< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >
 

Dear Breakup Girl,

Here's a toughie: yep, I'm on the rebound from a decent relationship with a decent guy who just wasn't ready to be responsible to a committed relationship. This sucks because Decent Guy was fabulous as far as my template is concerned. We connected on some pretty intense emotional/intellectual/spiritual/physical levels. For me, this relationship had the possibility of having it all. For him it was just too scary. What can you do?

So yes, I'm heartbroken over it and yes, I still have hopes that maybe we were the right people at the wrong time. But in the meantime my job is to get over it (and yes, it sounds easier than it really is). I've dated a bit and not found anyone that I'm really interested in. Decent Guy definitely raised the standards. I'm reasonably sure that, while I'm still a bit hung up on him, I'm also VERY open to finding a relationship with someone equally as Decent -- but also ready to be commited to a good, honest relationship.

So here's the real problem: Decent Guy's not the one. Nobody else that I know of right now is interesting enough to start anything with. What do you do with "the meantime?" I have a great group of friends, I'm reasonably active (I take Irish language classes, I volunteer for a school of world music, I hang out in public with my friends) and I'm not seeing anyone that I'm really interested in. So in the meantime I'm lonely. I'm kind of sad. I'm really trying not to obsess about not having a guy, but I'm not being that sucessful at it.

What do you do with the meantime? Where are all the other Decent, ready-to-be-committed Guys?

-- MB

Dear MB,

"What do you do with the meantime?" Yeah, MB, that's pretty much the toughie. Especially when you already are doing all the right things. Humanly blue, but not Miss Havishamly hopeless. Classes, volunteer work, friends ... you are the Single and Dealing poster girl.

I know, WHO-HOO!!!!!, right?

But still. Consider this: It's great that Decent Guy raised the standards. It's great. Because you know that -- IMPORTANT BREAKUP GIRL MAXIM -- when Calls are measured by Wait, not Volume, some settling may occur. If you let it.

And in that unkind meantime, really, all there is to do is maybe up the ante one more notch. I know, you're probably wicked tired. But when I say "do a little of everything" -- which you are -- maybe what I mean is "do everything you do a little more." With a heightened sense of awareness. Whatever you do, you do 100% for you. Then tack on a bonus 10% wherein you look out for a mate for you. In other words, you are there at the museum to see the art, period (100%); also, who's that hottie by the Hopper(110%)? That third eye is what will get you your first date.

It's also what spots one-step-removed opportunities. Did somebody say kayaking? I've always wanted to try that. You're going where? Yum, let's get a bunch of people together. Here, let me help you with that. I spy: a chance to branch.

This approach is what will set you squarely down on what BG calls The Flirtation Continuum: where there is no longer a vast gulf in your life between Me Projects and Mystery S/He Projects, where you keep a general flirty fizzy buzz going as an end in itself, where, thus, no one venture is the be-all -- well, end-all -- of your love life as you know it. It's a little zing, all the time. Keeping in mind, as always, the tenets of basic decorum (ruling out, say, being on the make at a wake), the whole world -- not just SingleRama 2000 Happy Hour Madness -- can become your ... SingleRama 2000 Happy Hour Madness. That's where the DGs'll be.

Love,
Breakup Girl

< PREVIOUS LETTER   ||   NEXT LETTER >