Dear baby, welcome to dumpsville. Population: you.

July 29, 2003 12:39 PM

Fifteen ways to leave your lover.In seventh grade, my then girlfriend had her best friend dump me. On the bus. I thought that was hell. I was wrong. The Guardian, in tribute to a Malaysian man that divorced his wife via text message, lists the fifteen harshest break-ups in history.
posted by Ufez Jones (87 comments total)

my then girlfriend had her best friend dump me. On the bus.

Is your real name Gus, perchance?

The Guardian thing is cute, but a little slim. I'd think they could've worked a little harder on it and come up with 50.
posted by soyjoy at 12:51 PM on July 29, 2003

There's doing something you have a right and a need to do. And then there's doing something you have a right and a need to do in an incredibly cruel and cowardly way.

Didn't Bob Dole walk into his sick wife's hospital room, dump divorce papers on her bed, say, "I want a divorce and I don't want to talk about it," then walk out again?

Here's one I know happened: A guy I'd been involved with for three months was supposed to come pick me up for a New Year's Eve weekend at his place. He never showed up, never returned my phone messages. He had a set of keys to my apartment which he never returned. Never did hear from him again. (This is not a bid for pity, mind you, just a offering for what could be a fun thread.)
posted by orange swan at 12:52 PM on July 29, 2003

Is your real name Gus, perchance?

No need to be coy, soyjoy.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:54 PM on July 29, 2003

No mention of Rudy Giuliani? There had been trouble in that marriage for years, but finally making it official via press conference (before telling the Missus) has got to be a first.
posted by Asparagirl at 12:55 PM on July 29, 2003

Once I dated a girl (a complete wackjob, but that's another story) who worked at a bookstore with me. It was casual but affections were building.

Then one day, another co-worker mentioned that she was moody because of something "her fiancee" had said. Slick.

About 3 years later, she called me and reminisced about our [ahem] exploits and less than 2 minutes later asked me if I had any Black Sabbath records. When I said yes, she said it was dangerous because that was a way to let Satan sneak into my mind.

I'm sooo glad I'm no longer single. I wasn't good at it.
posted by jonmc at 12:55 PM on July 29, 2003

I'm sooo glad I'm no longer single. I wasn't good at it

i hear you man.

i was broken up with via email back in 1994. That was the first time. Second was a few years later. i shouldn't have dated early adopters of technology.
posted by th3ph17 at 1:00 PM on July 29, 2003

I dated a woman for several months, very intense, met her parents, she met mine, our kids played together, all that. Went on a week long trip with her, came back. She broke up with me on IM the next day. IM. Haven't spoken to her since.

I'll likely see her at a picnic next weekend. Been two years. How's that going to be?
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:01 PM on July 29, 2003

Man. I thought I was cold when I broke up over the phone with an ex. I got nuthin on these folks.
posted by Nauip at 1:02 PM on July 29, 2003

swan: that was Gingrich. He divorced his first wife while she was in the hospital bed recovering from cancer as he scribbled the agreement out on a legal pad. I've heard versions indicating the kids were in the hospital room visiting Mom at the time.

Then he married his geometry teacher from high school or something like that.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:03 PM on July 29, 2003

Oh man, I've gotta do this later this week. No fun at all.
posted by dydecker at 1:04 PM on July 29, 2003

I've got two (my last two actually):

1. My live-in girlfriend is planning a trip to Ohio to visit her parents. I offer to pay the tickets because she didn't have the money at the time. 1 week before said trip arrives, she tells me she wants to leave. She stills goes on her trip to Ohio where, as I found out later, she met up with a guy she met on Everquest who was from New Zealand. She shortly there after moved to New Zealand and married the guy.

2. Girl I was getting to know goes on trip, tells me that when she gets back we'll actually go out on a "date". Turns out said trip was to see her ex graduate from a military academy. Shortly after she arrived, he got down on one knee and proposed. She accepted, and then told me about it via e-mail.

Like orange swan said, not for pity, just more fodder for a fun thread.
posted by turacma at 1:05 PM on July 29, 2003

back in second grade, I was dating this chick named bethany for a while but for whatever reason I started dating this girl named stella and it never occurred to me to tell bethany and she didn't find out until a year later.

anyways, long story short, now it hurts when I pronounce vowels and my credit rating is something awful!
posted by mcsweetie at 1:05 PM on July 29, 2003

I used to be engaged to a woman, we moved in together. Broke up two weeks later, but I couldn't find another place to live for 2 1/2 months, during which I slept on the couch and spent pretty much every waking non-work hour running or biking to be out of the apartment.
posted by COBRA! at 1:05 PM on July 29, 2003

The article and this thread are giving me those special shivers caused by things better left forgotten. If I hadn't met the one true love of my life and married her I would have probably been (justifiably) murdered by now. I was not exactly the king of classy breakups.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:10 PM on July 29, 2003

The Matt Damon - Minnie Driver breakup was made extra entertaining because at the Oscars that year he won for screenwriting (with Ben Affleck) for "Good Will Hunting". Everyone in the movie was sitting together (meaning the cameras could show both Damon and Driver sitting in different rows). When he won and ran up to get his award, the awards director ordered a camera to cut to HER reaction. Minnie was shown to the world looking VERY stone-faced and clapping in an unenthusiastic manner (while everyone else involved in the movie was whooping it up around her).
posted by grum@work at 1:11 PM on July 29, 2003

No need to be coy, soyjoy.

Whatever U sez, Ufez.
posted by soyjoy at 1:15 PM on July 29, 2003

just talk to jonmc, and set yourself free...
posted by jonmc at 1:22 PM on July 29, 2003

Back in my bastardly days I decided that it was time to break up with my girlfriend. Not only was she not expecting it but I did it over the phone, and I did it by dubbing the intro of a song and then playing it when she answered. I personalized the intro to Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" something like this

1971, January 27, Batboy is born
1988, at the age of 17 Batboy meets batgirl
1989, they start dating
On December 5th of that same year, batboy dumps batgirl
posted by batboy at 1:23 PM on July 29, 2003

Rather like the Daniel Day-Lewis entry, I heard that Phil Collins asked wife #2 for a divorce via fax when he was out of the country and fell for his interpreter (aka wife #3). Why do I remember these things? I guess in the hope that someday I'll win a huge prize.
posted by witchstone at 1:23 PM on July 29, 2003

I have another - fortunately not mine, was confided to me by a guy I dated briefly:

He and his live-in were heavily in debt from student loans - her bills were much the worse as she was working on a PHd. He decided he would leave Toronto to go out west to work temporarily on the Albertan oil rigs. (The oil rigs pay very well but are very dangerous.) They'd agreed that he would return in six months and then they would get engaged. So according to plan, he headed out west, sent half his earnings back to her so she could put them on her debt, and returned as promised in six months' time. To find that the woman was living with a pizza delivery guy, had been since the week after he left.
posted by orange swan at 1:26 PM on July 29, 2003

Sounds like Loserfilter.. . ..and hey count me in. . .
posted by Danf at 1:28 PM on July 29, 2003

Come on Danf.... dish it...
posted by orange swan at 1:34 PM on July 29, 2003

I recall hearing that Ray Davies found out that Chrissie Hynde (of The Pretenders) had married Jim Kerr (of Simple Minds) when a radio interviewer asked Davies what he thought of Hynde & Kerr's marriage. Apparently he thought he & Hynde were still together.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:43 PM on July 29, 2003

Oh man, I've gotta do this later this week. No fun at all.

dude, I hope s/he doesn't read MetaFilter...
posted by Vetinari at 1:45 PM on July 29, 2003

Oh man, I've gotta do this later this week. No fun at all.

dude, I hope s/he doesn't read MetaFilter...

actually I think he's hoping she does.


Metafilter: We suck at dating
posted by carfilhiot at 1:49 PM on July 29, 2003

oh, and why is Bert McCracken on the list? The Valentine's Day call is bad and all, but it's not all that uncommon. Hell, I got the But I Still Want To Be Friends call one Valentine's Day. Now, being shut out of my girlfriend's coronation, or dumped on Oprah, or beheaded....

actually I think he's hoping she does.

I wonder, would that be a first?
posted by Vetinari at 1:52 PM on July 29, 2003

there's always your classic shimrod/melancthe/tamurello/carfilhiot story...

(still trying to find time to finish The Green Pearl)
posted by dorian at 1:59 PM on July 29, 2003

I dated a girl I met online for a bit last year. After the usual coyness on both our parts (to make sure the other person wasn't nuts), we met, and discovered that we'd known each other years before - she'd dated my cousin, helped deliver my niece, etc. We hit it off extremely well, (didn't hurt that she was gorgeous and had my favorite artist's last CD in her car on our fist date), I was falling fast, and then suddenly...nothing. Turns out her ex-fiance had shown up from out of town minutes after I left her place one sunday morning, proposed, and she said yes. I found this out a year later when she called and apologized for the whole mess (better late than never, I suppose). I've gotta say, to bother to call after that much time took some guts, but sheesh.
posted by notsnot at 2:08 PM on July 29, 2003

Well I was dating Loren. . . .she went out of town, after pointedly leaving her toothbrush at my house. . .a week later, when she got back, her words were, "I want to cancel our lovership."

She never came for her toothbrush although she continued to use my house as a 'pitstop' during the day, when I was not there .. and still has one of my sweaters.

happy now orange swan?
posted by Danf at 2:12 PM on July 29, 2003

A friend of mine had his girlfriend leave with his money and his car. The last he ever heard of her was a steady stream of "parking tickets from LaFayette."

Fortunately, I happen to play in a country-western band and should be able to provide some closure in a song.
posted by stet at 2:18 PM on July 29, 2003

For some reason, Danf, that's the most hateful woman to me in all of the stories I've heard in this thread. Not sure why, maybe just the image of the woman basically robbing you of your two most private entities at the same time. "I don't want to sleep with you anymore, but I'm gonna use your bathroom every now and then. Mmmkay?"

stet: wouldn't that sort of be a cue to report the car stolen or something?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:23 PM on July 29, 2003

...Or did you mean "pitstop" by she wants to have sex with other guys in your house? Which I'm not sure is better or worse....
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:24 PM on July 29, 2003

XQUZYPHYR: I'd have thought so, but it's a ten-year-old story that may have been slightly modified for entertainment purposes. Might have been a joint-ownership situation. I do know that he got out of paying the parking tickets, which is the nastiest, most-tarnished and generally crappy silver lining of all.

That and the fact that it's pretty easy to rhyme Laff-Yet.
posted by stet at 2:36 PM on July 29, 2003

"Lovership"?
posted by gottabefunky at 2:37 PM on July 29, 2003

Sounds like some god-awful 80s-band supergroup.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:37 PM on July 29, 2003

she was gorgeous and had my favorite artist's last CD in her car on our fist date

must... resist... urge... to make... tasteless joke...
posted by soyjoy at 2:38 PM on July 29, 2003

Sounds like some god-awful 80s-band supergroup.

It was the merger of Loverboy and Starship, remember? They had that one hit "We Built This City for the Weekend". or was it "Working on Rock and Roll"? I can't remember...
posted by nath at 2:55 PM on July 29, 2003

gottabefunky. . .

"I want to cancel our lovership" were the exact words. . .

Thinking that there might be some kind of post traumatic dealy in this episode that eventually caused me to post that bad cnn link the other day . . .
posted by Danf at 2:56 PM on July 29, 2003

After returning from college Christmas break I found the s.o. I had left unsupervised for only 3 weeks was engaged to someone else.

I've been abandoned out of the blue by a live-in who steathfully cleared out while I was at a tennis game.

I was scrapped by a @#$$%@, who could dramatically express no reason and so had to be helped out of the relationship (and the closet) with a "didn't you know" conversation by the lover who I thought was just a best friend. Then it was my fault for being so naive and non-observatory.

It's no wonder I'm just a bit bitter.
posted by dness2 at 3:00 PM on July 29, 2003

This story was told to one of my classes in high school by our teacher. Before I begin, I should point out that this was told to us so that we wouldn't follow his evil example, not as a matter of pride.

Back when he was in high school, he went out to Quebec on a trip with his hockey team. One night, he meets a lovely francophone girl and is taken in by her accent/smoking/complete indifference towards him/whatever. Being the good Catholic that he was, he felt guilty about cheating on his girlfriend, and he didn't want a heavenly beat-down. So he excuses himself, finds a pay-phone, calls his girlfriend collect, and dumps her.

After a night o' fun (30 seconds o' fun?) he realizes that he now has no loving girlfriend to return to. When he gets home, he calls her up and apologizes for the whole thing. She decided to take him back, but only after he paid her parents back for the collect call.

Learning can be fun.
posted by mzanatta at 3:01 PM on July 29, 2003

"The looooooooove ship.... sooon will be making another run... The loooooooooove ship...."
posted by keswick at 3:02 PM on July 29, 2003

Having reluctantly come to like Matt Damon over the last couple years, I found the "Dumped Minnie Driver on Oprah" one hard to swallow, and did a little research. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's outright bullshit, but you can at least read his side of the story here.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 3:09 PM on July 29, 2003

Many years ago, going to pick up my girlfriend (of more than a year) to go out to dinner on Christmas Eve, I arrived at her (parent's) house to discover that she wasn't there. Her German step-mother had been given the job of explaining to me that she was now going out with someone else and hence wouldn't be going out to dinner with me - in fact she didn't want to see me again!
posted by daveg at 3:11 PM on July 29, 2003

My last girlfriend was a friend for four years before we started dating. Long-distance relationship (she was still in college, which was where we met, and I had graduated several years earlier and moved back to my hometown.) When she graduated, I helped her move from Maryland to northern Va., where she was going to live with another friend from school. She called me up one night about a month after the move (at that point we'd only seen each other once since graduation/moving) and said, "I've been thinking: I don't want to be in a relationship anymore, so I want to break up."

It's been two years since that phone call, and I still don't know why the breakup happened, what led her to her decision, how long she'd been contemplating it, etc. She never wanted to explain her reasons, and she asked at least one mutual friend to help keep me in the dark. That's not the kind of lasting impression I'd want to leave on an ex. Not being able to look a boyfriend/girlfriend in the eye when delivering news like that is pretty weak and disrespectful too.

I'd like to ask anyone here who lives in Fairfax County, Va. and runs into her to kick her in the back for me, but that might damage my Nice Guy™ reputation. I've got a box of her stuff that I don't want anymore, but no one will give me her address.

/rant
posted by emelenjr at 3:11 PM on July 29, 2003

All right... I had been living with this woman for four years. I paid all the bills, including rent. We had just bought a $1000 futon bed on my credit card. We had just laid down $1200 so we could fly to visit my folks. One morning she says, "it isn't working. You need to move out."

"But I pay the rent..."

"Yes, but I've arranged for you to stay somewhere else for free so you can pay the rent still since I can't."

So, I paid her rent for three more months, it took two years on my G.A. stipend to pay off my credit card for a futon bed that I got to use for a week and haven't seen since and, later, learned that my best friend had been living with her as her new lover for the three months I paid rent. And she never paid me back for plane tickets. And she kept the cats.

I would say that I am no longer a good person to date.

Hurray!
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:23 PM on July 29, 2003

I've got a box of her stuff that I don't want anymore, but no one will give me her address.

Can we do voodoo-things with these?
posted by kahboom at 3:27 PM on July 29, 2003

Ok, lessee... how can I tell this without giving away the splashy ending...

Five year relationship, engaged; three years in, everything was still at the height of Love Beauty and Happiness. I was reassigned to the corporate office 20 miles away, she remained in the local office, and hired on an assistant.

Two years later, she took an evening to inform me

1) Her assistant was her best friend, because "once you've been lovers, you can never really be friends. Right?"

2) She wouldn't be out next Thursday night because it was supposed to rain.

This was on Friday.

Uh huh.

Well, next Thursday came, and no rain. But she pulled a musclke, and was thereby unable to go out that night. I was, though. Took an early from work, and followed her and her assistant to the motel.

Took some pictures. Sent 'em to his wife the next day. I called her and asked how the leg was. Happily it was all better. Good news - we could see each other next week... for Valentine's Day! I was a little underwhelmed.
posted by Perigee at 3:28 PM on July 29, 2003

MeFi needs a hug.
posted by kahboom at 3:29 PM on July 29, 2003

She told me she loved me. I'm involved with someone else. I end it with someone else. She says the thrill is gone.
posted by Yossarian at 3:40 PM on July 29, 2003

Yossarian. . . .been there, done that. . . .gives ya that warm feeling, huh?
posted by Danf at 3:41 PM on July 29, 2003

"You seem to be one who knows the difficulties between men and women, how seldom it works out. Yet we all keep trying like fools." - Lo Pan [.wav]

One broke up with me on Valentine's Day after I took her on a ski weekend during which she flirted with all the instructors; last I heard she was on the run from the law for fraudulently obtaining Nagel paintings.

One broke up with me over the phone after a 2-1/2 year long distance talking-about-marriage relationship. She married a Mafia guy who's allergic to grass.

Another one was too busy with work to go away on weekends, to busy to take dance lessons, and too busy to go to the Lyle Lovett concert I'd gotten front-row tickets for. She tried the make-them-miserable-until-they-dump-you gambit, which took about four months because, you know, I loved her and all. About a month afterwards at our let's-be-friends dinner, she raved about how much fun she was having going to concerts and taking dance lessons.

<sayAnything>Bitches, man.</sayAnything>

emelenjr: I'm from Fairfax County, and I'll be going there for Christmas. Maybe we can work something out!
posted by kirkaracha at 3:44 PM on July 29, 2003

soyjoy- yeah, I tipe reel gud.
posted by notsnot at 3:44 PM on July 29, 2003

Danf...yup. 5 years later and I'm still annoyed about that one.
posted by Yossarian at 3:49 PM on July 29, 2003

One time I dated a girl who I later found out, through informants of mine, was an enemy agent sent to infiltrate my organization. TAK TAK TAK
posted by crazy finger at 3:50 PM on July 29, 2003

Oh, and another great one- I had a crush in college with a girl I knew from the Catholic Student center. We got to be decent friends - not hanging out elsewhere, but I worked so much it didn't matter. At any rate, I started going to her basketball games, (not stalking, she invited me) and I hate basketball; on Valeltine's Day I expressed my crush on her. She told me, well, she didn't think it would work, and I accepted that, with some difficulty. I only found out much later (three years later) that she's gay. Whoops. If I'd been told that at the outset, might have saved me a lot of pain. Not a breakup story, but still a grievous-lack-of-communication story.
posted by notsnot at 3:50 PM on July 29, 2003

Did I mention that I'm in love and she's sweet and as pretty as she is funny and I haven't a care in the world?
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:54 PM on July 29, 2003

So, I paid her rent for three more months, it took two years on my G.A. stipend to pay off my credit card for a futon bed that I got to use for a week and haven't seen since and, later, learned that my best friend had been living with her as her new lover for the three months I paid rent. And she never paid me back for plane tickets. And she kept the cats.


No offense, dude, but that is just doormat-ism. No one can take advantage of you without your permission.
posted by norm at 4:00 PM on July 29, 2003

Ooh. Thread crash! Nice guys thread, stay in your own lane!
posted by onlyconnect at 4:13 PM on July 29, 2003

I would love more than anything to have again the chance to break up with that retarded shitbag. I don't feel I put enough effort into it last time. This time I would take along my friend, Mr. Nine, to help explain.
You could say I harbour a grudge.
posted by Joeforking at 4:32 PM on July 29, 2003

Before I get lumped in with that asshole in the obvious Metafilter Misogyny Epidemic, my comment in this thread was totally facetious.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:10 PM on July 29, 2003

The examples on the linked articles and so far in this thread are pretty tame, IMO. You haven't really been dumped until you find out via a knock on the door from the police...
posted by dg at 5:47 PM on July 29, 2003

My boyfriend in HS, who had agreed with me that proms were incredibly stupid and and bourgeosie and a whole bunch of other words we didn't actually understand at the time, broke up with me by accepting an offer from one of my friends to attend the prom. His explanation, "Well, I'm young and I want to experience life."

Funnily enough, he was the only friend from high school who came to my wedding...
posted by headspace at 5:55 PM on July 29, 2003

Was a founding member of a competition drama troupe, and did what a stage manager should never do, especially during rehersals: allowed myself to be wooed by one of the lead actors. He acted (suprise!) head over heels for me for a few weeks, then at 7am on the first day of the competition pulled me aside to tell me his friends didn't think I was good enough for him and it wasn't going to work out. I then was forced to spend the next 48 hours of the competition in his very immediate presence while he macked on the actresses.

Fast forward a few months: same guy dumps me again, again after only a few weeks (yes, me=idiot), with the excuse that a close friend had commited suicide and he wasn't "emotionally stable" enough to be in a relationship. Seemed perfectly valid, though I found out a little later, the friend hadn't "technically died by her own hand." Found out a little more later she wasn't dead at all.

Wheee high school!
posted by nelleish at 6:33 PM on July 29, 2003

What norm said. No offense Joey but she kicked you out of the place you were paying rent for? In what world did that make sense? Hell, in New York City, owning the keys to an apartment can near-guarantee your live-in girlfriend will never want to break up with you! ;)
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:59 PM on July 29, 2003

kirkacha I can't seem to find an address or phone number for her, although I did figure out where she happens to work. Unless her roommate's father just so happens to employ someone by the same name as my ex, anyway.

Full(er) disclosure:My insistance on wanting to know answers from her two years ago, which never escalated beyond e-mail and phone calls because I respected her privacy enough not to just show up unannounced, led her to contact the police. She believed I was harassing her when I was only attempting to get her to be a little more forthcoming with information. The last letter I received from her said any more contact from me would lead her to press charges. So it appears she may have won this round.

Kahboom, I considered that. I also considered selling the stuff on eBay or attaching helium baloons to each of the items and letting them go. Anybody want a bra?
posted by emelenjr at 7:02 PM on July 29, 2003

i found out he was living with another woman from his little sister.

happily, that's all behind me now
posted by sugarfish at 7:02 PM on July 29, 2003

i had a short fling with a girl in college who ended up dumping me for her coke dealer.

i thought that was pretty classy.

(the guy had a ponytail! ah, good times.)
posted by fishfucker at 8:16 PM on July 29, 2003

...the secret to dating, of course, is to be the coke dealer.
posted by aramaic at 8:32 PM on July 29, 2003

I dated this one girl whose previous boyfriend had picked her up for a date and stopped off to make a drug buy on their way to dinner. All I had to do to impress her was avoid committing felonies while we were out.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:58 PM on July 29, 2003

I was cheated on for several months by my live-in boyfriend when we were both 19. I found this out after the fact. He dumped me for the little goth/punk Japanese girl living under us. He then proceeded to dump her for an 18 year old science major, who he's still with today as far as I know. The funny part of the sordid little affair was the goth/punk Japanese girl asking me out a month or so after being dumped. Turns out she was bi. :)
posted by littlegirlblue at 9:03 PM on July 29, 2003

I broke up with someone very badly when I was 19. I feel sad about it to this day, and sometimes wish I could apologize in retrospect, but I wouldn't want to invade his privacy, seeing as we haven't spoken for almost 20 years. But still. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have recognized that he was a far better bet than the guy I dumped him for, who struck up relationships with other women during our entire five years together (including abandoning me for a Swiss gal when we were travelling in Israel, leaving me to make my way back to Canada on my own), and who emotionally punished me for his own insecurities, etc. etc. I left the nice guy for the guitar playing, snappy dressing Leonardo Di Caprio look alike, and paid for my shallowness for a long time thereafter.

Uh, so, maybe that goes in the nice guy thread. Personally I think the Nice Guy conundrum might be viewed as the female equivalent of that other dating myth, the male fear of commitment. Just a theory. [20:20 hindsight] I chose to be involved in a neurotic, dramatic, emotional carwreck of a relationship instead of one which would have actually demanded of me that I think and feel as an adult. That was essentially the problem, right there. [/20:20 hindsight]
posted by jokeefe at 9:03 PM on July 29, 2003

At age 14, I broke up with a guy I was going with by having my new bf call him and tell him never to call me again. But there was a karmic price and I paid it a few years later, when my then bf dumped me and started going out with one of my roommates, because she was skinnier than I was and he always liked thin girls best. Sigh. Good times indeed. And keep High Fidelity in mind, where John Cusack's character lists his top 5 breakups, and then finds out the real reason why they broke up! Good thread, Ufez, thanks!
posted by Lynsey at 10:20 PM on July 29, 2003

yeah, I tipe reel gud.

Don't be a hotshot, notsnot.
posted by soyjoy at 10:31 PM on July 29, 2003

When I was 17 I was dumped by a girl's best friend via e-mail. Sort of a double whammy.
posted by synecdoche at 10:48 PM on July 29, 2003

Inspired by this thread, I looked at my lifetime record and discovered that, in my relationships, I've initiated harsh breakups three times more than I've received. And 1/4 of the relationships ended in ties.

Its nice to be on the winning side and remain the asshole and not the asshole-ee (if this could be a word...)
posted by pandaharma at 1:07 AM on July 30, 2003

Desperately in love with school and college sweetheart for close seven years, moved in together for less than a year.

She travels to Ecuador for two months work as a medic prior to finishing medical school. Falls for 20 year old local who doesn’t speak English and has 6 week relationship. Gets back, dumps me, names and shames the end of our relationship on friendsreunited.com (UK equivalent of classmates.com)

[shakes head]
posted by dmt at 3:07 AM on July 30, 2003

I was dumped on the morning of my 18th birthday. And then had to drive home alone, hungover and vomiting.

Good times, good times...
posted by JoanArkham at 4:11 AM on July 30, 2003

Norm and X: Heh. Yeah, I oversimplified a bit. Technically, she said it was a "trial separation." At the time, I believed I would be moving back in any day. It was at the three month point that I realized I had been conned and cut off payments. My excellent good friend had to start paying her rent at that point. See, it has a happy ending!
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:13 AM on July 30, 2003

jokeefe's hindsight is clear. I think my lovelife in my 20s was themed with the 'romantic' 'it ain't really love unless one (or both) of us suffers for it.' So are you gonna be the ass this time, or shall I?
Stir in hope and a confusion of desire and reality.

3 years ago I met a (funny sexy clever and single) person who is really really nice and loves me for who I am and yet doesn't take shit. As he was on his way overseas to visit me, one of his friends wrote, 'Take care of him for us, will you?' Worth being the best person I can for, I'd say.
posted by spandex at 5:40 AM on July 30, 2003

I'm surprised Frank Sinatra didn't make the list for sending a lawyer to tell Mia Farrow that he wanted out of their marriage. Of course, Mia and Woody Allen's breakup was pretty bad too. I believe she discovered that the Woodman had naked pictures of Soon Yi, one of her adopted children. But then Frank made up for his earlier actions by calling Mia and offering to have Woody's legs broken. That's class!
posted by Man-Thing at 7:25 AM on July 30, 2003

::: reads thread, crawls back into box, pulls down lid :::
posted by rushmc at 7:27 AM on July 30, 2003

Anybody else waiting for the bad part of littlegirlblue's story?
posted by NortonDC at 9:44 AM on July 30, 2003

last I heard she was on the run from the law for fraudulently obtaining Nagel paintings.

This is the worst kind of woman in the world, watch out for her...

I dated a woman that every one of my friends hated. I couldn't figure out why. Neither could they, all they could say was "Vito90, there's something not quite right about her." I thought they were jealous of her beauty or her booty or something. Anyway, we dated for three months before I decided it wasn't working out and I wanted to end it. She was the biggest baseball fan in the world, and had asked me to go to a Mariner's game. I decided I would dump her after the game, because I knew going to the game would be very important to her. But after the game ended and thousands and thousands of people were streaming out of Safeco field, I said to her, let's just sit here for a moment. When there was nobody else around us, I dumped her like yesterday's lawn clippings.

We had driven together in her car, my car was back at the bar we met at. Sobbing, but not speaking, she drove me back to the bar. I asked if she wanted to have a drink and talk. She said no and peeled away. I went in for a celebratory beer. She returned fifteen minutes later and sat next to me. I asked if she wanted to talk. No response. I asked if she wanted a beer. No response. I said, OK I'm going to the bathroom, I guess when I get back we can talk if you want. Went to the can. Returned a few minutes later and resumed drinking beer. Five minutes later, my entire world started spinning and I began losing all my motor functions. Couldn't form words, couldn't focus, and couldn't stand straight. I got up, slapped a $20 on the bar, staggered out the door, down the street to a patch of grass where I spent the next 6 hours vomiting in a state of semi-consciousness.

Bitch poisoned me.
posted by vito90 at 7:46 AM on July 31, 2003

...and that makes 50. See, I knew we could do it. I'm sending this link to the Guardian so they can add 'em in.
posted by soyjoy at 8:08 AM on July 31, 2003

But they'll think we're pathetic. Oh... wait a minute...
posted by orange swan at 1:41 PM on July 31, 2003

A leisurely lunch at a bistro sort of place, a walk on the boardwalk and a few glasses of wine on a bright and lovely spring day and I left for home to prepare dinner while she went back to the apartment she shared with her sister to take care of “something”. She did not show for dinner or at all.

I went to her apartment the next morning and her sister informed me she had come back the afternoon before and packed and “moved to Montreal”!
posted by arse_hat at 9:53 PM on July 31, 2003

Nobody really talked wound up talking about the Malaysian case, but just by way of a followup, the divorce ruling was thrown out.
posted by BinGregory at 12:03 AM on August 1, 2003