The Long Good-Bye
They say breaking up is hard to do. They're wrong

The last time we broke up, we decided to quit having sex each time we ended things. Actually, she decided. What she said was "I think we would be happier if we were friends." She said it barging into my cabin while I was busy e-mailing creatives to an important client. Important issues needed to be discussed, and I am not an insensitive brute, so I put the laptop to sleep.
"What is it with you?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked as cluelessly as she knew how.
"I mean, why does verything have to lead to something else?" I asked. "When we started going out, we were just seeing each other and having fun. Why do you have to measure things now in terms of where they're going?"
Because she wants more than fun, I thought. Because she doesn't want to live life in a holding pattern. Because this isn't moving anywhere, and she wants someting that moves somewhere.
Because unless she ends things, she thought, she and I will become more and more involved, and that means she won't be able to do what she wants and when she wants. Because she think she isn't in love with me, and she wants love, and even when she finds love, the what-I-want-when-I-want equation will still be hard to work out, but at least the upside will be greater then, with all the love, and...
I thought a lot in those few seconds, all the while looking at the laptop, and to my girlfriend, whose eyes were welling with tears and whose tiny hands were balled into tiny fists.
"This is about me," she said. "I'm the screwed-up one. Really, I think someone else would make you happier."
She cried then, and tenderness and guilt and connection and affection flooded through me, much of it ending up in my loins. I reached for her. With one of her tiny fists, she hit me in the chest. Tonight there would be no breakup sex.
Every woman wants out at some time. But a real woman must ask herself why. I know she has asked herself why.
Is it because, even though she's dedicated and respected professional who looks great in a miniskirt and is possessed of a voracious sexual appetite, you can't stand the brown shade of lipstick she wears any longer?
Is it because even though she's kind, giving, smart, crazy about you and perfectly willing to watch ESPN over Papa John's pizza while holding hands and reviewing your respective bosses's character flaws and how they've manifested themselves over the past few days, you have a horrible habit of sticking your tongue deep inside her mouth when you kiss, all the while moaning something that sounds like "errrrf, errrrf"? She hates that.
Is it because in her entire life, you're the only real man she has ever had even though she's an attentive and willing-to-work-hard lover, and she's feeling as if she isn't on a level playing field here?
(Those are gimmes. The correct answers, as most guys know: Yes. yes. Yes. Yes.)
To be continued...