Sympathy for the Dumper
Take your pick!
Breaking up is no easy task. Anybody could tell you that. Whether you’re the Dumper or the Dumpee—both parties seemingly end up in the same place. The party most people sympathize with, The Dumpee, ends up in the depths of a Ben and Jerry’s container and you, Mr./Ms. Dumper, end up in a SHIT HOLE. Don’t try to dig yourself out. Instead, try sulking in it. Bathe in it. Lather yourself in guilt-filled bath salts and make yourself hot tea and sip on your sorrow. And if you’re feeling really shitty then pour said hot tea on yourself and call it Bad Karma. You sir or lady or however you choose to identify yourself broke up with someone. And I am here to share my utmost admiration for you—to tell you how courageous you are.
I’m sincerely, from the bottom of my heart thanking you for your service. You closed doors so that others can open. There aren’t enough people like you out there with the balls to end something that just didn’t feel right. Dumpers know all too well that they are never met with that much validation or support. Instead they’re greeted with strings of synonymous texts from friends, family, and their GRANDMAS asking you why you ended it. Your poor grandma who excitedly told all her friends that you have a boyfriend, and now is left to talk about nothing on Mahjong Tuesday’s. So now that we’re buds, let’s hear it… HOW did you end it?
You break up via text: Everyone, including the universe, says you’re a piece of shit. The culmination of people breaking up through text could very well be the sole reason Trump won the presidency. Karma, guys, karma.
You break up via phone call: Definitely the sub-optimal approach but way more appropriate than text. Still considered douchy though if said relationship spanned over a long period of time.
You break up in person: You’re still considered a douche.
Point is, there’s no right way to break up with somebody. You may be able to optimize your chances of hurting someone by leveraging in the right time, place, and form of communication—but there’s no way around the breakup Feelz. I’ve been on both sides of the coin and while being broken up with is without a question the worse of the two, the Breaker-Upper is still left broken on a smaller scale. I want to make a case for them because for every Bustle article about the Broken Up With, there are zero about the person on the opposite side. There aren’t enough articles or people telling them the way they’d tell the Dumpee, to pick themselves up by the Bootstraps and indulge in all the Feelz their feeling. Because the person who hurt someone else is hurting too. And they could use our support.