Responding to "The Shovel"

If you're not reading Zach Oates' blog Every Day Is Easter In My Closet, you're missing out on a good laugh. I highly recommend clicking on that link and giving your abs a little tickle. Come on, it won't hurt ya! Now, I don't actually know Zach at all, so maybe it's a little weird to respond to his most recent blog post, but I can't help myself. If any of you are suckers (suckers that I love, of course!), and haven't checked him out yet, I'll give you a short blip from the post so you can get your bearings on what I'm talking about here:

"The Shovel" is the easiest most subliminal breakup tool ... It is simple really, you just dig yourself so deep into disenchantment in her eyes, that the she can't help but call the relationship dead.

Hark, is that my journal speaking? Seriously, though, just a couple of relationships ago, my list of purported pet peeves reached sky-high limits. I don't think the poor guy ever expressed positive emotion towards anything without me shooting it straight out of the air. For example: If he liked dogs, I hated them. If he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the Mountain West, I hated the mountains and wanted to die on a beach. If he liked celebrating holidays, I was the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, President's Day, Halloween, Valentine's, St. Patty's, Arbor Day, and National Butterscotch Pudding Day to boot. If he wanted to go dancing, the very thought of it gave me a headache and I'd rather just watch a movie. If he tried to make things romantic, I became a instant comedian. If he expressed distaste for something, I was its biggest fan.

Really, I honestly don't know how we managed to last as long as we did, because whenever I was around him I turned into the lamest person and the biggest buzz-kill of all time.

During one of his combative moments, Zach realized that "the entire conversation was to get her to not want to date me." (Or, as in my case, the entire relationship was to get him to not want to date me.) While it's comforting to know that I'm not the only person that does this—pulls out The Shovel and digs their own relationship grave, that is—it kind of makes me sad. Why do we do these things to ourselves? 

For some, it might be the very reason Zach suggests: "if SHE got to TELL ME that SHE wanted to stop dating, than I could cower away from my feelings about being unsure and insecure, she could feel empowered for doing the dumping and I...aye, I would be the victim."

For me, I think the problem most often stems from not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. I just don't want to have to be the one to say, "You are not someone I want to have as a permanent fixture in my life for reasons. Let's not see each other anymore." I mean, ouch! Because when someone doesn't want to date you, you know that their reasons aren't going to be flattering. And I'm not good at just avoiding the question of "Why?" I'd so much rather have that other person make their own decision about me and have the satisfaction of cutting things off themselves: I would rather be dumped than have to dump somebody. And maybe some of it is just the things Zach is describing; maybe it is my own insecurities that make me want to head for the door.

The real trouble with The Shovel, though, is that I think this is more hurtful than just taking the initiative and breaking things off when you know they're not right. It's like giving someone a plastic spoon to amputate their leg with:

JUST GET YOUR AXE AND HACK IT FOR THEM, OKAY? 

Wow, that got really graphically violent really fast. But what I'm saying is that it's so much better to just get it over with quickly than to try to give them tiny little hints that you're not exactly perfectly simpatico, ya know? Because that's what the shovel really is: trying to gently clue the other person in on the fact that things aren't going to work out.

Really, it's just a backhanded, mitigated dumping—and how dirty, awful, and mean does that sound?

Thankfully, I've realized the error of my ways. Unfortunately, regularly performing mitigated dumpings isn't the easiest of habits to break.

I'm still trying to figure out a lot of things.
How to let people down easy
How to realize when I'm backing out because I'm scared versus when it's because it's really not right
How to keep from "Shoveling" people and relationships
How to break hearts cleanly and carefully, because pain is inevitable, but I can do my best to help it heal faster

Thankfully, I've got time.