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Dear Breakup Girl,

I am going through the most horrific breakup right now! I am a college sophomore at a really small school. There is this guy that I was friends with most of last year. We went on a date, but I didn't feel sparks, so we decided just to be friends. This fall, when we both got back to campus, I felt differently, so we started dating. It was great for a while, but I eventually got really busy with classes and such and didn't have time to spend with him. He became needier and needier to the point where I was actually avoiding having to see him, because I was really uncomfortable with the level of emotional intimacy he seemed to want. I was so miserable in the relationship that I finally broke it off after just under a month, which was two weeks ago. He sent me a nasty e-mail the night we broke up, telling me that he had been in love with me (funny way to start a nasty letter, huh?) and that I was shallow, selfish, and incapable of being emotionally involved with anyone. This hurt, especially because we had been really close friends before all of this. But here's the real problem. He's very active in a campus political group (he's one of the co-presidents), and an article written by one of its members and partially attributed to the group as whole appeared in a campus publication while we were still dating. We had a brief but heated intellectual debate via e-mail. Then a friend of mine wrote a letter to the editor of the publication, criticizing that article. I had shown her the letters we had written to each other, and she used a quote from him that made him sound particularly irrational. I don't even remember whether or not I gave her permission to use it, but I don't think it was wrong that she did use it. But now he's really mad, and thinks I violated his trust. So I have three questions:

1. Did I do anything wrong? Did my friend? Do either of us need a lawyer?

2. If neither of us did anything wrong, am I allowed to to tell him "tough luck"? (This would feel pretty good.)

3. If so, can I also add that I would prefer never to hear from him or speak to him again (which is part of what he had suggested in the e-mail he wrote after we broke up, and would therefore feel really good)?

Please help...

--Anna

Dear Anna,

Since you asked, I consulted the Breakup Girl Legal Department, who said: "No, you don't need a lawyer. That'll be $425."

But.

1. "Forward" buttons being what they are, we all need to be careful about we scrawl onto the pavement of Info Hwy.

2. Boyfriends being semi-public figures, we need to be careful about what scrawlings of theirs we forward around.

3. Quotation marks implying what they do, we should make sure that what appears between them is always accurate and in context.

That said, it's not like you tapped his phone and delivered the tape to the Other political group. That said, you are allowed to say, simply, "I am truly sorry. I just didn't anticipate that things would turn out this way" (even if, in violation of statement 3, that's not entirely accurate). Then you are allowed not to answer -- or forward -- any more of his e-mails.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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