[mcr]

I love all the really great pickup/building attraction advice -- but, what's a guy to do when its working too well?

You start dating, bumping up your qualifications you want/need from a partner, etc., and then realize you can do better and need to part ways with the one(s) you are dating?

I'm only about 1 year and a half into the 'pickup game' (from a really, really bad 14 year 'stint' with my ex) and have broken a few hearts to date now -- and now have another to break :-(

Should a guy just do the opposite of what we're all learning here? Start being "mr. nice guy" to make it easier on the ladies??

Any suggestions?

Roosh - I haven't read your book (yet), but all the other materials I've read never cover "break up" -- if your book doesn't cover it -- I honestly think it could be a really good idea to cover something like that.

[duncanidaho]

Being a nice guy to end something usually translates out as a long drawn out painful thing, and there's no reason to go back to being nice when it could mean regressing to a level that never suited you. I recommend being honest and up front but firm when you have to end "it" with a woman. You don't have to be nice, just be courteous. It almost parallels a business meeting where you have to turn an offer down and don't want to buy what's on sale.

[broken]

There's no easy way to break up with a girl.

You just have to do it, and ride it out.

I was going out with this girl. Things were cool.
I was trying to see myself with her, but I wasn't thinking it was going to work out.

Anyway, she got mad at me one day, and said something to the effect, "Well if you want to be with me, you have to"

Don't think I heard the rest. I just ended the relationship right then and there.

She called me for about 2 months straight.
Got her friends to call.
Emails, Texts.
Guilt trips
"but I still want to be friends"

It was painful for her, and rather trying for me.

It's just part of the game.

If she's invested in you, there's no magic routine to make her divest without emotional turmoil.

[Trotter]

Next time you have sex with her leave $20 bucks on the night stand before you leave.

[Roosh]

The book covers it!

I think you are looking for an "easy" way of breaking up. Unfortunately there isn't. Just gotta suck it up and stomp on her heart. Don't worry, you won't be the first to do that to her.

[twigman]

Its hard but here is what I did last time for the 1st time in my life

1) tell her you need to talk to her in person
(she should know whats coming)
2) Go over there and sit her down somewhere
3) Say you like her, but you think you both want different things from the relationship / or a different kind of relationship. Its not you, its us wanting different things type talk. Keep it short. If she has any kind of self respect she'll agree with you.

This is the palatable version of 'its not you its me' speech.

4) You pick up ALL your stuff. YOu never leave without all your stuff. ALL of it. If you leave something you have to forget it.

5)Then if she's ok you hug her in a bit of a friendly way 'over the sidewalk', and you get the hell out of there. If she's crying you leave her - its not your job to comfort her. Let her friends do that, she'll be on the phone to them quick enough.

Whatever you do - don't be the 'caring ex'. DOn't promise to look after her cat. DOn't wipe her tears away.
Don't be diligent, don't be nice, don't be caring. Just break it. She'll respect you for it, and you both will move on quickly.

Its hard to do right, but its better believe me.

[zorgon]

I second all the comments about making a clean break. Let me tell you what NOT to do, from my own personal experience.

With my ex back in California (this was just about exactly a year ago now), I drew it out WAY too long. Wondering whether there was really a problem, thinking I could "fix" things, trying to "discuss" the problems, etc. It just made it all far more painful than it needed to be.

If you think there's a problem, there is a problem, even if you can't articulate it.

If you think it's not working, it's not working, even if you can't articulate why.

People are what they are. You will never change her. Any attempts at constructive criticism will be taken the wrong way. You can change yourself, but you should only change yourself because *you* want to, for *yourself*, for your *own* happiness and not someone else's. Don't change yourself for a bad reason like trying to "fix" a (probably unfixable) relationship.

For a full month I was totally freaking out. Confused as all hell and ridiculously stressed out. Finally confronted her and did the wrong thing: I said (honestly) what some of the problems were. Within a few minutes she totally shut down. I had this mistaken idea that we could have a simple, rational discussion. Boy, was I wrong.

The next day, she would basically not even talk to me. (Note, we were living together. What a disaster. Not doing that again if I have even the slightest doubt in my mind.) Finally I got her to agree that we should talk again. Again, my goal was to have a rational discussion. This one went somewhat better. But her replies confirmed my fears: in pretty much each area of conflict, we had fundamentally irreconcilable positions. To take one of the more trivial ones: I was getting SERIOUSLY annoyed by her misbehaving dogs that would bark all day/night, among other problems; whereas she said she would never, ever live without dogs and would give up me long before she would give up her "puppies." (Mind you, one of these so-called "puppies" was a 70-pound dog that would cry all night long because she was "lonely" down on the floor and wanted to get up on the bed and hog all the space.)

Things sort of drifted along in a bad state for another week. Finally, I told her: "I don't think this is going to work. Also, by the way, I've decided I'm moving to Texas." She did not take it well and stormed off for about 20 minutes to, I guess, take an angry drive around the neighborhood (talk about a bad coping strategy!). Still had to talk to her a few times to deal with issues such as updating the lease and moving utilities over, but it was "all business" at that point. Took a few days to get all my stuff moved out to a temporary place where I stayed for a few weeks -- figured that was better than trying to move straight from our shared place. But even just one day after the breakup, I *KNEW* I had done the right thing. To this day I have not had a second thought about it. My only regret is that I dragged it out far too long.

As far as I am concerned, the faster you end it, the better. It is not the time or place for a "discussion." It's more of an announcement. You are not thinking about breaking up, you are breaking up. You are *definitely* not trying to bait her into breaking up with you. You just end it, and it's over, and that's that.

[speakeasy]

I'm actually going through this sort of thing now. I started dating a girl this last February. She really fell for me and became very emotionally invested in a pretty short amount of time, far more than that I had. I went in with honest intentions, I felt that she might be a great match for me so we dated. However, I just couldn't get to the point where I felt like I was falling in love with her. That threshold was elusive to me and I couldn't entirely put my finger on why. There were some things along the way that bothered me, but nothing that in and of itself was reason to end a relationship. I think for me, it was just a visceral feeling. I hadn't gotten to that point where I got that butterflies in my stomach feeling. I know what the feels like, that high and excitement you get when you are going out with a girl you are just wild over, and for some reason, I just could not get there with her even though I very much wished I could, because "on paper" me and her would be a great match. Meanwhile, she was really into me. The thing that makes it all confusing is that I love her and care about her, but I never fell in love with her. I seriously wish I could have, but for some reason I'm just didn't even though I think she's a great person. In fact we were friends prior, sort of well myspace buddies more accurately, before we started dating. Something just wasn't "clicking" for me on that gut level and I felt like I need to feel passionate and emotionally riveted before I'm willing to commit to a serious relationship with someone and that passion just isn't there for me. I gave it time, I figured maybe it would grow over time, maybe I shouldn't give up, she's a nice girl and I should give things some time, maybe I will fall for her if I spend more time with her. The more time went on, the more I started feeling emotionally distant whether I wanted to or not. And at the same time, I could see her eagerness to try and reel me in and the more she was trying, the more distant I felt. I dated her from Feb to the beginning of this September and I felt like after six months, if you still have to sit here and think that hard about whether you should be with someone, then you shouldn't be, ultimately that was the argument that made me decide to end it.

When I did decide to end it, it was gut-wrenchingly painful. I've never seen a girl cry so hard in my life. It wasn't one of those clean breaks. It's several weeks later, and we're still talking about things. One day she sounds happy to talk to me, a few days later she is bitter towards me. She's got a lot of shit going on in her life outside of this break-off and I did not want to just abandon her since I do genuinely care about her. She had told me that this couldn't have come at a worse time. She has been trying to win me back over and get me to sleep with her and asked tonight if she can come over and make dinner for me tomorrow. She is emotionally needy and I just am not in a period of life where I want to be responsible for someone else's emotional needs. I have a lot of things of my own to worry about. But I just wanted to tell my story, it's very difficult dealing with a drawn out break-off. I'm not trying to be nice for the sake of being nice, I am a naturally empathetic person and I don't want to feel like I'm just abandoning someone in a callous manner. But I guess there's a price you pay for that too.