follow these guidelines.
The Breakup Don’ts
*Don’t break up using social media. Changing your Facebook relationship status to “single,” or announcing to the Twittersphere that you’re on the market before you inform the person you’re dumping, is deplorable. Even after The Talk, announcing a breakup to the World Wide Web requires some sensitivity—and a little bit of time. A day for every month you were together, or a week for every year, seems fair. Dumpees, on the other hand, can update as soon as they slam the phone down. In the words of Bobby Brown, it’s their prerogative.
*Don’t break up with a Post-it. It might make for a funny episode of Sex and the City, but breaking up using any form of communication that limits your character count is reprehensible. This goes for texting as well, and there’s a special spot in hell for those who do it with txtspk.
Don’t dump someone on (or the day before) a birthday, holiday, or deadline. If this one isn’t self-explanatory, then you’ve got bigger issues.
Don’t dump someone in public. You may think breaking up with someone in a restaurant or coffee shop will prevent a “scene.” It a) won’t and b) will only make the person hate you.
Don’t use the classic lines, even if you mean them. “It’s not you, it’s me” was trite the first time it was uttered; now it’s about as believable as “I’m moving to Antarctica.” Find some other way to say what you mean, without falling back on the old clichés.
