Rejection: Let Me Down Easy

What is the best way to let someone down easy?

Chris Isaac sang this sad ballad asking a girl he liked, to let him down easy if she didn't feel the same way about him. Magazines have written countless articles on the best way to dump someone, so that you don't make it personal, you do it quickly and as pain-free as possible for both parties involved. Men and women alike have probably spent numerous hours strategising on the best way to do it. Sometimes you try to manipulate the other person into breaking up with you in order to assuage any feeling you have. It
It's never easy to tell someone that you're not interested in them or no longer interested in them. It takes courage to say those words face to face. The art of kindly letting down someone has been mangled and reduced by many into the cruder form of "dumping". The latter is done via terse text, a long-winded voicemail, an elegiac letter, a fleeing note (who can forget Carrie's post-it note?) and nowadays, without pre-emptive notice, on Facebook.
All I can say, is that Carrie was lucky to get that post-it note. My last lover couldn't be bothered even with a cursory and succinct note letting me know that he was departing the relationship. Instead, he stealthily made his way to the exit and left me standing. I felt like part of one half of a duet going on stage for a huge performance, only to find out once on stage that you're actually a solo. For a long time, I could not conciliate the reprehensible nature of that behaviour with the man I thought he was. I did briefly wonder whether he had coincidentally been some kind of accident and perhaps died, if not was lying in some hospital bed in some full body traction with all limbs immobilised and suffering from complete amnesia which had erased me from your memory. No. Sadly while that scenario would have saved my ego, it was not the case. Rather, the boorish man has decided that he could not handle any kind of confrontation and rather than deal head on with the messiness of letting someone down. He had no consideration for my feelings: he preferred his own convenience. So after leaving embarrassing emails and voicemails, I was left alone with a lot of unanswered questions. Of course I still don't know to this day what prompted the exit. I'm still curious, as to why. A bit less though. As I care less and less about him, I also think less about why prompted that unexpected move. What I know for sure is that I don't want to be with a man who thinks that it's okay to treat me (or anyone else) in such a manner. I find it extremely disrespectful and it can hardly be qualified as anything good manners.

There's the flip side to this: It's accepting the rejection with grace. It's not easy, as it's probably one of the most humiliating experiences. You've opened yourself and put yourself deliberately in this incredibly vulnerable position by allowing someone determine an important outcome of your life. It's sometimes hard to comprehend, or to accept why someone doesn't want to be with you. You're wonderful, and would make a great signficant other. Even when the other person tells you that it's not personal, it's dificult not to emote on a personal level. There are times when a little persistence can pay off because the initial "no" was not really a real "no". But most often times it is, and any form of insistence borderlines on desperation, and of course, that never looks good. This is the one occasion where I think the necessity to pull a disappearing act is a perfectly valid form of exit. But I only employ it as a last resort measure only when I've tried every other line in the book including expressly stating: I am not interested in dating you. There is no reason to be unnecessarily cruel. Even if the feeling is not mutual, there's still something flattering that some other being thinks that you're phenomenal and wants to get to know you better, spent lots of time with you and possibly the rest of their lives. When a guy takes the risks and opens himself to me and I don't feel the same way, I try my very best to let them down easy. I try to use those canned lines of "I'm not ready to date"; "it's not you, it's me", "I really value our friendship", "I just don't see you that way". Usually that subtle hint works. Subtlety rarely fails because it's a long- understood and implied between boys and girls, that it's the "nice" and civilised way of telling someone that the attraction isn't mutual. Sometimes these strategies only work too well because, I always hope that a platonic friendship remains a possible option. But most guys, feeling deeply rejected, view that as a poor consolation prize. Some have accepted the friendship and we're able to enjoin one's company even to this date. Others are stubborn in their delusion and keep insisting that there can be something more. I've had to drop them out of my life and let them stew hopelessly in this unrequited hope by themselves. Some of the latter were rather frightening. One particular boy whose threatening messages made me fear for my own safety, made me wonder if I should contact the authorities, hire a bodyguard, move cities, get a new identity or all of these options. I was fortunate that he didn't turn out to be a scary stalkerish type. Relief.


So in the end, I don't think there's a perfect way or even one method to let someone down, but hopefully, if done with a bit of honesty (no need to say that you have life threatening illness when you do; or to claim that you're relocating to Belize when you're not), a bit of grace and a bit of humour, you'll won't be losing a potential bf: you'll be gaining a friend for life.

Across space and time: long distance relationships

In the span of a lifetime, we meet various people. Some more fleetingly than others. It's not necessarily the length of time we meet them that determines their influence or impression on you. No. Some you meet only be for that brief moment (a glance, a kind gesture in passing) but they've left an indelible mark on us. However, once that moment is done, the connection between you and that person, is over. Can geography and time really separate people? Does that mean that long distance relationships and relationships where one partner travels frequently, are doomed from the outset?
I've experienced several long distance relationship and at their demise, I always wonder what went wrong. I never really considered geography to be an issue. Not a serious one. Wasn't there emails, chats, instant messaging, texting, VoIP and all these other wonderful means of communications? Plus, wasn't travel more accessible and more affordable? If I didn't want to drive, I could take the train or fly, or if feeling really indulgent, hire a driver. Besides, didn't John Donne write several centuries ago something to the effect that absence makes the heart grow fonder? (see A Valediction Forbidding Mourning) I recall each visit to my lover, how excited I felt. Because time was so little and thus so precious, we rarely fought. Time was spent drinking each other in and enjoying one's company and compressing all those activities lovers usually do in the span of a week into a weekend. Came Sunday evening, I already missed him. I wanted time to rewind back a bit so that we had a little more time to spend together. However, I didn't miss him terribly Monday thru Friday. My own little bubble of world amused me enough and our daily communication sufficiently satisfied me.
Not in the last relationship. Between me and him there was over 400 miles. There might as well as been an ocean -oh wait, I've tried those long distance relationship as well. In any event, J and I had an established ritual. Even if we were in the same time zone (being in different one complicates matters as I've learned from experience), I woke up each morning to a wonderfully written email. I would reply back during the day. And we'd exchange maybe a few emails throughout the day. There would be the occasional phone call. If this was the honeymoon phase of the relationship, I was definitely falling and falling hard for J. I went and visited him as well. Each visit was sublime. It didn't matter what we were doing, I was enjoying his company so much. At the end of each visit, I felt a twinge in my heart, a deeper yearning. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay. I wanted to be with him and do those things that couples do on a weekday, like a a spontaneous dinner, a weekday evening visit to a museum exhibit, furniture shopping, going for a run in the morning, ... but in the end, the yearning didn't suffice. Then the relationship floundered and came to an end.
I don't know the wise man who said that time heals all wounds. How much time? Some people claim that the formula is half the time you were together. Others say, one week for each month you were together. Some even go as far as the same amount of time you've been together and that can be a LONG time!
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
One of the benefits of the long distance relationship (ldr), is that you don't live in the same city. By virtue of that, there is no potential of awkward run-ins. You each have your support system, that is if your lives have not meshed completely, and you haven't shared common friends. The difficult part are memory markers. Over the course of the relationship, the shared memories have to be slowly deleted and as much as I would love to believe that there's a Lacuna clinic to erase them, only time can do it. As can space/distance. So I'm trying to forget everytime I cook pasta that J's favourite food is Italian, or when I go get sushi, that he also likes Japanese, or when I bake that that he likes Bavarian pies. Or whenever I plan trips, I try not to think in terms of places we wanted to go together. One by one, I'm letting go of the past memories, and the future plans. But I think whether long-distance or local, the only and true way to get over someone, is to find someone else you care about more.