Why would a guy treat my friend this way?

In My Humble Opinion
61

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
I’m sorry, but no one is perfect 100% of the time - are you? Do you dump all your significant others after their first slip-up?
[/QUOTE]

Depends on the level of severity and how far into the relationship it happens.

I once broke up with a guy three months into a relationship because he got a really bad haircut. True story.

In retrospect, it wasn’t really about the haircut, because hair tends to grow back and I’ve stood by subsequent BFs after bad cuts. It was because a simple haircut was enough to kill my attraction for a guy I’d been completely head over heels for up to that very moment… So how would I feel ten years down the road when he started to go bald, or in twenty when he developed a pot belly, or in fourty when he’d start wearing his pants pulled up to his armpits? The infatuation wore off right then and there, and my feelings for him weren’t deep enough to recover.

In this case, it’s not even as shallow. Mr Architect watched his hot loveable GF suddenly turn into a drunken blubbering mess, which is enough to scare the hell out of most grown men, and it probably knocked the rose-coloured glasses right off his nose. He probably realised he couldn’t cope, and that it was a sure sign that this relationship wasn’t going to last. Better to end it now when there isn’t much of a commitment, because things would only get more complicated as time went on and things like marriage and property and kids come into the picture.

Tell your friend to pick herself up, dust herself off, move on with her life and most importantly… to watch her alcohol intake next time she’s out with anyone whose opinion she cares about. She’s lucky that she’s got such loyal and caring friends, but you’re not doing her any favours by laying the blame entirely on this guy. She screwed up too.

62

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
As a footnote, over the past few months, I told a few people (my mom, my boyfriend) that I didn’t feel quite right about “Jonathan.” Our whole family loved him (remember, me and my friend are actually cousins) because on the surface he seemed perfect… but I kept feeling this nagging negativity about him. My mom kept asking me, do I like him? And I told her, “I can’t put my finger on it, but… I just am not that crazy about him.” I didn’t say that to Delores, though, because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Looks like my intuition was right!
[/QUOTE]
What were you right about? That he was an otherwise nice, normal guy who had one episode of freaking out and acting like a jerk? Does that one episode really negate everything else that was good about him? “An otherwise nice, normal [girl] who had one episode of freaking out and acting like a jerk” seems like a pretty good description of your friend, too.

63

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
My cousin had no reason to believe that he would purposefully stand her up, or that it was his way of breaking up with her. He had never acted like that before. She was bewildered… and wasson says that she deserved to be treated this way??! Just because she drank too much one night?!? :confused: Geez, you have no heart, it seems.
[/QUOTE]

She didn’t have reason to believe it, or she didn’t TELL YOU that she had reason? I vote for the latter.

Your friend/cousin DID, in fact, go crazy bizzaro on her boyfriend. She got totally smashed, and by your account all she did was cry about something and try to leave. But, let’s be honest… you have no idea what your friend/cousin did or said, and chances are your friend/cousin doesn’t know everything she did or said. Did she admit that she slept with half the people attending the party? Did she tell him about some childhood trauma she’d experienced? Did she scare him with a bunch of talk about “I can’t wait til we get married and have babies”? Any of those could really scare a guy away.

I never said she “deserved” to be treated this way, but your friend/cousin acted in an extremely immature and unreasonable way. Now you think she deserves to be treated maturely and reasonably? Why?

Anyway, your argument of “he’s never acted this way” is really silly. Of course he hasn’t! He’s never broken up with her before! Also, why is your friend’s 1 insane drunken episode totally excusable as just something ‘everyone has done’, and yet his behavior is totally unjustifiable? He should be given the same amount of leniency as your friend if you’re trying to look at this thing objectively.

I’m not saying the boyfriend is totally innocent, but you need to cut him some slack. You friend/cousin went nuts, and the dude walked away. It’s not any more complicated than that.

64

[QUOTE=wasson]
I never said she “deserved” to be treated this way, but your friend/cousin acted in an extremely immature and unreasonable way.

I’m not saying the boyfriend is totally innocent, but you need to cut him some slack. You friend/cousin went nuts, and the dude walked away.
[/QUOTE]

Yes her drunken incident was immature. But she apologized. She made a mistake. She may have gone “nuts” as you say, but it was only for an hour. This isn’t a pattern or an ongoing thing.

Different people react differently to alcohol. She is not used to drinking a lot, and on this particular night, her friend was bartending and kept pouring free drinks for their group of friends… she reacted badly. This could happen to anyone. It doesn’t mean she’s crazy, for christ’s sake.

I’m wondering, does getting sloppy drunk one time equal “nuts” in your opinion? Is that an unforgivable offense on par with cheating?

65

Well, getting sloppy drunk seems more of an unforgivable offense than breaking up poorly. It seems you are trying to determine who was right and who was wrong in this scenario. People are telling you repeatedly that they were both wrong, but if I had to judge, I think your friend was MORE wrong than the guy. Also, what you don’t seem to be taking away from this thread is, you don’t know WHAT your friend may have said/confessed/blubbered to the guy in her drunkeness. Maybe it wasn’t just the crying that got to him, maybe it was the trying to drive home. And yes, I think trying to drive home when you are blubbering drunk and about to pass out is incredibly “nuts.”

The best break-up I ever had was with a guy I had been dating for over a year - I think close to two years. I didn’t answer his call once, and then I didn’t call him back and he never called back. Then after a few days I realized I wasn’t missing him in my life and we never spoke again and it was over. Wow, so easy, so simple, so little drama. I loved it.

66

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
Yes her drunken incident was immature. But she apologized. She made a mistake. She may have gone “nuts” as you say, but it was only for an hour. This isn’t a pattern or an ongoing thing.

Different people react differently to alcohol. She is not used to drinking a lot, and on this particular night, her friend was bartending and kept pouring free drinks for their group of friends… she reacted badly. This could happen to anyone. It doesn’t mean she’s crazy, for christ’s sake.

I’m wondering, does getting sloppy drunk one time equal “nuts” in your opinion? Is that an unforgivable offense on par with cheating?
[/QUOTE]

Playing devil’s advocate:

How do you know she only went nuts for an hour? She probably doesn’t even know for sure.

How is he supposed to know this isn’t a pattern or an ongoing thing? You’ve made much of their having been together for five months. I’d say, they’ve only been together five months. Maybe she’s a recovering alcoholic and hasn’t gotten around to telling him yet.

She’s not used to drinking a lot, so gets utterly smashed because she has no sense of when to stop? I’d expect that of a college-age kid, not a woman nearly 30 years old. Is this a sign of immaturity or lack of judgment on her part?

And I don’t know where your cheating comment comes in, but to reiterate what a lot of other people have said - you really have no idea that your cousin’s behavior wasn’t totally over-the-top unacceptable, because you weren’t there. IME, the first time a dose of unpleasantness/reality comes into a relationship, it’s less of a jolt than a drunken uncontrolled crying fit that appears to have come out of the blue. To the guy, it was a relationship breaker for whatever reason, and I think it probably would be for me too.

Nice of you to want to defend your cousin and make the guy out to be the sole cause of the problem, but it sure doesn’t look that way from here.

67

[QUOTE=samm]
It seems you are trying to determine who was right and who was wrong in this scenario.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with samm, only you’re also really trying to be sure your friend is right and the guy is wrong.

Obviously, the guy is performing rather poorly when it comes to breaking up. I don’t think there’s a lot of support for the “don’t call back, stand her up, send weird texts” method of breaking up. Unfortunately, it’s a fairly common failing to do stupid shit to avoid confrontation and hurting other people, and they wind up hurt anyway. You can call him a jerk for it, but he’s not even close to alone there.

When it comes to the decision to break up, I don’t think you can assign a great deal of fault to him, without deeply understanding the decision from his side. Your friend had what amounts to a drunken nervous breakdown that could have ended in tragedy. That’s a frightening thing to see for some people, and you can’t tell someone they need to act as though it never happened.

68

In reflection, it doesn’t really matter what she did. The facts are:
(1) They made plans to to spend the night together before her trip.
(2) He confirmed those plans via a text early in the evening.
(3) He failed to show up, didn’t call, and didn’t answer or return her calls.

After he failed to show up and not contact her for days, she had NO IDEA what happened or why. What he did was cowardly and incredibly rude. And also really bizarre.

I can understand that she got drunk and acted stupid - people tend to do that when they’re intoxicated. But he’s acting stupid and he’s sober.

I’m not defending her bad behavior. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t break up with her because of it. I’m just saying that doing 1, 2 & 3 above is extremely rude and cowardly. Even with what she did, she did not deserve that.

If he wanted to break up with her, he should have told her. Even a simple text saying “it’s over” would have sufficed.

The main point of my thread was asking, why would someone act that way? And I still don’t understand it. Why would you make plans with someone, and just not show up, not answer their calls, not let them know what happened? It seems like only someone who feels some sort of perverse joy in hurting others would do that. It seems like a much more “nuts” thing to do compared with drinking too much and acting stupid - in his case, it was a sober, purposeful, planned act. Anyone would understand that type of behavior is hurtful.

69

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]

She said what bugs her the most is that for 5 months, he pulled the wool over her eyes, and she really trusted that he loved her. He put forward an image of this really nice and sweet guy, and he turned out to be the total opposite.
[/QUOTE]

He could very well be thinking the same thing. “You know, for five months she put forward this image of being this really nice and stable girl, but then she went to the party and got wasted and turned out to be the total opposite.” I think you both need to realize that just as you both are disappointed in the way he’s handling this breakup, he is probably just as disappointed in her for losing control of herself.

As for his method of breaking up with her, I would think that him seeing her crying uncontrollably while drunk would make him reluctant to “officially” break up with her, lest she perform the sober version on him. I know I would be.

You seem really eager to paint him as this evil ex-boyfriend scheming to hurt your cousin as much as possible. I find it much more likely that he really did love her and part of him still loves her and wants to be with her, but another part of him is uncomfortable with her and wants to be far, far away, and that his actions reflect these conflicting emotions.

70

[QUOTE= nctea scandica]
I’m not defending her bad behavior. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t break up with her because of it. I’m just saying that doing 1, 2 & 3 above is extremely rude and cowardly. Even with what she did, she did not deserve that.
[/QUOTE]

Your third sentence contradicts your first.

Besides, you and he have entirely different ideas about what actions are warranted, and when. And neither your idea nor his idea are closer to what is “proper,” because there is no universal code of what to do.

Besides:

-all you have is HER version, which is not the objective version by a long shot.
-you are inherently biased with regard to the parties.
Let this go. All you’re doing is trying to get third-party confirmation that your friend is in the right and this guy was a bastard. And neither of those statements will ever be fully true, and you will never even be able to tell whether one is more true than the other because of the above two points.

71

[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup]
Your third sentence contradicts your first.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t see how - sentence 3 does not defend her.

[QUOTE=Happy Scrappy Hero Pup]
Besides, you and he have entirely different ideas about what actions are warranted, and when. And neither your idea nor his idea are closer to what is “proper,” because there is no universal code of what to do.
[/QUOTE]
My idea was that he (1) should not have stood her up and (2) told her he wanted to break up, instead of disappear. That’s not even close to “proper?”

72

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
In reflection, it doesn’t really matter what she did. The facts are:
(1) They made plans to to spend the night together before her trip.
(2) He confirmed those plans via a text early in the evening.
(3) He failed to show up, didn’t call, and didn’t answer or return her calls.

After he failed to show up and not contact her for days, she had NO IDEA what happened or why. What he did was cowardly and incredibly rude. And also really bizarre.

I can understand that she got drunk and acted stupid - people tend to do that when they’re intoxicated. But he’s acting stupid and he’s sober.

I’m not defending her bad behavior. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t break up with her because of it. I’m just saying that doing 1, 2 & 3 above is extremely rude and cowardly. Even with what she did, she did not deserve that.

If he wanted to break up with her, he should have told her. Even a simple text saying “it’s over” would have sufficed.

The main point of my thread was asking, why would someone act that way? And I still don’t understand it. Why would you make plans with someone, and just not show up, not answer their calls, not let them know what happened? It seems like only someone who feels some sort of perverse joy in hurting others would do that. It seems like a much more “nuts” thing to do compared with drinking too much and acting stupid - in his case, it was a sober, purposeful, planned act. Anyone would understand that type of behavior is hurtful.
[/QUOTE]

It doesn’t matter what she did? That is the biggest load of fertilizer yet in this thread.
People have given their answeres to you question. You don’t understand because you don’t want to understand. You want everyone to defend you poor poor cousin and say what a mustach twirling bastardo he was.

He was there that night. You were not.
He is the best judge of wether or not her actions were a deal breaker.

You cousin is 28 and works in a bar? She should know when enough is enough. And no one goes on these crying jags for ‘no reason’. She was spouting reasons that night. Reasons he heard.

You asked for our opinions but what you really wanted was a lynch mob and you aren’t going to get it.

73

I have to say, nyctea, I very much understand how you feel. I think you summed it up pretty well, why was he so cowardly as to not even just come out and break up with her directly? I hate, hate, hate it when people play such games of avoidance. I mean, for chrissakes, okay, yes, maybe breaking up with her would be unpleasant. That does not negate his responsibility to break up with her!

Why the heck are people so freaking afraid of a little bit of confrontation??? Is two hours of unpleasantness so much worse than several days of avoidance? My general response to this kind of behavior is WTF?

I think this whole situation might hit a little too close to home for me . . . anyways, as you said earlier, I too wish that people could be more honest.

Gestalt

74

[QUOTE=Zebra]
You cousin is 28 and works in a bar?
[/QUOTE]

No, it’s a restaurant, which happens to have a bar, and she only works there one night a week as a waitress, not a bartender. She is a schoolteacher full-time.

75

[QUOTE=Zebra]
It doesn’t matter what she did? That is the biggest load of fertilizer yet in this thread.
[/QUOTE]
When it comes to how you break up, maybe it doesn’t matter all that much. Yes, there’s a difference in break up technique between the girl who chews too loud and the girl you caught banging a meth dealer. However, regardless of how screwed up she was that night, I’m not getting the sense that she was intentionally cruel to the guy, so she deserves a bit of consideration, even if the relationship is over.

He did a bad job breaking up. That doesn’t automatically make him the worlds biggest asshole, but it’s hard to hear how it went down and think he handled it well.

76

[QUOTE=Zebra]
You cousin is 28 and works in a bar? She should know when enough is enough. And no one goes on these crying jags for ‘no reason’. She was spouting reasons that night. Reasons he heard.
[/QUOTE]

So what? None of that explains or excuses his behavior - standing her up, not telling her what happened, not telling her he wanted to break up.

Besides, how do you know that “she was spouting reasons that night.” Were you there? I wasn’t either, but I don’t believe she lied to me about it.

And also, misjudging your tolerance and getting too intoxicated doesn’t mean you’re a horrible fucked-up person deserving of mistreatment… and crying whilst drunk doesn’t either. I don’t get your rationale here. Maybe she was crying because she drank too much and felt sick? Drinking too much makes me very sick - sick enough to want to cry, so I can understand. Automatically assuming she’s some fucked-up crazy is very unfairly presumptuous of you.

Many people in here are working very hard to demonize her, while excusing his behavior completely. She did everything wrong, and he did nothing wrong, or she deserved to be treated cruelly because she made a mistake. I don’t get your harshness.

77

Look, here’s the deal. The guy reserves the right to fall out of love with your friend for any reason whatsover. Apparently getting drunk and acting crazy, even if it’s a one time thing, is a dealbreaker for this guy. So be it.

Clearly he has indicated that he is just no longer into her by deeds if not in so many words. Maybe he should have sent her an email or text message or Post it note or something so she’s not wasting her time calling him, but whatever. The face to face break up is overrated anyway. I mean what’s the point? So she can conduct an exit interview? To allow her to get upset and call him an asshole or throw a drink in his face? The guy probably isn’t an asshole. He didn’t break up with her to be mean or out of spite. It’s probably that he just doesn’t want to deal with the drama of her crying or pleading or throwing shit. Not to mention that after her sobbing fit, he might think her a bit unstable anyway.

It’s not an issue of right or wrong. You can do everthing right an a relationship still might not work out. Ultimately that’s what this amounts to. She drank a little too much. He couldn’t handle it and took off. That’s it.

If it makes her feel better, pretend he got hit by a bus or sent off into the witness protection program and never had the chance to say goodbye.

78

And here’s another thing, some guys don’t really show outward signs of discontent. Like me, for instance. I don’t nail a thesis to a girl’s front door everytime I have a little grievance or she does something that turns me off. Everything in a relationship with me might seem hunky-dory, but for alot of them the background count of inevitable breakup starts ticking not far into it. Right up until that last tick, a girl might have absolutely no idea that I was getting fed up, bored, or whatever.

79

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]
Many people in here are working very hard to demonize her, while excusing his behavior completely. She did everything wrong, and he did nothing wrong, or she deserved to be treated cruelly because she made a mistake. I don’t get your harshness.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t think that I’ve read that.

Just based on what you’ve written that two things strike me:

a) Your thread is titled “why would a guy treat a friend this way”. It seems fairly clear based on what you’ve written that the precipitating event was the night of drunkeness. I don’t think you’re going to get further illumination on this board. Posters can, and have, speculated as to what was going on in the guy’s head that caused it. I don’t think you or your cousin is going to get any further explanation from here in any kind of helpful or meaningful way.

b) Although you’ve asked the “why”, it does appear from reading your posts that what you are really looking for is comforting for your cousin and maybe you that the guy behaved irrationally and unforgivably, and you’re not getting the level of reassurance that you’re seeking. That may not be your intention, but that is how it appears to me. If so, I don’t know that you’re going to get it, and I wonder whether continuing this thread is helping you or your cousin at all. FWIW, in my opinion, neither of them behaved blamelessly, your cousin in getting drunk and setting the events in motion, and the guy in the way that he finished it.

80

I’m surprised at how little focus there seems to be on what I see as the key disturbing features of Jonathan’s behavior. As a number of posters have correctedly noted, it is his right to break up with her for any reason whatsoever-- whether he suddenly notices she eats pizza wrong or she transforms into a virago, if he stops caring for her, what’s he supposed to do, pretend he loves her for the next 50 years?

Nope, that’s not the problem. And while suddenly cutting off all contact may not be the most gracious way to break up, that’s not the problem either (especially since Delores did behave in an unseemly way; he might understandably feel that the situation speaks for itself).

No, the problem is his inconsistent behavior. You don’t cut a relationship off cold, then agree to meet the BF/GF again, tell them you love them on the phone, and send them a text message that says “I love you.”

Posters’ speculation that her behavior touched a nerve due to familial and/or previous lovers’ problems with alcohol makes sense to me. It’s a reason, not an excuse; if prior traumas gave us permission to act like jerks, most of the world would be justifiably acting like assholes.

Here’s one more WAG: if she got as drunk as it seems she did, is it possible she has forgotten something that happened that night which he finds mortifying?