Breaking Up

Being a second semester first year student has had its hassles. The classes got tougher, drinking was no longer to be a reasonable first priority, and the campy feeling disappeared when I realized that I was never going to be able to be as lazy as a second semester high school senior again (Holy Sh*t! So that's what AcPro stands for!). The friends from home are a little more distant, and the high school significant other is gone.

This phenomenon, that of the breakup, seems to be a major problem with more areas effected than just first-years. Many people in my dorm were getting or giving the axe; about then the old fifties line came into myy head: "They say that breaking up is ha-ard to do. Now I know, I know that it's tru-ue." This type of breakup, the tough ones, could be considered the worst, since college long-distance relationships seem to end on the phone with the distance being the greatest cause or reason given. The pleading (sometimes whining, from experience) can move into the anger and cruel stage soon, followed by the jealousy and paranoia period.

The fifties had it right to some extent. The fall of the ideal coupled with the unsureness of college can jolt the system for quite some time, particularly if both members of the relationship "still have feelings" for each other. "Instead of breaking up/ I wish that we'd be making up again" sums it up nicely.

But the difficulty in ending a relationship is not universal. The Violent Femmes, in their aptly-titled "Breaking Up," bitterly mock the idealism of love songs by singing "Breaking up is easy to do." In this scenario, the broken love mutates into jealousy, frustration, and physically formulates in name-calling and various other types of name calling. Both sides are ready to "forget" the other, with back-stabbing and self-righteousness to end it all.

But neither of these completely describes the given perplexities of relationships, so I went around and asked for other words to describe the different methods. I wish I could be as smooth as Paul Simon, but here are the general areas the words fell into in no particular order.

Breaking up is ____ to do:

Glossary: breaker: the participant interested in ending the relationship breakee: the dumped

1) Hard- Both sides would probably want to continue the relationship, but a problem or unfortunate occurrence made the situation unbearable.

2) Easy- The insults are flying, or both sides just declare a mature understanding that it "just didn't work," and I am waiting for the day I hear that one in honesty.

3) Awkward- This is the one-sided one where one person acts and the other never saw it coming. The breaker is beyond ready and the breakee is shocked.

3b) Annoying- The breakee becomes whiny (this one is isolated to breaker's perspective)

4) Painful- This one is for the breakee in either the "Awkward" or "Annoying" scenario.

5) Queasy- Hey, it rhymes with "Easy," and encompasses that sick to-your- stomach feeling that can arise from even thinking about the ex.

6) Mutual- This never, ever really happens. Someone has to be the first one to set the wrecking ball in motion.