Yes, I’ve been blown off too many times to remember.
In recent times I asked a girl to the movies. She said “I’m busy”, I then ask when is she not going to be busy, and she says “I don’t know.”
So I keep asking about once every two weeks, same answer. I eventually said “Look, if you aren’t interested in me please just say so and I’ll stop asking you.”
Then she replied “I never said that, I just said I was busy!”
Eventually, she hooked up with another guy.
I think the ones that took the cake for me was the end of a 2-1/2 year, extremely torrid, mostly long-distance relationship, Chicago-Leningrad. He had gone off to study in Syria for a year and was unexpectedly forced to go back to Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed, because they were no longer paying his tuition in Syria. He had left me no address in Syria, but I wasn’t crazy about the idea of writing him there anyway.
So when he got back, he asked me if I would do a visa invitation for him, which was then required in order to get a Soviet exit visa. It was a long, expensive, and torturous process, and I’m sure the Feds weren’t thrilled about it (I was going through a Justice Dept. security clearance for my job toward the later part of the story). Finally I sent the docs off to him, and when I didn’t hear from him for a couple of months, I decided to call his cousin who lived across town and get the scoop. (His cousin lived in an apartment with his wife, MIL, kid, and a phone, while Soviet dorms didn’t have phones except a couple of pay phones and the ones in the administrative office, so his cousin did a lot of message relaying. Poor guy; he was nice.)
The conversation:
Me: Medzhid, how are you? Do you know what’s going on with Nazim? I sent him an invitation, but I haven’t heard anything about it, and I’m worried he didn’t receive it.
Him: Eva, you’re a nice girl. Why don’t you forget about him and move on with your life?
Me: What are you talking about? Why would I want to do that? I love him, and he’s going to come here!
Him: Nazim just had a daughter.
Me [completely dazed and disbelieving] WHAT? What are you talking about? Who is the woman? Have you met her? Did he get married? Is he going to get married?
Him: I have no idea what’s going on with him. He just isn’t the same person. I’ve been telling him that he needs to stop behaving this way, but he never calls or comes over here anymore…
I have no idea what I said to Medzhid after that; I was in a fog. (Plus the call was costing almost $3/min, since at the time any calls to Russia outside of Moscow had to go through an operator, and I was working for a nonprofit and then the Feds and was pretty broke.)
I wrote him a certified letter asking him for some sort of explanation, but it came back unclaimed several months later. I’ve always had some weird fantasy that I will run into him on the street in Russia somewhere and he will explain what happened and ask for forgiveness, but I know in my conscious brain that this is extremely unlikely.
Everyone we both knew thinks it’s distinctly possible he wanted to go into military intelligence and had to ditch the American girlfriend. (He was an Arabic speaker and Afghanistan Spetsnaz vet.) I’ll probably never know, though.
While there are some hair-raising experiences described in this thread, is there any good, respectful, non-hurtful way to break up with somebody? We get mad when the other guy stops calling us without an explanation. We get really mad when the other guy tries to “let us down easy” with a phony explanation. We think the other guy is horribly cold when s/he tells us the truth, that s/he just has lost interest in us. If the other guy leaves us for somebody else, s/he is dispicable. What do we wish the other guy would do when they realize it is time to call it quits? What have we done differently, when we’ve been the bad guy who called it off?
ArrMatey, you don’t seriously think you’re gonna get away with not spilling the details of how your SO got paid back, now do you? Spill, you know you want to and you’ll feel so much better when you do.
Seriously, after reading all these threads, it’s a wonder anyone can land a healthy relationship.
I had a girl break up with me through an e-mail after we had been going out for a few months.
That sucked.
There really isn’t a way to break up nicely. I mean, you’ve spent months and years with me and suddenly don’t want to see me anymore, that’s hurtful no matter how you look at it. Personally, don’t pad the blow with a BS story. And don’t try to act like we can just go back to being friends or be friends now or whatever right now. Maybe later, it’d be possible.
Just my perspective.
Wow! Sympathies to the several of y’all with recent experiences. You do get over it.
I’ll share a few. These are all from multi-year relationships.
First post-High School biggie was a woman whom I’d met (red flag!) in a psychiatrist’s waiting room. She was an ambitious singer and I was a drummer. While we never played together, we were both scramblin’ for what we could get in the Texas music scene of the early '70s. Her older brother was president of some biker gang, excuse me, club (Disciples or some such, I don’t remember). So, she was a biker babe with singer (she sounded a lot like Grace Slick) ambitions, and that combo presented no end of competitive bids.
The first time she dumped me (remember, this deal struggled on for years), she had decided to go live with a chapter of her brother’s club in Springfield, Il. She came over to my place with her best friend, Binky, to tell me. Telling me we had to talk, we went upstairs to my bedroom where she basically told me goodbye and good luck, but added that, “Binky’s interested.”
Boy! Was I naive about biker chick economics. She’d provided a replacement. Thoughtful gal!
Almost a year later, she reappeared and I stupidly welcomed her back. I was playing with a somewhat hot regional band, and working regularly then. I think that had a lot to do with her being interested.
Anyway, this perpetually rocky relationship went signed, sealed and delivered on my birthday when she invited me over so she could give me my birthday present. It was a nice ten-speed bike (provided by her brother sans serial numbers) that matched hers. We went for a ride in the country during which she told me to booger off and not follow her back to the house.
About a decade later she called me and I learned that she’d become a CPA and had a nice income from that and a string of four rental houses - one for each marriage.
Next was my college GF. We were together for most of our Uni experience. I’ll make this brief. After my last final, I called to tell her I was coming over. She said, “Don’t come over here anymore, I want to be single.” I spent the better part of the next year in a tailspin, but, since I know she knew it was coming, I’ll give her credit for waiting until my last exam was over.
The last tale will have to wait, as my DVD player is calling.
Carry on.
Damn…I’ve never been so thankful to be a loner.
FWIW my only relationship ended because she said she didn’t want anything that serious (this was after she asked me what we’re going to name our kids one day).
But contrary to a lot of experiences in the thread we are still very good friends.
SHIT!!! :eek: YOU WIN!
She was trying very hard to give you a hint.
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve had some quite civilized breakups, too, but the stories aren’t nearly as dramatic. There are exes I count among my closest friends, and this is 15 years after the fact. I even road-tripped to Wyoming to go to an ex’s wedding - 3 days there and back (2500 miles or so). It was basically enough time to drive there, sleep a few hours, go to the wedding and reception, and go home, with an hour detour to glance at Mt. Rushmore.
Really, it is quite possible to remain friends; you both just have to be honest and adult about it and use your brains.
And I took it. (The back-and-forth I described really didn’t go on that long; I was just bummed and felt like drawing it out in my post. I tend to take the slightest lack of enthusiasm as rejection, so this was a [failed] attempt to correct that.)
All right, all right, you twised my arm. 
Most of it was situational. I was living in a rodent-infested apparment at the time, and she had just bought herself a new house. I had to deal with my sudden intense anger at her, as well as an uncaring landlady who didn’t want to help me with my new ‘room-mates’. I more than once said I wouldn’t wish rodent infestation on my worst enemies.
Luckilly, I have friends. I have friends who are amazing enough to let me stay at their place for a month and a half while my emotions go back to normal and I find a new place to live. One thing kept going through my head- She ended up getting everything she wanted (new place, new SO, rid of me…) and I got nothing, or even -less- than nothing, as I kept telling myself.
Finally, xmas rolls around and she invites me out to her place. It’s me and one other person, a small ‘party’ for xmas (if this sounds strange, it had actually been sort-of traditional to that point- she and I would often spend xmas together, as neither of us celebrate with our families). I get there, and we settle back to watch some DVDs…
And the mice scurry across the floor.
Of her brand new place.
I excused myself, got into my car, and started laughing so hard I almost drove off the road. petty, I know, but it felt good.
I was once told “You’re a walking time bomb and I don’t want to be around when you explode.” That one stung a little bit, I have to admit.
Louis, you’re a really nice guy I’m sure, but I need a change in my life and having you on this thread isn’t working. Earlier threads were good but I think we’re going in a direction that isn’t good for either of us. It’s really more my problem than yours, I know. I just need time and space to think. I do hope we can stay friends, though.
You know, I’d compare it to a job. It’s much easier, for me, to deal with “We have to let you go cause we don’t have the money to keep you on board” or “You’re fired” over “We’re moving in a different direction and blah blah blah”.
We’d taken the kids to the Christmas parade and went for pizza with a bunch of my college friends (I did this every year, from '83-'97). He drives us home, I put the kids to bed and settle onto the couch with him.
He can’t do this anymore, I deserve a better boyfriend, the past 10 months have been wonderful, he loves me too much to go through Christmas with me—if he does Christmas, he’ll be lost, he’ll never find the strength to leave me and he’s getting older. He needs someone who can help him.
Dumb-founded and dazed, I say he’d better be on his way, then.
I wish I could say I never heard from him again, but it was another 2 months of “I love you but I need someone else”
Oh boy. Here’s my experience, I’ll try to sum it up:
-He made the first move
-I helped him through finding his birth mother (he was adopted as a child), I was the first one he told and came to.
I told him he could have his bed buddy, I cried over him for many months. Then ended up falling in love with my male friend who helped me through the whole ordeal. LOL.
Can I second this? I mean I don’t think anyone can top that.
Ok, since everyone else is doing this for therapy why not? In my case it was a girl I went to high school with. We weren’t an item or anything back then, just years later I wanted to look up people I went to school with. So I find her and find out she’s doing a dental program in Canada. So in a nutshell we managed to become friends again.(We hung out a couple of times when she was back in the states over the past couple of years.) Of course after keeping in touch with her for years I kind of developed a thing for her right about the time she was finishing dental school. So obviously I was happy to hear she’d return to the our state when she started practicing. (I saw it as my chance to find out if we could be “more than friends”. I guess I always had a thing for people in the medical field. I mean the whole dedicating your life to helping others stay healthy is a major turn on for me. Oddly enough I actually wanted to stay friends even if she didn’t think of me like that.)
Anyway once she got back she kept blowing me off. She’d tell me how busy she was with board exams and her sister’s wedding.(Which I bought hook line and sinker because I’m a sap at times. I should have caught wise when she’d never return a phone call.) So this goes on for a few months, we stay friends and I figure once things settle down I’ll ask her out for coffee or something. So naturally right at that time somebody at the wedding sets her up with some guy. Ok, so guess where this is going, go ahead:-) After going out with this guy for 5 months she agrees to marry him. I find out a month or so later when I talked to her for the last time. Ok, I’m hurt, I admit it but I don’t let her know that. She said she wanted me to meet the guy in the next coming weeks but I don’t let on I wasn’t up to it just yet. But after a couple of weeks I shrug it off and I’m happy for her.(I wanted to still be friends and I want to meet the guy.) So I still hear nothing after this and after calling her a few more times and leaving a message I figure she has a problem hanging around with her single guy friend now.
Ok fast forward 6 month from the last time we talked or so. Her sister sends me 2 e-mails.(Here’s something wacky, the entire time my friend was blowing me off her sister stayed in touch with me and we’re actually still friends.) The first one asks for help getting a mutual friend of myself and my “friend” at the baby shower of the “friend”.(Her sister wanted to surprise her. Guess there were a lot of surprises going around.) The second was an e-mail about her granddad dying. Guess what? I read the graddad’s obit where it mentioned she was married to her fiance. Ok, lets see if I get this right. I’ve known you since I was 6 and went to school with you for 12 years. I made an effort to get back in touch with you and try to stay friends with you. So naturally you can’t even be bothered to e-mail or phone me no matter what happens, even something big like that. Obviously since I found out “by mistake” you don’t think very much of me and would only be friendly with me as long as it wasn’t more than mildly inconvient.(I guess it’s just a complete chore to type a sentence or 2 to me every few months.) But you know, I actually talked to our mutual friend about what the sister had asked.(Like I said, I’m a sap and I wasn’t going to take anything out on the mutual friend or sister just because my “friend” is a bitch.) In talking to the mutual friend I found the bitch had done the same thing to her. So now I figure out she blew off her married chick friend as well.(Yes, the mutual friend was female and married. So it had nothing to do with me being a single guy. The mutual friend was quite surprised since she knew nothing and wasn’t even told the bitch got engaged.) Obviously neither one of us is particularly happy with what the cunt did.(Since it showed us how little she thought of us. The mutual friend is still willing to talk to her under the right circumstances. I on the other hand would rather that she pleasure herself with inanimate objects rather than have anything to do with her.)
The funny thing is that a few weeks after she had her first baby the sister asked me for my phone number, my “friend” wants to give me a call and talk about things. Yes, I told the sister I had no interest in being friends with the bitch anymore.(I have no idea what the bitch was thinking at that point. Was she just using her sister to find out if I was pissed off at being blown off and trying to avoid my venom? Was she just so inconsiderate? Oh well, guess it’s just par for the course for her.) The sister did say that my friend had a trying year and she tried to relate that to me. Apparently right around the time she got engage he got her pregnant so they had to do a “shot-gun elopement” because of the “surprise pregnancy” a little bit after I last spoke to her.(Yes, the sister said she was surprised by the pregnancy. That’s a big question, how in the nine levels of hell does anybody in medicine get “surprised” that she’s pregnant? Of course you got to wonder about any dentist that didn’t figure out “I’m getting nailed, maybe I’ll get preggers too.” Just amazing when I realize she hadn’t even known this guy for a year when she got married to him and was expecting.)
Oh well, I’m a little wiser about this stuff now. The only thing I wonder is if she’s grown up any. I kind of feel for her husband at this point. I mean if she’s willing to do this to old friends I have to think her husband is by no means immune.(I just think he has no idea what he’s getting himself into.)
I had started dating him when I was 16. I lost my virginity to him, and vice versa. I, like others that age who posted in this thread, lost much of my identity to being part of a couple. We spent most of our time together, and somewhat distanced ourselves from friends and family.
We had been together for about thirteen months when things got weird. I started experiencing feelings of intense guilt for having sex, and asked him if it was ok for us to cool it off for a while. He had become increasingly focused on sex, which had made my feelings worse. (The feelings were due to my religious upbringing, our young age, a pregnancy scare and some personal sex issues between the two of us.) He was hurt and upset, but agreed to back off. Then an old friend/flame of mine started stirring up jealousy in the boyfriend, but I assured my boyfriend that he was the one I wanted to be with. Things seemed to have blown over, but it did bother me a little that when he hung out with his two new best friends (male and female), I was never invited me along. I had a little case of jealousy over his female friend, but I talked myself out of it each time it reared its ugly head.
One day, I couldn’t get a hold of him. It didn’t phase me too much but by the end of the week it had become obvious that he was avoiding me. Another week passed. I called his house and left messages…finally he comes over.
He will hardly make eye contact with me. Won’t speak. I start shaking, and crying, and eventually he begins to talk. He’s needed time to think, and he wants a change. But he still loves me. I’m still a good person. He puts his arms around me, comforts me. Then he starts to talk about all the good times we’ve had…how good we are together…how good we are together…He actually suggested having sex for ‘one last hurrah.’ I’m shocked, bewildered and still crying. He manages to kiss me, and I crumble. I just want to make him happy. A half hour later, he’s gotten a blowjob, and said goodbye.
I do not hear from him for the next two or three days.
Later that week, a old flame/friend mentions that he’s meeting a group of mutual friends at a Local Hang-out for coffee. Who is there? Why, it’s boyfriend. And he’s holding hands with his female friend. I stumble out of Local Hang-out and beg one of my mutual friends to shoot me. Mutual friends inform me that I was dumb. “How could you not have seen this coming? Didn’t you see what was going on between Boyfriend and Female Friend? They might have already slept together for all we know.” Why, thank you. Never in my worst nightmares would I have imagined this. Thank you. Thank you.