Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

The guy next to me in Philz Coffee is literally breaking up with someone on the phone.

"I'm sorry I mislead you. I didn't mean to."

"Do you want to still meet up or just talk on the phone?"

This, to me, doesn't seem to be appropriate banter for the coffeeshop. Now, I have definitely lost my shiz in a public place before (See: Drunken, crying rant at boring, bad-in-bed chef in San Jose in front of his restaurant...I felt he wasn't sad enough about me breaking up with him, and I was also sad I'd upped my "number" by sleeping with him, so I started crying). But this seemed like a planned phone call. He called her (I assume it's a her, but I have no real evidence, and this IS San Francisco). He chose to end something amongst hipsters and Phil'z Aromatic Tesora beans. Next to him a dog is licking his owner's leg over and over.

How meaningful could this of been? This is like the time I told my friend Anne to break up with some guy she met at the racetrack. They'd gone on several dates, and it was heating up, but she was over it. She kept putting it off, so I ordered her, at a party, to go in my bedroom and make the call, and that when she came out, I would pour her a drink and we could watch some shitty TV with our friends. Later, I thought, poor guy. But really: is it worse to breakup with someone in a flippant, inappropriate place or to not do it at all?

Or, to take it one step further: what about inappropriate methods of breakup? My worst, by far, has to be Brad, a pasty, sun-fearing, Hawaiian shirt-wearing lump of a UCSD engineering student. Brad suffered from some depression issues, and a bit of paranoia (more annoyingly, he hated a lot of types of food, which I could not stand for).

Night of the breakup, we attend an opening night gala for a play written by a friend of mine. I'd done the PR and knew most people at the party. Brad sat in a corner, very hungry despite all the piles of food (didn't meet his needs, apparently), telling me that "people were staring at him." In a group of theatre people, it would have been shocking if Brad was the most interesting thing to stare at...but anyway. We go into the show, and at the intermission, I look at Brad, who is sweating and shaking. I ask him what's wrong and he says that he is "FINE. I am FINE." I ask if he wants to leave. "No."

So the second act goes on, and at the end, I turn to him and tell him that we get to meet Sheryl Crow, who is a sponsor of the piece. We are standing up to go backstage and Brad demands that we leave. Ooookay.

We drive home and I offer to get him food. He refuses. He climbs into my bed and I go into the bathroom to get ready for bed. When I come out, he's gone. I go outside. His car is gone.

Being the sensible person that I am, I assume he has gone to kill himself. This is a time before everyone had cell phones, and he didn't have one. I stay up all night, calling the CHP, worrying and worrying. At 6am, I call his parents' house (I wish I could say this is the only person I've dated who lived with his parents, post-college, but that would be a "no.") and wake up his poor father. Who says Brad is sleeping and fine. (I then think that he is going to WISH that he'd gone to kill himself.)

Brad comes to phone, half asleep. After a lot of unattractive mumbling, I gather that he'd gone to the car because he was crying. And since I never cry (ha ha), he didn't want to lose it in front of me. So he drove home. TO CARLSBAD (about an hour away). Sweet. Oh, and never wondered if I might be worried about him.

I then basically have to FORCE him to break up with me. It was amazing. He finally says, "I thought you could make me happy but you can't." Put that in your pocket, Ms. Mac!

So that, I'd have to say, was the pussiest breakup ever. Shortly after, the SATC "Berger-Breaks-Up-With-Carrie-In-A-Post-It" episode airs. Would that I'd gotten a Post-it. It almost Austen-ian compared to the alien abduction Brad scenario.

My friends are full of great breakups stories. (If you're good, I'll tell you more. I have soooo many more.) So, let's hear it. What's your worst, lamest, cop-out breakup story, ladies and gents?

PS - I never met Sheryl Crow, but that's ok, since I sort of hate her music. Still, I'm such a star fucker, I feel robbed. ROBBED.