Love and loss on August 31, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Today my girlfriend got an abortion. We had talked about it and both agreed that it was the lesser of two evils, the other being pregnancy. We are both young and I will be going away to college in the fall. I went to the clinic and sat with my g/f in the OR while the procedure was going on. Then on the drive home I began to feel a sense of loss, despair. I thought that I had prepared myself, I was more worried about my g/f’s emotions. But I had forgotten about myself.

I want to be strong but it’s very hard for me especially with the added stress of my leaving and being 2 hours away.

The questions are:

1) How have male partners dealt with abortion in the past?

2) Would I be a bastard to break up with my g/f after she has had time to get over the abortion?

Thank you.

— James

BG’s advice after the jump

Getting comfortable on August 10, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

My boyfriend and I started dating two years ago, and everything has been very good. We are both very athletic and enjoy running, etc. together. When we started dating, he had a great body. However, despite all the working out, his waistline has expanded greatly due to the his terrible eating habits. I have tried very hard to maintain my shape and have succeeded — which he is very happy about. I have known him for a long time and know that he has always had very high standards with respect to the bodies of the women he dates.

In any event, he has let himself go and I feel like he is taking me for granted. He told me that he has always been in great shape in between relationships and looking to date new people — but that he tends to gain weight when he is in one, because he gets “comfortable.” I know I sound superficial, but I feel as if he is being very hypocritical. He would be very unhappy if I had gained almost 20 pounds over the course of our relationship. On top of that, it is beginning to have an impact on my physical attraction to him. I have dropped hints, but nothing seems to work. How do I approach this subject with him?

— Holly

BG weighs in after the jump!

Insecurity lockdown on June 1, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

This guy I’ve been dating for five months is sweet, smart, cute, loaded, calls twice a day minimum, respects what I have to say, etc. He just can’t seem to stop mentioning how many girls have the hots for him. He’ll have a business lunch and then let on that he’s a little upset cause his lunch partner was “working him” (his term). Or, he’ll have weirdness with this girl or that cause she “kinda liked him” and he “wasn’t into it.” He makes it very clear that he’s not interested in anyone but me. I just don’t get why someone so handsome and accomplished should feel the need to point out constantly how desirable every girl on the planet finds him. I have tried to tease him gently about this but it doesn’t seem to sink in, and I don’t want to start a fight.

— Liesel

(more…)

Starting doubts young on May 25, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Hi. I am 14 years old and even though I shouldn’t worry about guys, I do. Right now I have a boyfriend. This is the second time I have gone “out” with him. He told me that he never thought he was good enough for me, and to his and my dismay, I am starting to believe it. My friends say he isn’t good enough for me, too, and that I could do much better. Complete and utter strangers that I have never seen before in my entire life tell me I could do much better. I want to follow my heart and do what my heart tells me. But I am not sure exactly what my heart is saying. Even though I am only 14 and probably insignificant to you adults, please help!

— Young, Naive, and Confused

Dear YNC,

Okay, first of all, you are hardly insignificant. In fact, teens and adults pretty much have the same problems; it’s just that teens have them in smaller units of time (e.g. “I am hopelessly in love with my girlfriend of three days;” “It’s 3:15:29 and he hasn’t called since 2:47:31 — should I dump him?”). A grownup would have written a letter with your exact question after, like, eleven years.

Anyway, your question. Um, were you a guest on a daytime talk show? That’s the only way Breakup Girl can fathom total strangers telling you your boyfriend’s not good enough (“Girl, toss that chicken dinner and get yourself a winner!”). To be sure, this whole “good enough” thing is risky, highly subjective territory, but if, like, the whole town is turning out to give you their opinion, maybe there’s something to it. Never mind the strangers, ask your friends: “What do you guys mean, not good enough? I need specifics.” Then listen. To them and to your heart.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Here’s an overdue and essential shoutout to Tiger Beatdown‘s supersmartie Sady Doyle, who here in the Atlantic nails precisely what’s cluelessly, even callously, off the mark in Caitlin Flanagan‘s recent anti-“hookup culture” screed. Unencumbered by sociohistorical accuracy, Flanagan suggests that today’s  girls pine for boyfriends — nu? this is new? — as a welcome source of escape from the disappointing, depressing, even damaging wham-bam of casual sex. But can a shining-armor boyfriend really take them away from all that? Doyle: not necessarily. “Flanagan’s biggest error is in suggesting that the Boyfriend Story, or boyfriends in general, are of necessity healthier than hook-ups: safer, kinder, less risky. This isn’t an issue of opinion; it is actually, and demonstrably, untrue,” she writes Boyfriends — like marriage, BG might add — are not magical. They are not a panacea. Sometimes they hurt worse.

Doyle [with emphasis added by kowtowing BG]:

If the facts backed Flanagan up — if withholding sex for boyfriends could actually solve the problem of girls being hurt by sexual partners — I would join the crusade against the hook-up culture tomorrow. But boys aren’t treating girls badly because they have sex; they’re treating them badly because we live in a culture that encourages disrespect toward girls. A man who dislikes women as a group does not change simply because he becomes intimate with one particular woman, and telling girls that love is the key to ending a man’s hurtful behavior plays into many of the most pernicious myths about abuse. If we tell young women that having a boyfriend is the way to stay safe and be respected, what do they do if their boyfriends become unsafe? Most stay. Most believe in the Boyfriend Story long after it starts to hurt.

They’re not baby stilettos, or, God help us, infant wigs, but “boyfriend” jeans … for toddlers? NO. 2-year-olds these days are stressed enough about getting playdates.

Raising the bar on March 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have been seeing my current boyfriend for about a year and while I care for him very much, he constantly disappoints me. He has a habit of calling me hours (or even minutes) before we are supposed to go out and tells me he is going to be late or he simply can’t go. I think I love him, but this behavior causes me to call these feelings into question. I make time in my busy schedule (I am a law student) to see him, and I am hurt by the constant disappointments. What should I do?

— Marilyn

Dear Marilyn,

Breakup Girl looked at your Life-Runner, and you don’t have time to make time for someone who won’t make time for you.

Love,
Breakup Girl

Ask Lynn is the advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), that Breakup Girl does in her mild-mannered secret identity. Same advice, less cape.

In this month’s letter All Confidence is Gone has been shaken by the discovery that her boyfriend has a profile up on an online dating site. Things were going really well, so what gives? But wait, what was she doing on an online dating site? Read the letter at MSN then comment below!

Sure, I guess it’s cute to toss your boyfriend’s blazer over your spaghetti straps on a chilly night. Or to snuggle, apres ski, in his big bulky sweater. Or to [NC17 version] pad around his pad wearing nothing but his rumpled oxford and a come-back-to-bed-when-you-finish-those-eggs smile. Or to spend a lazy Sunday lounging about in his beekeeper’s coveralls and giant sombrero. Oh, that’s just me? Mmmkay. Anyway.

Yeah, that’s all cute. Less so, says Crisis in Denim, is when apparel makers call their clothes “boyfriend” clothes. As in: the roomy “boyfriend sweater” (which I guess, things being the way they are, we’ll now go back to calling the “poorboy sweater,” hahaha), the oversized “boyfriend jacket,” a la Lisa Bonet circa 1988, not to mention the boyfriend tee, the boyfriend jeans. This nomenclature, she notes, generally doesn’t work the other way around. (“[C]an you for one moment see menswear designers debuting the Girlfriend Suit at Fashion Week?”) And yeah, there’s something a little ickly aspirational (to say nothing of heteronormative) about it — as if the appeal would be that wearing these clothes says, “Hey! I have a BOYFRIEND!” But maybe that’s reading too much into it. I’m all for comfy (as opposed to other, dare I say, Fashion By Patriarchy looks), but really, maybe “boyfriend” is clothing industry code for “doesn’t really fit.”

Ask Lynn, Breakup Girl’s alter ego’s advice column at MSN.com (powered by Match.com), is now being updated monthly rather than weekly, so now you’ll get two new letters each month…

1. Jennifer is on her third go-round with Mr. Looks-like-Tim-McGraw. They dated, then broke-up, then were friends-with-benefits, broke that off, now they’re dating again — but better than ever before. Can this be real?

2. Sick of seeing both sides is frustrated by a boyfriend who wants time alone with his buddies a lot, or when they’re all together simply ignores her. Otherwise, he’s attentive and sweet — so what gives?