Things got a lot less complicated when I gave into the truth and switched to girls.

I've never been through a proper breakup.

Really.

One of two things happen at the end of relationships in my world, depending, it seems, on how stable the other person is emotionally and mentally. I'm not saying I like to date crazy unstable people, but I do seem to emit some kind of pheromone that attracts them. Something that makes insecure, needy people think that maybe I'm cool with carrying all of their emotional baggage for the rest of my life. I've gotten better at weeding them out early, but now and then they sneak under my radar.

Anyway, most of my relationships have ended rather amicably. Usually what happens is that I date somebody for a while, and then after the honeymoon period wears off we end up realizing one day that we're really just friends and that maybe we should stop pretending it's more than that.

Yes, after I've dated somebody I really can just be friends with them.

Really.

I think there's only been one time that the "hey, aren't we just fooling ourselves?" moment caught me off guard and nearly qualified as dumpage. I dated a guy starting in high school all the way until our first year of college. It was a long-distance relationship until the college portion, and being a "good Christian girl" at the time, there wasn't really any physical side to the relationship at all. In fact, since he was even more super-goody-goody than me, we didn't even kiss that I can remember.

Yeah, okay, I was lame back then. Totally lame.

Anyway, I believe it was my birthday. He gave me a gift and a card, but instead of signing the card "love, *name removed to protect the innocent*" he just signed it "your friend" or something. I don't remember now exactly, but I know it really knocked me for a loop for a bit. Had I done something to scare him off? Had he met somebody else? WHAT WAS GOING ON?!?!

I eventually got a long, handwritten response that basically said he had thought back over our relationship and decided that maybe we just weren't ever "in love" with each other, and were more like just really good friends.

I know what you're thinking, but he's not gay. I think that the problem might have been that I'M mostly gay. I mean, heck, when nearly every relationship you have with a male over the course of a decade ends in the realization that it was probably just a good friendship and not love, you've got to wonder.

So that's the worst "being dumped" story I've got.

Me dumping other people is a whole different topic.

Remember all those wackos I mentioned before? Let's see....

There was the old dude that attached himself to me when I lived in Chicago. I made the dumb mistake of having a one night stand with him. In my defense, I actually said, "I'm not interested in getting involved in a relationship or anything, but if you're okay with us just having sex tonight and leaving it at that, then let's go." He said that was fine. And then started writing poems about how god had brought me into his life and shit. He didn't leave me alone until I moved back to Missouri, and even then it took a series of increasingly hostile emails along the lines of "leave me alone, I don't want to talk to you, get a life" before he actually stopped trying to contact me.

Then there was the dude who I hooked up with before he shipped off to Iraq. Every time he came back to the states I got phone calls. I had to start screening my calls and have my sister tell him I didn't live there anymore.

Come to think of it, I think I just shouldn't have casual sex. Evidently, I'm highly addictive. I don't like it.

Things got a lot less complicated when I gave into the truth and switched to girls.