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Dear Breakup Girl,

Can you expand upon this notion of "chemistry" for me? I feel like my ex decided one day that we didn't have enough of it/he didn't feel it anymore, and started looking elsewhere without letting me know how he felt. He always seemed to get along better with his other female friends than me. He said I didn't bring out the best in him and he didn't feel comfortable with me. As a result, I always felt, probably correctly, that something else was going between him and his female"friends." I was never a part of their activities/outings together. I feel like there was something I don't have/didn't give that made things fail. I don't really want to ask him what was "wrong" with me; I don't want to give him that kind of power, or more of it. We don't really talk now anyway. He is now with a long-time friend of a different ethnic background than we are who is also wealthier and more advanced in her career. He's also a professional doing well. Yeah, I'm a bit jealous.

So, how much of that nurturing, comfort, provision, etc. was it my job to provide? I didn't get that from him at all. I sometimes wonder if he really was a great guy like everyone else believes, but that I somehow didn't inspire him to be his best, or perhaps didn't seem worthy of his best to him. Just how compatible do people have to be to make a successful go of it? Is there a list of ways to know if you're with the right person? Do men pretty much know early on what woman is who they're looking for, and who "isn't worthy?" I was much more involved and invested than he was, and we really lacked the kind of emotional connection I was looking for. Over a year of this! I want to save myself a little more heartbreak for next time. Help!

-- Troubled Tara

Dear Troubled Tara,

Is there a list of ways to know if you're with the right person? Nothing official, but -- don't hate me -- your boyfriend actually seemed to be on the right track. Meaning: were there a list, "Brings out the best in me" and "I feel totally comfortable around this person" would be on it.

However. THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT YOU COULD HAVE MADE HIM CHECK THESE THINGS OFF. Your job -- both of your jobs -- is to be supportive, to think and act like the other person is da bomb. That's it. Beyond that, it is, as you've seemed to intuit, about chemistry. Which is actually a misnomer. "Chemistry," strictly speaking, is hard science. A discipline. With tables and constants and quantifiable results. The love and attraction kind of "chemistry" is anything but. It is precisely the part that we cannot explain or graph or distill. One person makes your knees weak; another doesn't -- who's to say why? Perhaps we should call it "alchemy" instead -- "a medieval chemical philosophy having as its asserted aims the transmutation of base metals into gold, the discovery of the panacea, and the preparation of the elixir of longevity." I don't even really understand that. See? (Oh, it also says "a seemingly magical power [or process of transmuting]." So there you go.)

So I (easy for me to say) wouldn't worry about what you did or didn't do wrong, what you did or didn't do enough of (or, frankly, even about his girl "friends"). For him, all that was missing, I'm guessing, was that il ne sait quoi. And/or maybe even a sense emanating from you that you are worthy, more than base, in the first place. Stir up that elixir on your own, and you'll turn the next one into gold.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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