I was in my early twenties and in a long-distance relationship with a guy. My best friend, her boyfriend, my boyfriend, and I all planned for a trip to a major theme park for a delayed celebration of graduating high school.

We graduated, and all four of us jumped into the job pool to save up for the trip. We were planning on a trip that was going to last nearly a week.

Things were going well. Everyone confirmed that time off had been granted for the dates set. Everyone confirmed that we had the money in our banks for the trip, for the cost of travel, for food, and even for buying the usual touristy, overpriced gift shop mementos that are iconic for such trips.

Then, the three of us were blindsided by my boyfriend about a month before the trip. He messaged us in a group chat we had set up for communicating about the trip.

Boyfriend: “Hi, all! Just coming on to let you know my new girlfriend is going to be joining us for our trip! No worries; all we need to do is call the hotel and reserve another room for the two of us. [My Name], you’re still in charge of that, right?”

I could only stare blankly at the chat. I was caught somewhere between numb disbelief and emotional agony. I started typing in that deadly calm way some people do when their rage is building.

Me: “How long have you had this new girlfriend?”

Boyfriend: “Oh, about a month. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew we were going to be enough of a thing to bring her along.”

I felt like I’d just been stabbed in the chest.

Me: “I see. Well, I’ve got some problems with this.”

Boyfriend: “Shoot. I’ll try to help you figure out the answers to your concerns!”

He ended the message with a smiley face emoji, which was NOT helping.

Me: “Okay. First of all, our budget is for four people in two rooms. You’re now dumping the costs for five people in three rooms. Not only will this add over a thousand dollars to our hotel bill, but it also disrupts our meal planning and travel expenses.”

Boyfriend: “No worries. I saved up! My girlfriend and I can both swing the added costs.”

At that point, my best friend and her boyfriend logged on to the group chat.

Best Friend: “Wait, hold on. What am I reading?!”

Best Friend’s Boyfriend: “WOW. I have NO words!”

Boyfriend: “I know it’s a bit of a surprise that an additional person is coming along, but I promise the extra costs won’t fall on you!”

Me: “…”

Yeah, I typed the ellipses into a text message. It was common in our chats to use those three dots to indicate speechlessness and to indicate that someone had just said or done something massively wrong and horrible. It was our chat version of seeing an expression of fury on someone’s face.

Best Friend: “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR G**D***ED MIND?!”

My boyfriend’s response was oddly casual.

Boyfriend: “What’s the problem? I said I’ll help you figure out any of your problems with adding a new person to the trip. Speaking of which, [My Name], what was your next concern?”

I was still deadly calm.

Me: “She wasn’t invited on the trip. She still isn’t. You can’t drop someone who was never invited into a group trip. To be blunt, she isn’t welcome.”

Boyfriend: “I know it’s kind of last-minute, but I promise the additional expenses won’t be on you. And she and I will have our own private room so you won’t be inconvenienced.”

Me: “Inconvenienced. Wow.”

Me: “…”

Me: “[Boyfriend], I’m honestly amazed how blasé you are about the bomb you just dropped on us — and worse, just dropped on me.”

Boyfriend: “I’m not sure what you mean?”

My best friend sent me a private message.

Best Friend: “HE’S NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN, [MY NAME]! ROFLMAO! HOLY CRAP! GO AHEAD! GIVE IT TO HIM WITH BOTH BARRELS!”

I responded in the group chat.

Me: “Well, this is the last ‘concern’ I have — one itty-bitty, teeny-tiny concern for you to address.”

Boyfriend: “Okay.”

Me: “Did it ever occur to you to break up with me FIRST before dating a new girlfriend?!”

There was silence. A long silence.

Then, my boyfriend sent me a message full of typos I won’t replicate here.

Boyfriend: “So, I’ve been meaning to tell you, [My Name]… This long-distance relationship just doesn’t seem to be working out. I mean, you know I love you, right?”

Me: “No. No, you don’t. You never did. You never REALLY cared. THAT is what hurts right now. Three years are down the drain because you couldn’t break it off in a kind manner before now.”

Boyfriend: “Hey, I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

Me: “There is no IF. You did hurt me. You know you did. And you did it in the most callous, insensitive way I can imagine right now.”

Silence.

Me: “Don’t bother to show up. Your new side piece isn’t invited. And neither are you.”

I kicked him out of the group chat and blocked him from my instant messenger. My best friend arrived minutes later with a carton of my favorite ice cream. I utterly destroyed a box of tissues while we shared the ice cream and she badmouthed the crap out of him.

Ultimately, we all had to pay extra money anyway because he was no longer contributing to the previous total, so it was divided by three instead of by four. But at least it wasn’t an additional thousand more, just a few hundred.

A month after we got back from our trip, my now-ex-boyfriend messaged me on a chat program that I had forgotten to block him on. He apologized and seemed awfully confused and disappointed when I told him his apology was NOT accepted. He asked why we “couldn’t still be friends.”

I told him it was because he was a garbage human being and I pitied his new girlfriend. Then, I blocked him again.

I am learning Portuguese as a second language. To help me improve, I do some crosswords with my boyfriend, but as we are apart for now, I have to read out the clues for him. As I am mostly self-taught at this point, I never did learn the names of the letters. I come to the clue “antes de Q” — “before Q.” I am fairly sure I have understood the clue, but I have no idea how to say the letter Q and I make a guess, saying, “Coo.”

My boyfriend gets very confused, asking what am I saying, and so I repeat”

Me: “‘Coo.’ P, ‘Coo,’ R, S…”

At this, he laughs loudly.

Boyfriend: “Ah, ‘Que.’ ‘Coo’ means ‘a***hole.’”

I still haven’t heard the end of this.

My wife and I have been together for nine years, living together for seven years, and married for almost four years. For the first two years of our relationship, we were long distance, and part of how we communicated with each other was through writing daily haiku on each other’s Facebook profiles. I am scrolling through my Facebook memories when I see a haiku my wife wrote for me in 2012.

Amused, I walk to the bedroom where my wife is playing our Switch. Note that I can be very loud and obnoxious, and I love doing very weird and cartoonish voices when I’m bored.

Me: “Hey. Apparently, in 2012, you wrote this haiku: ‘I love hearing your / voice, and I wish I could hear / it all of the time.'”

Wife: “Uh-huh.”

Me: *Smirking* “How do you feel now?”

She pauses.

Wife: “File that under ‘Things that did not age well.'”

I start dating a guy in high school, and we really hit it off. However, once we graduate, we go to different colleges in two different states. We begin a long-distance relationship. Our first year of college, it’s fine. We call a lot, talk over Skype, email frequently, and still manage to spend time together when we visit our hometown.

At the beginning of our second year of college, his parents divorce. It really hits him hard. I try to be as supportive as I can, but he begins to withdraw. We schedule times to Skype, but he begins to log in less and less often. Longer time passes between emails. Whenever he digitally stands me up, he always apologizes and gives me his reason: “I was so tired, I just had to nap,” “I was feeling really fried from finals and couldn’t talk,” “Stuff was going down at home, and I just don’t want to talk about it.”

As this goes on for months with communication between us becoming increasingly infrequent, I begin to voice that I feel neglected and that it hurts whenever he goes for weeks without talking to me. As always, he apologizes, but nothing ever changes. He says if I “just pick a date and time,” he’ll do his best to Skype with me. I do, but he always winds up canceling or not logging in. I can see the signs of the relationship failing right there, but I really like this guy. When we do talk, he has a great sense of humor. We also share the same quirky interests in some really niche stuff.

Into our third year of college — yes, I did wait two years for him to come to terms with his parents’ divorce — it becomes months between contact. I send emails and texts and leave voicemails when I can. I even agree to watch his favorite television show with him in its entirety — well over 100 episodes — just to spend time with him. We have simultaneously streamed shows before and talked over Skype while we watched them. It is something we enjoyed doing together. However, even that doesn’t change how infrequently he contacts me.

He apologizes again and insists that if I “just pick a date and time” he will do better this time. At this point, I tell him any time is fine as I will clear my schedule just to talk to him. It’s now two weeks until my birthday. He makes a promise: “I absolutely promise that I will be online before your birthday so we can talk.” He makes it sound like this will be a long conversation, possibly streaming a television show, and that we’ll be able to catch up on lost time. However, he doesn’t give me a date or time.

For the next two weeks, I spend as much time as I can on my computer because I want to talk to him as long as possible — as he made it sound. It eats my life. As soon as I’m done with dinner on campus, usually 7:00 pm, I’m online. I stay online until midnight or 1:00 am, just to see if he’ll speak with me. Some nights, I’m online as early as 5:00 am. Yes, I’m the fool who waited for six hours a day for my boyfriend to Skype me.

It’s the night before my birthday at 11:30 pm. At this point, I am so frustrated and sleep deprived that I’m sobbing. I move my mouse over to click on “Log Out” as I figure he has completely flaked again. It’s at that exact moment the notification pops up and he logs in. He gives me a huge string of smiley emojis and says, “See, I told you I’d be on before your birthday!” He has no idea why I am mad at him. After all, he made it “just in time” for my birthday even though we can’t talk for more than half an hour because of classes.

His birthday is the following month. I wait until 1:30 am the night after his birthday ends and send him an email breaking up with him — it’s not like I can even get a hold of him face to face anymore. He replies back, furious, “How dare you ruin my birthday like that?!” I reply with, “It wasn’t technically your birthday anymore.”

And that is the last I’ve ever heard from him. I have no regrets about how I broke up with him.

(I am talking to a guy from the UK. We have a bit of a crush on each other but have never really acted on it due to the distance. One night, we are on Skype talking about how I’m a hopeless romantic and he’s just hopeless at romance.)

Crush: “I don’t know why you say I’m so bad; I always know exactly what to say.”

Me: “You really don’t. Girls like to be complimented and told other nice things.”

Crush: “So, what? I should start spewing Shakespeare or some crap?”

Me: “At this point, it wouldn’t hurt.” 

(He proceeds to launch into actual Shakespeare, quoting Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia, all while looking at me with the sweetest look and speaking sweetly. Anyone that knows me would know that this is a pretty good way to woo me.)

Me: “Wow. That was actually beautiful. I didn’t know you could quote Shakespeare.”

Crush: “Aw, yeah, b****es love Shakespeare.”

Me: “Wow, way to ruin the moment.”

Crush: “Wait, we were having a moment? I want a moment!”

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