Broken-Hearted Bob returns on November 30, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Remember me? Mr. Nice Guy. Well here’s my quandary this time.

I have officially changed my major to Fine Arts. And in doing so I go to a different branch of my college that is off campus. At the craft center, the whole place is different — it’s a completely different learning enviroment from the structured regimented classes on the main campus. This environment in turn breeds a completely different type of student. And all of the women there are TOTALLY COOL!! And there is one in particular I’m a bit sweet on. She and I hang out, and we just get along well. I was going to ask her out one day, and then we got to discussing age, my b-day is in a few days, as is hers. I was joking that since I was turning 20 that I would have to “grow up” and “get with the program.” She laughed and said that wasn’t necessarily so. Then I found out that … well, she will be 31 a week or so after I turn 20. Well, that TOTALLY threw a wrench in the works for me. But later we were talking and she asked me if I wanted to go to see “Something About Mary” with her cause she didn’t want to go alone. After the movie she and I went and talked for a while at a coffee house, my idea, then she wanted to get some beer, but my roommates aren’t cool with that so I took a rain check. We’d have gone to her place, but it is a half hour away and she was tired. We continue to talk.

Should I risk the relationship and ask her out, should I just sit on my feelings for her, or should I just go to her and say “Hey what’s up with us?” I have asked some of my more trusted friends and they don’t give me advice, they just kind of make robbin’ the cradle or “The Graduate” jokes. So well I must turn to you, oh great knower of things I don’t quite understand.

— Broken Heart Bob

BG helps an old friend after the jump!

Dear Breakup Girl,

I’m single, affectionate, smart, 25, employed (web designer), the whole nine that in theory should be dripping in women. The first part of my lunacy today is an ex I broke up with about a year ago, who I am beginning to think I cared for more than I wanted to admit. I broke up with her because she was nagging me and making me drive to her (LA to North Hollywood) but would never come to my house (she claimed I live in a bad neighborhood). I found out after the breakup that she had been cheating on me (which was stunning, in that I was at her house with her at least 5 nights a week). A year after we met, before the cheating info and after the breakup, I left a rose with no petals, an order of albacore sushi (her favorite) and a bittersweet poem on her doorstep. She claimed she didn’t understand it, we stopped talking at all. It troubled me.

Yet I wake up most mornings thinking about her. I go to sleep imagining us cuddled up together. A yearafterwards. I have dated and dealt with other people, I am actively pursuing someone very unlike her now … why can I not stop thinking about this self absorbed butterscotch bundle of infidelity? My friends almost puke every time I mention her name and hosted a celebration when I broke up with her. It’s insane.

Part 2 — I broke up with this older woman because she was conniving and hatched an elaborate plot over $5. She continued to call for … er, “visits” off and on for months, and has recently halfheartedly tried to pursue me seriously again. Remember I said my friends hate the first girl? It’s practically a jihad against this one, well known to leave 4-10 messages/day on my machine when she’s twitchy. On top of all that she has bad breath! Yet I haven’t told her to bugger off. Is it just physical? I feel so shallow just thinking that may be it.

— Bad Karma

Dear BK,

Lunacy, Part 1: You can’t stop thinking about Butterscotch Bundle because you did not get to have the last word. You tried, but as you said, she didn’t really even get the sushi-gram (so L.A.!), and plus, that all happened beforeyou got the cheating memo. That is what is driving you nuts. And fair enough.

Lunacy, Part 2: If it is just physical with Halitosa McCoy, you are hardly the first person to go there. (In the world, I mean; I don’t know about her past.) Get off your own case. And off the phone with her.

I don’t think you’re insane; I think somehow you’re getting some mileage with your buds by being The Guy with Heinous Girlfriends. It’s always good for a laugh, I’m sure, and also for … avoiding commitment. I’m just saying.

Love,
Breakup Girl

This advice was originally posted on August 3, 1998.

Truer words were never spoken than on June 1, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I have known this girl for a long time and she’s become like an older sister to me (she is a bit older than me) and I have developed feelings for her — not just her looks, but the way she moves, the way she talks, the way she acts, etc. What do I say to her that will make her like me without letting her know that I like her?

— Arson

Dear Arson,

Probably something like “I never want to see you again.”

Love,
Breakup Girl

What a rollercoaster of emotions we’re feeling at BG today. We found this blog entry via Wired from OK Cupid, noting a bias in their dating pool against women of a certain age (“a certain age” being a year or two older than you are, but whatever).

The good: It’s a veritable candy store of charts, graphs, a javascript widget (ooh! shiny!), and the like. Plus, the blogger, Christian, makes his case enthusiastically, circling the ages 30-45 and labeling it the “Zone of Greatness.” Plus, he’s done extensive research (statistical research, you naughty-minded harlots) to support the thesis that older women are more sexually willing, open-minded, and hotsy totsy. Sure, in an ideal world he’d be all “and they have the most beautiful minds!” but given that we’re talking about a dating site, we have to assume a certain meat-market mentality. And how!

Plus, that’s only part of his picture. And with phrases like this:

There are two operative stereotypes of older single women: the sad-sack (à la Bridget Jones) and the “cougar” (à la Samantha from Sex In The City) and both, like all stereotypes, are reductionist and stupid and I’ve tried to avoid them. I hesitated beginning my case for older women with something about their sexuality, like I did in Exhibit A, because that territory borders right on cougar country. But the evidence there was too compelling to ignore.

Christian reveals himself to be a FOBG in a BW (big way). We luuurve him.

Plus, the comments section speaks well of OK Cupid users.

So why the roller coaster? The original premise. Like the one bad review in a sea of raves, we keep mulling it over and wondering if all the blog posts in the world will knock any sense into unwilling minds. What do you think?

The Cougar premieres tonight on TV Land.

Rowr!

Not!

“The enthusiasm for the ‘Wild Kingdom’ analogy is a sign of how strange and hysterically funny the idea of energetic female sexual desire is — whether it’s in the form of 34-year-old Drew Barrymore, who has cheerily referred to herself as a “pre-cougar” or “puma” because she’s dated men a couple of years younger than her, or 50-year-old Madonna, who recently dated 20-year-old Jesus Luz,” writes Rebecca Traister at Salon.com. “How sad and backward that we have to give it a nickname, animalize it as if it’s outside the boundaries of civilized human behavior, make it a trend, pretend that Demi Moore invented it. That’s not progress, and it’s not a step forward for women.”