< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

"I did not have sex on that holiday"
Still More V-/P-Day Debriefing

Dear Breakup Girl,

I'm a 24 yr. old guy who was dating someone who I *thought* to be the "one" for over three years. We were living together for about 2 and 1/2 yrs of that time, and everything was, as far as I knew, perfect.

The day after my birthday (4 days before Valentines Day 1999), I was checking both hers and my own e-mail, only to find a receipt for an eCard to another guy who lived all the way across the country. The gist of this card, without going into too much detail, was "Nothing can keep us apart anymore, you are the one true thing in my life, the one true thing I FEEL."

When confronted with this, she denied it all until I read her the card, word for word. At which time, after a period of long silence she just said, "I'm sorry" and explained to me she had been speaking with this person for over a year and that the amount that *I* felt *she* was my 'soulmate,' so *she* felt the same about this guy.

This was a guy she had never met before, and had never even seen a picture of. Three days later, the day before Valentines Day, she left for the other side of the country and this guy's arms, leaving me with nothing more than a broken heart and a rather large number of unanswered questions.

Since then, I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to come to terms with this. I have many friends who are very supportive of me, all saying the same thing: "She's not worth it. There will be someone else for you." Etc.

My question is, how do I get over this feeling that she was the PERFECT one for me? How do I let go and get on with my life?

-- Jilted in Miami

Dear Jilted,

Ooof! As far as the eCard goes, I'm glad she used the competition for such nefarious e-purposes.

Also: either you were snooping, or she knew -- when she gave you permission to check her mail, right? --- that you'd find the evidence. Either way, there's even more evidence than meets the mailbox that your partnership was not "the one."

Which, either way, is the crux of my how-to response. For starters, yes, your friends are right. And to finesse their point: someone who was willing to give up a known quantity of great quality for whats-his-username -- never mind the emotional two-timing in the first place -- is someone who is not a "perfect" candidate for commitment to you. So there.

But the key to really really really letting go and moving on is realizing that you're not worth it. I MEAN, THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE THINKING RIGHT NOW, IF YOU PERSIST IN BELIEVING THIS DAME IS / WAS THE ONE. Surely, as I've alluded to above, there was, somehow, somewhere, evidence of 3000 miles of distance between you two. Surely, now that you look back, there were signs, gaps, fissures, lacunae. I'm not saying you should have known. I'm saying you should now know you deserve -- and will find -- more.

Still, you know what? It's been like a week since eCardGate. Your job right now is not to do the rigorous high-falutin' complex intellectual emotional work of letting go and moving on. Your job, right now, is to get through this portion of the program. Whatever it takes -- friends? solitude? -- to pass the crawling, crying time. Unfortunately, or fortunately, these things don't move as fast IRL as they do in cyberspace.

Love,
Breakup Girl

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >