To quote the always affable Neil Sedaka, breaking up is hard to do. But the truth is, it’s even harder on friends of the lovelorn. They are stuck listening to you read every old email and the last few text messages over and over to see if you can decipher just where things went wrong. Yikes. God help them if you haven’t been blocked from your ex’s Facebook page.
“That’s not the worst of it,” says Pamela, a 28-year-old salesperson from Estero. “Not by a long shot. When friends break up, you are basically thrown into a minefield with no means of escape.”
You see, when you break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, a good friend jumps in with all of the reasons that you two were wrong for each other to begin with. “He was too condescending…” “She was too bossy…” “He drank too much…” “She made you fold your underwear widthwise, when you prefer it lengthwise…”
“Basically, (insert boyfriend’s name here) creeped me out and, frankly, I never really liked (him) to begin with,” says Pamela.
Yep, there it is—the mine. Pamela said out loud what she really thought in an effort to soften the blow of losing a loser.
Problem is, just because Taylor Swift is “Never Ever Getting Back Together” with her ex, doesn’t mean you friend won’t.
“As soon as I said those words, they got back together and every party was awkward from there,” she adds. “I’m not sure what I should have done differently. I thought I was helping.”
Rookie mistake. The correct move is to buy a pint of ice cream and talk about your own relationship failures before excusing yourself to head back home because your dog is sick.
The Chronicles of Miss X:
OK, so I went for a walk and shopping (he shopped, I didn’t) with the cowboy. He actually called Saturday morning to see what I had planned for my day. I told him and mentioned that was ALL I had planned, hoping he’d pick up on my having free time. He didn’t. He told me his plans. Later in the conversation, I ask why he says he always wants to meet then never asks for a date. Apparently, I was supposed to invite myself along on his shopping expedition to the flea market. Really? He supposedly traditional and still I have to ask AGAIN for a date? Anyway, I said sure… (to be continued next week).
