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Break Up Right

9 years ago by

Break Up Right

Is there an etiquette to break ups?

Ok, so all relationships have unique circumstances (oh yeah, we’ve been there!), but shouldn’t some courtesy be shown in how a romance ends? A gentle break up in the privacy of your home, or maybe a phone call? Apparently in the digital age, anything goes. New app Binder will even break up with your no-longer-so-significant other for you.

You just input your name and the person you want to break up with, and the app will call and send a text to let them know they’ve been dumped.
Friendly, right?

It’s had all of us in the Studio talking. Where can we draw the line? Is it even ok to break up with someone via text? Technology has improved our lives in so many ways, but is it even human to disconnect this much??!!

36 comments

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  • that is a bad way to break up with someone

    http://hashtagliz.com

  • No no. Have the respect to DIY. The last of DIYs that everyone needs to do.

    An app ! really ?

  • If someone breaks up with you by text, the relationship was clearly not worth much in the first place. It is possible still to respect the person you have decided not to have as your life partner any more.

  • ashley June, 29 2015, 4:36 / Reply

    my first (and only!) high school boyfriend broke up with me via my voice mail (it was before text messaging or i’m sure he’d have done it that way). speaking from experience, just no no no. it’s disrespectful on so many levels.

    what you didn’t mention is at what point in modern relationships do you require a breakup? because i can say that i feel strongly about the above if you’re in an actual relationship (you’re public, you call one another boyfriend/girlfriend). as for those who come along that you casually see now and again, while not ideal, ending in things with those folks can be done via text. or not at all….. :)

  • Vanessa la belge June, 29 2015, 4:57 / Reply

    C’est surtout hyper lâche et totalement irrespectueux pour la personne avec qui on a partagé un moment de sa vie..

  • Lesley June, 29 2015, 6:06 / Reply

    I would feel I’d dodged a bullet if he broke up with me this way.

  • This is just wrong and unacceptable to breakup with someone, not to mention a very cowardly move too!
    No matter how ugly things get in the relationship, one should still have to decent courtesy to breakup with someone face to face.

  • I’ve had someone broken up with me over email.. I think doing it without face to face interaction is pretty cowardice but I guess this is what modern technology encourages…. unfortunately.

  • Audrea June, 29 2015, 6:33 / Reply

    Oh that’s so wrong. Cowards shouldn’t be in relationships to begin with. How did they ask the other person out? On Tindr, of course.

  • jgnome June, 29 2015, 8:21 / Reply

    If my significant other was too end our relationship in any way other than face to face, it would bring into question my ability to judge another person’s character. :(

  • I can’t imagine anyone over the age of 19 doing this. I hope?!?

    Lindsay | http://www.ReadTheThread.com

  • Ai-Ch'ng July, 1 2015, 10:37

    Unfortunately, this idiocy isn’t limited to teenagers. I know someone in his forties who broke up with his devastated partner via SMS. I thought to myself (but didn’t say to her, as the wound is obviously incredibly painful and raw), “We always say that a decent person breaks up with us in person – but then, it’s not about being decent… it’s also about someone being ‘right’ for us. The right person for us wouldn’t be breaking up with us, period. So, whether it’s by phone, in person, SMS, or this new, really stupid App, breaking up with someone tells us the fit wasn’t right in the first place… and it is better done before it gets any worse”.

  • Un peu sordide. L’avantage est que cela doit permettre d’oublier très vite la personne qui a aussi peu d’ élégance.

  • This takes me back (about 10 years) to a conversation with a male friend who was complaining about his much younger girlfriend “I really want to break up with her, but I just don’t have time to find another girlfriend right now!”
    A few weeks later he was crying about being dumped by text message. Oh the callousness of the younger generation :)

  • Emma Louise June, 30 2015, 12:01 / Reply

    In the digital age, the medium is also the message (McLuhan)…and thus when delivering sensitive communications such as a break-up, the medium is just as significant in terms of meaning as the message–therefore choice of medium conveys just how significant that person was to you as with it comes the decision of which media were not used…to break up by text means you were not worth the email, the phone call or the in-person meeting…I think it’s important that this is something deeply considered in such intimate moments…even in relationships that were ‘insignificant’–we are still human and we still get hurt easily in the realm of emotions which are inevitably at play in these scenarios…

  • I would never use an app for such a thing. Break ups are hard but you owe it to a PERSON to tell them yourself. Still for the “we need to talk” fashion

    :P

    http://www.maireem.blogspot.com

  • Jane B. Root June, 30 2015, 2:16 / Reply

    Ça me rappelle un épisode désopilant de Sex & the city où Carrie se fait larguer avec avec un post it…

  • Oh my god. I can’t believe an app does that. Why would anyone even make one?!

  • Caroline June, 30 2015, 4:51 / Reply

    Totally coward indeed. Have respect for the person you were in a relationship with!

  • Barbara June, 30 2015, 5:43 / Reply

    J’espère que ça ne m’arrivera jamais! Je me sentirai tellement humiliée… reléguée à un simple sms.

    Ma belle mère me racontait que, plus jeune, un de ses amoureux avait rompu avec elle en lui chantant, bouquet de roses rouges à la main, “je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais” de Gainsbourg. Au moins, on termine sur un bon souvenir.

  • La classe. C’est dommage que, de plus en plus, les hommes d’aujourdhui perdent cette touche humaine. Nous perdons ces types des hommes des temps de ta belle mere.

  • En fait, je voulais dire les hommes ET les femmes. Nous sommes tous à risque de perdre notre touche humain via l’utilisation inapproprié ou isolationniste de la technologie.

  • Il ne faut pas le prendre au premier degré. C’est une appli ironique créée par une marque de bière (Tennent’s Lager). C’est juste une grosse blague en fait.
    Bise !

  • Amanda June, 30 2015, 9:04 / Reply

    I had a heated online argument with someone about this once. His stance was you owe it to the other person to break up ASAP once you have decided (even if it’s by post-it note on a door). If you drag it out waiting to talk to them in person you do them no favours. I couldn’t come around to this but appreciate the sentiment. Also I think the expediency can just be convenient for the person who wants to break up: see someone you want more. Send a quick text: voila, I am single now!

  • je trouve que c’est totalement irrespecteux, couard et fuyard.
    Une chose est sure, si une personne est capable de ça, elle donne toutes les bonnes raisons de ne pas rester avec : c’est un mufle sans vergogne !!

  • We face death and violence and tragedy everyday in the news and it’s normal. Now breaking a relationship via text is going to be normal too? We are going crazy…
    What about the old break up with tears and long, sad conversations that you overanalize later with your friends? I’m afraid we are loosing the capacity of feeling sadness and fear and therefore accept that it’s part of our lives.
    xx,
    E.
    http://www.theslowpace.com

  • Candace June, 30 2015, 5:18 / Reply

    Well, didn’t Phil Collins break up with his wife via fax years ago? Imagine getting that delivered to your desk by the mail boy at work! Nothing changes, except now in the 21 century, we have “Ghosting”, and now a break up app.

    Cowards gonna cower, I guess.

  • wendy July, 1 2015, 3:10

    i have experienced the cowardice and disrespect of receiving an email – from my live in boyfriend – that he found the need to bring our relationship to an end. and no . . . we were not in our teens (far from it). but then again, in hindsight i came to understand his level of narcissism, coupled with alcohol abuse and bipolar disorder. the entire experience took me to a recovery process that opened me up to a better path and gratitude for the awareness and acceptance.
    no one deserves to be diminished to an app, text or email.

  • There was even an article on Ghosting in the NYTimes just a few days ago – the worst way ever.
    Doesn’t make breaking up via app much better though!

    Hey, you got involved with someone, now at least have the decency to break up with this someone face to face!
    If for nothing else than to remain a person with some integrity!

  • While we’re on SUPER rude & disrespectful ways to break up with someone, I stumbled onto “ghosting”: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/fashion/exes-explain-ghosting-the-ultimate-silent-treatment.html

    I can’t even believe people do this!

  • I had a breakup where I didn’t even know about the breakup until I saw his engagement picture. Granted I knew we were already f***ed up destroyed none one us were making time for each other but I still think back and think, what the hell was that?

    And while writing this I still think what stupid situation my stupid self I got myself into.

  • Olimpia Liberti July, 2 2015, 11:50 / Reply

    I know a girl that dated a guy for over 5 years and then he broke up with her by e-mail. And that was 8 years ago! So even in the longest and deepest relationships that can happen… I think is so coward of someone to break up by text, e-mail, app or even by a phone call. You had so much history, have at least the respect to do it in person, looking in their eyes!

  • Using an app to break up with someone is cruel. You should do it face to face in a public place. The person you’re breaking up with is less likely to make a scene. Breakups are messy and difficult. We should all try and remember how we would want someone to end things with us.

  • J’ai appris que le père de mes enfants me quittait sur le site de la CAF !!

    J’ai pensé: “il aurait au moins pu avoir la décence de m’envoyer un texto…” (un comble)

  • I appreciate the efforts you people put in to share blogs on such kind of topics, it was really helpful. Thanks for such post and keep it up.

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