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Dear Breakup Girl,

I was involved with this guy for a few months, most of which was long distance. We were both finishing college and had separate summer plans, but decided to move to a city together towards the end of the summer. We kept in fab contact (constant emails, plus calls and mix tapes) for a few months. Then I moved out to the city, got a job and an apartment, started having a life, you know the drill. He stops calling the week that he was supposed to move to the city (not in with me, but he was supposed to stay for a while). I calmly get in touch with his parents, who inform me that he has moved to another (faraway) city, unbeknownst to me, and hasn't left a number. I hang up and freak out for the next 24 hours, when he calls and offers dumb excuses and I tell him I never want to speak to him again and then hang up on him.

Fast forward to about 9 months later-- I'm in a wonderful relationship with a responsible, dependable, loving hunk 'o man, my job is going great, I'm applying to grad schools, and guess who sends me an email. Yep-- a fairly long apology-filled one. It turns out that he was pining after me all this time (like I had imagined he would) and he wants to make amends, etc. I'm torn about whether to respond, and if so, what to say. I've talked to various people about this. Some are of the "You don't owe him anything-- a response will only encourage him" (my mom, natch!) while others are more along the lines of "You should send a brief note-- it's the nice thing to do." I am no longer totally filled with hate about how he treated me, and his email is sort of satisfyingly pathetic. So what should I do?

-- Veggie Girl

Dear Veggie Girl,

The Nice Thing to do with an apology -- barring more complicated issues of forgiveness -- is accept it graciously. Period. You can make amends without making a romantic date (e.g. don't upload a mix tape). As in: "Thank you. I really appreciate hearing from you. You know, I'm not really in a position to consider a reunion right now, for various reasons -- one of them being that I'm fixin' to go to grad school [segue into brief autobiographical chit chat] (e.g. don't upload photo of hunko) ... " and wish him well. Tweak it your way, and leave it at that (e.g. don't upload a text file of this column).

Love,
Breakup Girl

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