Avoiding a crash on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I can’t seem to get my niece away from a bad relationship with her boyfriend. I remember hearing about what I think was some kind of hormone that bonds teenagers/people together. It sounds like the word “oxey- tonin, or oxey-tosen.” Can you help me? I’ve got to help my niece get away from her boyfriend. She recently had a car accident chasing him. She can’t seem to get over him. I am 45, my neice is 16. It’s so hard for her to take any advice from me. Please respond. I really need an answer. Have you heard of a “hormone” called oxytonin? Thank you!

— Mary

Dear Mary,

OXYTOCIN. It’s a hormone that females (human and animal) release during lovemaking and, Oedipally enough, also during breast-feeding and childbirth. In fact, scientists believe that oxytocin is one of the chemical catalysts for mother-child bonding. So it’s also as if, when you have sex, you imprint on the lucky guy as if he were your bitty baby bird. Helps explain why women — even post-trivial-one-night-stand — may feel this bizarre, misplaced impulse to feed it, help it fly, and to want it to come to depend on them for food and warmth.

I could tell you way more stuff about oxytocin, but I don’t think we’d be going down the right neural pathway. What you need is a catalyst for aunt-niece bonding. This website (though the focus may be a bit more 911 than is necessary here) might help you figure out what kind of “advice” will get through to her (basically, none), and instead, what questions you might ask just to get her talking — and thinking — instead of driving. That is what’s going to — weighed down though she is by teenage hormones — help her fly.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Detoxing on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Great site– First time reader, first time writer…I broke up with my boyfriend between 3 and 6 times — cannot be certain as I was sometimes drunk. Anyway, each time he did the whole flowers, love notes– even love FAXES (during one of the breakups I was in Paris).

Anyway in August he met someone else and all of a sudden he was like “I want to see other people.”

At the time I lived upstairs from him in the same building so I and had to see him/his apartment every day. It was too Melrose so I moved across town but couldn’t get him out of my mind. Mostly I hated him but recently I began to think I loved him deep down. I even had 3 dreams about him. I had refused to talk to him until last weekend– I made up an excuse to see him– I was not impressed with what I saw and the meeting went NOT WELL. Last night he called on my cell phone asking why I was so mean to him Sunday and saying stuff like HE misses me and you don’t appreciate what you have till its gone, blah, blah,blah….. I told him I hate him and not to ever call me again — but I can’t stop thinking about him…

I know I badly need to get a life, but apart from that — and therapy, which I plan to start this week — can you give me any advice on how to feel human again? I am so tempted to call him– he still has the Sneaker Pimps import CD we used to have sex to– I could demand it back but what’s the point if I know he is just going to torture me about having this other guy in his life….. What should I do?

— Scott

BG’s answer after the jump!