Home from college on December 22, 1997…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My now-ex-girlfriend and I broke up two weeks after I left for college. She is in high school and said that she didn’t feel she could wait for me and watch her senior year pass her by. She is very popular and gets many guys but both she and I know that I’m the one she was happy with.

We went out for a year and I couldn’t believe she now just wanted to date. It has now been about two months since we broke up and a month since I’ve talked to her. She never was one to express herself. But I still seem to want her back. Can I get her back? Should I get her back? Should I talk to her over Christmas break or just continue wondering how she feels? Please help me.

— Can’t Let Go

Dear Can’t Let Go,

Weird. Usually it happens the other way around: it’s the college-bound partner who leaves in a flurry of vows and promises but finds someone new before you can say “freshman orientation.” That’s not because people who go to college are fickle jerks; it’s because college can feel like such a vast, consuming new world that your high school days — and loves — feel very far away from the moment you arrive.

So, Can’t Let Go, you might think that you’re lovesick, but Breakup Girl thinks that you’re homesick. I don’t doubt that you two had true feelings for each other. But you may still be clinging to your Senior Miss because somehow you haven’t fully settled in at college, or, vice versa: you may not have fully settled into college because you’re still clinging to her. So if you want to check in with her over Christmas break, fine. But look at it as a way of — and here comes a tired phrase that I never want you to use in a term paper — establishing closure. Your New Year’s resolution should be to graduate once and for all from the class of 1997 and start carving out your niche in the class of ’01!

Love,
Breakup Girl