The Predicament of the Week from September 7, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I am 38 years old, and have never been in a REALLY serious relationship before. A few short-term romances, a few really good friendships that might have been… I had accepted, and was quite happy with the fact that I probably would never marry, and would spend my life alone.

About 10 years ago, I met a guy who became a fairly good friend. There was always a little spark of something there, and whenever we were at the same party, or just ran into each other, we talked to each other to the exclusion of everyone else. If someone else happened to be around they faded into the background while we gazed into each other’s eyes and talked. But, we were both busy, and he never pursued anything, so I accepted that the feeling was probably all on my side, and I moved on with my life.

3 1/2 years ago I moved away, and 2 years ago was in town on business, and left him a note to say hello. I told him where I was staying, and to call if he got a chance, but I never really expected to hear from him. That night, he called, and invited me to dinner and a swim at his house. I went, and we had a lovely time in the pool, and over dinner, and I went back home thinking about him. One incident in particular stood out. While he was giving me a tour of the house, I was sitting on the bed looking at a book, and I asked him a question, and looked up and smiled at him as I asked it. He was gazing at me with such intense emotion in his eyes, that it left me confused. When I looked up he glanced away quickly, and he couldn’t answer my question. He nodded, with his head still turned aside, and I could see his Adam’s Apple bob as he swallowed. I’m pretty sure it was not a lustful look, but a hungry, lonely one. One that said “Could you possibly love me as much as I love you?”

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The Predicament of the Week from February 16, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I met this guy a week ago on the elevator. He gave me his business card. I know from experience that today when a guy gives you his business card, this is actually a way of showing interest in you. So I waited a day and gave him a call under the pretense that I needed his service. Sure enough, he told me that he gave me his business card because when he saw me he was interested and this was a way to continue contact with him.

In any case, he suggested that we get together for lunch some time. When I talked to him on the phone he told me he had his own business and that he had diabetes (which I had reservations about). He suggested that we could have dinner either at his place or mine. (I never invite a guy I just met over to my place and I was sure not going over to his!) Or, he said “we could go out for dinner and then a movie.” So I said great, we’ll do a movie and dinner or vice versa.

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Think you’re “too busy” for a relationship? Try being a super hero…

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Show of hands. How many of us have not called in sick to work after a breakup? When you can’t even pick yourself up off the kitchen floor, how can you be expected to cowboy up in your cubicle?

So, FINALLY, someone has come to their senses and started offering “heartache leave.” (I know BG covered this in brief a ways back, but I’m still awash in admiration.) The Japanese PR firm Hime & Company (www.himeclub.com, for those of you who read Japanese), decided to start offering its employees this benefit because it found that those going through a breakup are often distracted at work, leading to costly mistakes and strange, distracting behavior.

The time for recovery is set by your age. Those in their early 20s only get one day off. (I guess on the assumption that people in their 20s get over heartache more quickly.) The mid-20s rank two days off; those 30 and over get a full three. I don’t know about you, but the last time I went through a breakup — and I fall into that last demographic — I needed about a week before I could sit at a desk without systematically snapping all my pencils in half.

Leave it to Japan — which can add this to its list of welcome innovations including smart cars, Hello Kitty, and raw fish — to understand the impact of heartache on the workplace.
I can’t even get my employer to recognize that my work suffers when I have the flu.

According to a recent study by Solutions Research Group, 37% of laptop users (and would-be better lovers) bring the contraptions into bed. Work productivity increases (good) at the cost of sexy time between nighttime companions (wait, bad! not worth it!).

The obvious takeaway: do not allow gadgets between the sheets. Unless, you know, it’s that kind of gadget.

Workplace tragedy from January 9, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,
I’ve been friends with a very attractive co-worker for about one and a half years. She works about ten feet away from me. Recently, she started flirting back with me; I had been flirtatious most of the time, but had gotten no response. I was very excited and was walking on clouds. We went on three dates, one of them was fairly passionate, and then she calls me and says she only wants to be friends. Her reason was that she felt ‘pressured by me’. When I asked her what I was doing to pressure her and offered to stop what ever it might be, she gave me no reason but said the old “it’s me, not you” line. I have to pass by her office several times a day and feel very uncomfortable. How do I cope? Help!
— BT
Dear BT,
Ah, the work breakup: the mother of all pink slips. Even though Breakup Girl works alone, very much alone, at BGHQ, she does have a little insight into the special circumstances/complications of the job-related jilt. One thing I’ve observed is that women tend to be a little more cautious than men about office romance. They’re the ones who — whether in reality or only somewhere in the back of their minds — still have to worry most about separating the personal and professional, about the whole slept-her-way-to-the-corner-office stereotype. I know she’s your co-worker (as opposed to your subordinate, or, even more “Disclosure,” your boss), but still, this may be part of what gave her the jitters.

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The country that brought us the Lovegety continues to be a relationship innovator:

TOKYO (Reuters) – Lovelorn staff at a Japanese marketing company can take paid time off after a bad break-up with a partner, with more “heartache leave” on offer as they get older.

Tokyo-based Hime & Company, which also gives staff paid time off to hit the shops during sales season, says heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed. “Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick,” CEO Miki Hiradate, whose company of six women markets cosmetics and other goods targeted for women, told Reuters by telephone.

From yahoo news, via NowPublic