Hillary and I promise this will be the last dating post for…well, at least a little bit. <\/p>\n
I recently went through a breakup. It was tough, especially after almost a year of this person being in my life. Blogging, however, seems to have brought new focus into my life, and I can’t help but view every situation through ethical lenses — even when it deals with my own breakup!<\/p>\n
The person in question was visiting his family on the west coast for a week. I had no reason to anticipate an impending break up, and went about my daily business. If he seemed a little distant, well, again, I had no reason to worry — he was just busy, or so he told me.<\/p>\n
So when I received an IM from him the day he was flying back to New York, I happily chatted back, telling him how much I looked forward to seeing him.<\/p>\n
His response? “I don’t think this is going to work out.” Imagine my astonishment! He was breaking up with me over IM? <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We did eventually proceed to the phone, but he called while he was waiting to board the 5 hour flight back to New York. So that conversation was also cut short. The last I heard from this guy was a text: “It just isn’t a match.” <\/p>\n Now, when I told my friends this story, they were confused and shocked by the breakup itself; but what they were most <\/strong>upset about was that he didn’t give me the courtesy of breaking up in person.<\/p>\n I have to disagree.<\/p>\n To the contrary, I was furious that he had led me on for an entire week, letting me believe that everything was status quo. It felt like a lie, a betrayal. And simply the wrong thing to do.<\/p>\n I’ve been known to break up with a boyfriend over the phone myself. Years ago I dated a guy very seriously for four years, long-distance. It was becoming more and more clear to me that I couldn’t marry him, and so one day when it actually felt right I picked up the phone and called him, and broke up with him. <\/p>\n Why didn’t I give him the respect of telling him to his face? Because it would have been over a week before I saw him again, and every phone conversation from the time I made my decision would have felt like a lie.<\/p>\n Do relationships (longterm ones at least) deserve the courtesy of a face-to-face breakup? Or is it better to just be honest and be quick?<\/strong> <\/p>\n Part of this blog’s mission is to question if our responses and our behaviour hurt others — I know that I was the injured party in this case, mainly because I felt lied to. Still, considering my friends’ indignation on my behalf, I wonder, what was the right thing to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hillary and I promise this will be the last dating post for…well, at least a little bit. I recently went through a breakup. It was tough, especially after almost a year of this person being in my life. Blogging, however, seems to have brought new focus into my life, and I can’t help but view…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-padmini-mangunta","category-personal-ethics"],"yoast_head":"\n