Dealing With a Breakup

I've just recently been involved in an ending of sorts, don't think I'd call it a relationship, more like a whimpering failed attempt. Anyway, what I consider to be the cardinal rule of break-ups was breeched by someone who definitly knew the rule and chose to disregard it.

So, what is the number one rule, you might ask?

Know Your Territory

There it is. Now, what does it mean?

Before you got together with that certain someone, you had a life, places you'd frequent, even patterns. This could be a cafe you go to once a week, a favorite lunch spot on your work days, a gas station that is closest to your house (and therefore, the one you use). Anyway, you get the idea, you had spots that were all you, and so did that better half you took up with.

Well, when you break-up it's kind of like a war zone, and any self-respecting dater knows to leave those zones untravelled for at least a one month cooling off period. That means, you don't knowingly go to that bar he always hangs at and he doesn't "just happen to be in the neighborhood where your church is." You give each other time and space to get over the differences, and usually if you do that, a civil acquaintanceship will emerge.

If your other half decides to break the rule, it''s really a power play / a control issue.

Take my situation for example, I was hanging out with this guy for 7 months, I broke it off and 11 days later he shows up at a bar which I'm pretty certain he knew I would be at. Lets just say the whole night didn't go over well.

Here's the background leading up to that night: this was a guy I knew I shouldn't be involved with because I knew he was only looking for casual fun, whereas I'm not; so we were just friends. Well, after about 6 months of being "just friends" (quotation marks because even though we were just friends he always tried to kiss me or fool around), I got somewhat attached to the idea of him being more than that. So, when I recognized that I was starting to care and he had broken 2 dates with me I decided to call it off. I told him that I thought we should stop talking and stop seeing each other, the conversation ended on good terms and after a week had passed I started really feeling happy again, like I had made the right decision at the right time. I should also mention that following the conversation, I sent a text stating that it was probably for the best because I was really starting to like him and that I would have just ended up getting hurt had it continued. So, I think he was well aware that while this wasn't the break-up of the century for me (we weren't even "together"), it was still hard for me to cut someone out of my life that I liked.

So, then we end up back at the infamous night. He shows up, casually blows me off, and spends the whole rest of the night drinking less than 5 feet away from me and my friends. Needless to say, I'm leaving out a lot of other things that happened, but all of that isn't really important.

What that whole night boiled down to was one last ditch effort on his part to finally sleep with me and / or just boost his ego by seeing that I was angry about it. It was really all about control, nothing to do with feeling toward me.

It is possible that a man could break this rule with every good intention of just getting the girl back - or vice versa, the girl trying to get the guy back. But if you really look at it, when someone calls it quits it's because boundaries have been pushed and limits crossed, not giving that person a 1 month cooling off period before trying to resume contact is just a control issue no matter how you look at it.

So guys and gals, if you don't want a dramatic scene, respect each other's territory for at least 1 month. Then, if the dust settles and one of you want to resume contact, give it a go after that 1 month period.