He says

When breaking up, come prepared.

Breakup season, apparently, is upon us.

I’ll be honest, since I learned about this season, I have been waiting for it impatiently. I cannot wait to break up with a few girlfriends. It is an absolutely freeing experience.

To truly revel in breaking up with a girl, you have to do it big. A lot of guys say, “Let her down easy.” That, Linfield male, is absurd. Easy is, well, easy. Do not go for the easy let-down. Make it big, painful and crushing. Make it dramatic. Nothing gets your point across like elaborate theater.

Basically, if you treat it like it is a painful tragedy for her, she will believe it to be a negative event in her life. That means she will think she wants you back, but probably only long enough to sleep with you.

The first and most obvious form of breakup is in skywriting. Skywrite “IT’S ALL OVER, SO-AND-SO. I NEVER LOVED YOU,” over her hometown, so her family calls her and inadvertently breaks the news. The sense of drama will be amplified if she hears it from them.

If you found out some secret about her, out her in public. At a ball game on the big screen tell her you can’t see her anymore because you can’t stand the thought that your children might have hypertrichosis like she does. This works even if she doesn’t have hypertrichosis.

My best breakup: First, you have to have a lot of access to her relationship history. If you control her like you should, this is easy information to get. If not, quiz her friends and family.

Get phone numbers and addresses for all of her ex-boyfriends. Get in touch with them and ask if they will help you break up with her. Get videos of each of them telling the story of when they realized they didn’t love her anymore.

Lure her into a dark room lined with HDTVs. These will be playing the videos of her ex-boyfriends. Call your uncle (or my uncle, he loves doing this) at the Industrial Light and Magic Company and have him whip up a program that will gradually morph each of their faces into your face.

By the end, it will be 10 to 20 images of you telling different stories, and they should all end at the exact same time with a chorus of: “And that’s when I realized I didn’t love (insert girlfriend’s name here).”

Look at her and tell her, echoed by all those versions of your head on televisions, “It’s over.” Trust me, the effect is devastating.

Then, just turn out the lights and leave her in a room with a ton of copies of your face staring at her. Lock her in there for a few hours if you think she needs extra closure.

She says

Keep breakups close to home.

I realize this job relies on a certain sense of anonymity. Otherwise I might get flack for certain…er…opinions that I express in my column, and nothing is worse than an individual taking responsibility for the things he or she writes.

Anyway, I tend to violate that anonymity agreement by consulting my close friends and roommates when I draw a blank on a column topic, and today’s was no different as I consulted my grumpy roommate.

“They want me to write on where to break up with somebody.”

“Where?”

“Yeah. Like at home, or in a restaurant or what.”

“Haha, oh, you know how some people have really elaborate wedding proposals?”

“You mean like, skywriting?”

“Yeah. You should tell them to do it THAT way.”

“Oh god, really?”

“Yeah, ha, imagine it: fireworks spelling out, ‘IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME.’”

“Hee hee! ‘ALSO, I WOULD LIKE THAT SWEATER BACK, YOU KNOW, THE ONE YOU BORROWED AT THE BEACH.’”

However unseemly the initial relationship may be, you owe your partner the respect of a
full-bodied breakup. This is where the place comes in.

I’ve heard that you’re supposed to break up with somebody in a public place, like a restaurant. Bad idea. I understand there’s less likelihood your soon-to-be ex-significant other will cause a scene, but a sudden breakup can momentarily unhinge a person, and the restaurant has the opportunity for public humiliation, spaghetti-flinging and the general populace thinking you’re a douche after your date leaves in tears.

So, the restaurant is out.

There is also, as my grumpy roommate alluded to, the possibility of a “distance” breakup, through texts, answering machines or (god forbid) Facebook. All of these are dick moves, and frankly, a coward’s way out.

Suck it up and be a man or a woman and confront him or her in person.

I’d say the best place to break up with somebody is in their place of residence. Call them up, say you’d like to come over and have a talk. Keep it brief, and in the main living area, if possible.

Explain yourself. Don’t be a jerk, but don’t mince words, and as soon as you’re done, leave. This is the beauty of the “their home” breakup (I feel like an ass even having “beauty” and “breakup” in the same sentence).

Your new ex won’t have to walk the streets in tears and embarrass themselves in front of the rest of the world. They have the option of calling their friends or crying alone.

And best of all, they have all of their modes of comfort instantly accessible. Ice cream? BAM. Favorite pillow? BAM. Jerry Maguire on DVD? BAM.

It’s as considerate a breakup as you can manage, and with hope, they’ll keep that in mind when they show up to break your stuff and slander your sexual prowess on the Internet. Good luck with that, champ.