Way back in the summer between freshman and sophomore year of high school, I began to lose interest in the girl I was dating. And by “lost interest” I mean I couldn’t believe how boring she was. You might think that’s mean, but, seriously, this girl’s idea of a good time was to go sit out on the track at her high school at night, every night, looking at stars you couldn’t even see because of the light pollution. She also talked to me like I was her dad, which was just weird.
Anyway, summer ended and I needed to get out of this thing. Luckily, we went to different schools — the perfect excuse to go into “slow-fade mode.” Slow-fade mode entails an increased level of busyness, grounded-ness, or, if you’re really mean, using the plain old ignoring technique. I went with busyness.
Breaking up is hard for everyone. For me, or at least past-me, it is a long, arduous process involving carefully missed phone calls, a huge project due at a certain “unfortunate” time and, often, my parents grounding me for unspecified incidents, rendering me helpless and indefinitely locked in my room.
In truth, the break-up is one of my (and really, it’s anyone’s) biggest weaknesses when it comes to dating. While some can go right ahead and rip off the Band-Aid in a curt, to-the-point verbal confrontation (which is still hard), for most of my dating history, I’ve chosen to avoid that moment, instead drawing it out until the strings tying the relationship together pretty much broke themselves. Yes, I avoided any real confrontation, but it was painful and quite douchebaggy.
During slow-fade mode back in sophomore year, I’d talk to the girl online almost every day, telling her just how busy I was every chance I got. I was so busy, I’d say to her, that I probably wouldn’t be able to hang out over the weekend. When she called, I’d pick up the phone and purposely have little to say, going for long silences. It was terrible. And the most terrible part was she just kept coming back for more. Finally, though, it became evident my plan had worked when she instant messaged me one night:
I thought I was off the hook, until a few weeks later when she asked me to come to her school during lunch because she “wanted to talk.” Soon after, a friend told me she was planning on asking me out again.
I most regret what follows (though I regret this all): By the time lunch rolled around, I purposely took an extra-long time getting there. With my brand-new license, I took all the side streets, stopping at stop signs for way too long and driving slowly enough that I probably could have been ticketed. I got to her school with five minutes left in her lunch hour.
Extremely flustered, she quickly made her case. I just had to turn her down. I gave her a hug and got back in my car. But while driving home, I felt so incredibly bad just thinking about how she had worked up the courage to do all this and I had practically made a joke out of it by taking so long to get there. And on top of that, I had been indirectly ignoring her for the past month. It all added up to me being plain horrendous.
This may have happened more than four years ago, but we all know this still happens here today, with even college students acting much younger than 16 in the way they handle break-ups. It’s so easy to just ignore the responsibility to be honest. The excuses are easy to find: you have homework for chemistry, time-consuming meetings for all those clubs you are in, and you seriously, seriously have to do laundry — you’ve been going sockless for a week. But avoiding all forms of confrontation is for the weak. You got yourself into this — now get yourself out. We’re adults, and we’re obligated to act like it, at least in situations like these.
I’d like to think that now-me would not do what past-me has done, and I’d also like to hope that most people would never do some of the things I’ve done when it comes to dating. So please, just rip off the Band Aid. But do it nicely.