Forget the Slow Fade

I don't think I'm giving up any new information about the stages of relationships. There's the courting stage, where both sides flirt and flatter and doll themselves up in their very best to try to win the affections of the other.

Then there is the first stage, the all powerful new love. You do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING with that person. You give up your free time, your friends, your hobbies...all to spend time with that person and you don't care. Mostly that's because you're doing nothing but screwing each other's brains out most of the time.

After all that screwing slows down, you get into the comfortable time. You go back to normal, but you still spend a lot of time together and you still are pretty good to each other, even if you go back to having your lives be a little more separate.

But should it start to fail for some reason, there are a few different tactics to breaking up. I am the "clean break" guy. I bail out, tell it like it is, tell her I'm not going to change my mind and I'm not going to come back. Yeah, it's kind of harsh, but it's honest.

The one I hate is what I call the "Slow Fade". It's when one side decides it's over and doesn't have the guts to just confront the other person. So you start "missing" phone calls, not returning messages maybe. You break plans at the last minute. You start finding excuses to do other things to be away from the other person. Things you used to always do together either don't get done, or they are done alone or with other people.

Sadly, it's usually a toss up whether the other person sees it coming or not. When it happens to me, I see it coming. I am a person of routine mostly. I know what I do, when I do it and who I do it with. Now I don't always plan everything to the hilt, but even I can tell when someone stops answering their phone, or if they magically have email difficulty or scheduling conflicts.

The thing is, it's insulting. Like no one sees it coming? When people start saying "So where is (insert name) lately?" Or when the other person is sitting around wondering why plans get canceled or when they don't hear for days.

If you're going to break things off, just be honest about it, it's that simple. Plus you'll earn more respect.