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Dear Breakup Girl,

I (a 38 year-old male) recently ended a one-year relationship (OK, it should never have lasted a year, but it was fun, just not going anywhere), and presto, a new, highly dateable woman appears. We have gotten pretty intense pretty quickly. She (27) has also just shut down a suitor whom she said she just doesn't love "that way." Thing is, he's her best friend (and godfather, as she became Catholic only a couple years ago) and working to keep himself around. He seems very (very) nice, though he is of course a bit depressed by the turn of events, but appears to be willing to continue playing doormat, religious advisor, and her family's choice for her husband (when we're all together, he can't look at me).

BG, what do you think? How likely is it that

(a) I will wake up one day and find she's changed her mind about him?
(b) I will find one day that she's over him and, incidentally, me too?
(c) Vice versa? It seems to me that EVERYONE would be better off if the choirboy disappeared for a while.

Should I push (how hard) for this outcome (c), or do I just sound insecure?

--Sensitive But No Sap

Dear Sensitive,

Actually, in option (c), you sound more like a gangster. I'm sure his hovering is annoying, and your sense of competition here -- even if there really is none -- is completely human. But short of siccing him on Newt Gingrich's choirgirlfriend, my sense is that you're going to have to be, um, Christian about this and let him hang. The only outcome you can really push for, I think, is the one where the three of you don't go out "all together." I mean, how unfun?! Avoid indulging his peek-at-you-through-spread-fingers self-flagellation, and your Godfather (the other kind) fantasies.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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