Oh baby, you’d be surprised. 
Hey, are you breaking up with her?!
Now that’s funny!
And that is just sad beyond belief. People are a dime a dozen, and overpriced at that. Not you and I, of course. Those folks over there.
Not quite yet. I’m still sneaking around, trying to find somebody better. Hey, are YOU still married?
I personally have used “We’ve grown apart.” Rational translation:
“When I said I loved you what I meant was that if current trends continued, I would fall in love with you. It turns out that I was wrong.”
The strangest one was I got was: “I don’t like your self-defecating humor. You’re making fun of me when you do that.”
The best breakup line I ever got was:
“Oh, hi. Look, um, fuck off, okay? Sorry. Love ya.”
::kiss on the cheek::
“See ya.”
::flounces off to the other side of the bar::
That’s how you dump someone.
Has there ever been anything funnier than self-defecating humor?
If that’s not a typo, then I hope the breaker-upper was using the word incorrectly and not being literal. Either way, it’s one of the funnier things I’ve encountered today.
It makes sense to me. The translation is, “I love you and care about you, but I’m not ga-ga, head-over-heels in love with you.” The person wants to be deeply in love and just isn’t feeling it.
How about some of the Seinfeld break-up reasons (from Wikipedia:)
-For refusing to tell him why she refused to taste his pie at the coffee shop (“The Pie”).
-For wearing the same dress on every date (she dumped him.) (“The Seven”).
-For eating her peas one at a time (“The Engagement”).
-Because she had “man hands” (“The Bizarro Jerry”).
-Because he realizes he doesn’t want to be with someone exactly like himself (“The Engagement”).
-Because she had once dated Newman, who had ended the relationship (“The Big Salad”).
-Because she wouldn’t give him a massage (“The Masseuse”).
Would it make you feel better if a woman broke up with you by berating herself (perhaps wearing sackcloth and ashes) for how dreadfully she’s treated you by going out with you prior to deciding irrevocably that she would stay with you the rest of her life? Why do you think so many people break up during fights - it’s a lot easier to do it when you’re angry! I guarantee you that unless you’ve been dumped by sociopaths, they have enjoyed the experience of breaking up with you only a millimeter more than you enjoyed it yourself. And as I said above, people often don’t know exactly why they aren’t happy in a relationship. Does that make them bad people? Apparently so.
As for “it’s not you, it’s me” that line was old when I first got it in real life, from a guy, in 1972. And you’re right; it’s a way (sometimes) of cutting a discussion short because the discussion does no good. Other times, it’s the simple truth - s/he is saying “By all accounts, I should be deliriously happy with you, but I’m not. I don’t have any good reason, but it’s not going to change.”
Look, there is no good way to be broken up with. And there’s virtually never any point in discussing it. All discussion does is to give you false hope that if you “fix” the problems, the person will still want to see you. S/he won’t. If there was any hope of that, s/he would have asked you to change the problem.
Being dumped sucks, there’s no question about it. But at the age of 50, one thing I’ve come to realize is that it is not kind to string it out by discussing it with the dumpee (whether that’s me or a person I’m dumping). All it does is allow him/her to maintain false hopes, while giving him/her nothing of value. There will not be any feedback that allows the dumpee to go on to become instantly successful with other potential dates. If the dumper has figured out some or all of the things that bother him/her, they are either things the dumpee can’t change or things that another possible candidate will find quite attractive or of no importance. Lots of us are indifferent to or dislike Mexican food, for example.
I stopped using self-defecating humor after several gfs told me they were breaking up with me because they didn’t appreciate doing all the extra laundry.
It’s an exact quote, and you’re right, had she been using the word correctly, it would not have been confusing at all. I’m pretty sure My friends and I have milked the quote for all the humor it’s worth over the past 20 years, so I’ll say no more about it and let someone new have a crack at it.
And to answer you seriously, this is where I disagree. Of course there’s some glimmer of hope for some useful feedback. Maybe not much of the time, given the upset frame of mind the dumpee is in, but I think that’s just an excuse to be avoidant. If you’re going to fuck around with someone’s life, you just can’t say to yourself “Man, that goofy girl was so upset, crying, slicing her wrists with a cheese slicer, there was just NO talking to her! I just grabbed my stuff and jetted.” No, that’s chickenshit behavior. Sorry. You owe that girl an explanation, preferably as self-critical an explanation as you can muster up, providing it’s not facile “It’s me” bullshit. If there’s a real flaw in your perception, and I think there probably is if you’re a homo sapiens, then put most of the blame on yourself and your weaknesses. Comfortable? Hardly. But decent and generous to this person who has devoted months or years of her life to trying to make things work for both of you, even if in the end it didn’t work. You owe her a lot, you selfish schmuck, whether you realize it or not, so take a few hours off your life and sit down with her and tell her what is about you that isn’t able to get along with such a fine person as she is.
Am I still being misogynistic?
My dear, I bow to you.
My personal favorite:
Me: I’m pregnant.
Him: Oh, I have to go home to get something.
It was months before I saw him. His reasoning for never calling, returning calls, anything? He “had some stuff to do and got busy.”
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I fell for the “Hey, look over there!” break up.
Yep, still married. It’s been almost a whole year, though…if I were to meet someone with a self-defecating sense of humor, who knows what might happen? I am a dung beetle, after all. 
Did he at least get the ice cream?
You dated Tom Menino, the Mayor of Boston??? :eek:
Gotta disagree with this one.
On the one hand, I do feel like honesty is owed to the break-up-ee.
On the other hand, the person doing the break-up should not have to subject him/herself to what is likely the inevitable arguments and protestations and anger that will come after such an admission as “I’m breaking up with you because you’re lousy in bed.”
As much as honesty is the best policy, the person doing the breaking up should not have end up being on the defensive.
pseudotriton ruber ruber would probably have loved my last break up conversation.
It started with “I can’t do this anymore.” and ended up with a two hour discussion. That discussion contained the topics of…
- his disbelief of evolution
- my unwillingness to attend a Church where the minister talks badly about congregation members during Christmas service
- my unwillingness to spend every New Years Eve at that Church with his parents, praying
- 28 year old men who live with their parents & have no plan to move in the forseeable future
- men who can’t take trips with out lying to their mommy about where they’re going & who their going with
After getting that far, he didn’t care why we were breaking up, he just wanted to know if he could get a goodbye quickie.[ul]
[/ul]
Crap. I got the first “they’re” but messed up the second. :smack:
You phrase it nicely, of course. “Look, I’m sure the length and girth of your pecker is sufficient to satisfy many, many women, but here’s the thing–I’m just built unusually large, I guess, and it feels like a b-b rattling around in a boxcar to me, that’s all. I’m going to begin ‘The Search for Men Who Are Hung Like Priapus’s Horse’ and I wish you the best in finding yourself a woman who is honored to service someone of your proportions. But that just isn’t me, I’m selfish that way, I feel the need to have actual full-on genital contact during sex, and I have decided to break up with you, once and for all, for my own selfish gratification. You’re a prince among men, or boys, or whatever it is that you are.”