Women Come Out of Break-Ups Easier than Men

Straight Up With a Twist

By Edwin Decker

Dear Ed, [My ex and I] were engaged in 2007 and broke up at the end of 2010. Immediately after that he got [a 19-year-old girl] pregnant, got married and moved out of state . . . When he discovered my Facebook profile several years later, he blocked me. So why do men cut all communication with their exes if they’ve moved on with their lives and are happy now?

Cynthia T. (via Facebook)

Hi Cynthia, thanks for the question. So, what makes you think he has moved on? How do you know he’s not still harboring feelings? Given the science, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

There is credible data suggesting that men have a harder time recovering from breakups in the long term. According to The Daily Mail, researchers from University College London and Binghamton University asked nearly 6000 participants to rate their emotional and physical pain of a breakup. They learned that in the long-term women tend to, “recover more fully and come out emotionally stronger,” after breakups whereas men, “never fully recover – they simply move on.”

Sounds a lot like what’s going on with your ex. He’s moved on, yes, but probably not in the way you were thinking. By that I mean, he’s not over you. If he were, he wouldn’t need to block you. And if that’s the case then wouldn’t blocking you be the virtuous action? He has a wife now, kids probably – a family to whom he has vowed fidelity. Sure, blocking you was impolite, and possibly a show of weakness, but sometimes one must reveal one’s weakness to do the right thing, which, frankly, is the opposite of weakness.

More to the point, why do you care? Assuming you have moved on with your life (have you?), what does it matter if he blocks you? Just respect the decision and forget about it. I recommend starting a new relationship, making that person fall in love with you, then breaking up and blocking him abruptly. I have always found it gratifying to torture future lovers for the actions of former ones. Seriously though, my advice is to let it go.

Dear Ed, I have a gay friend who gets mad whenever anyone – including me – says or does something he perceives to be an offense to the LGBT Community. As one example, he becomes very abusive any time I incorrectly say the order of the letters of the LGBTQ acronym, which I do occasionally.

I don’t know if I’m technically dyslexic, but I have always had trouble with the ordering of words and letters and often reverse the G and the B and sometimes the T which causes him to angrily correct me. His point is, that by not making the effort to get the letters right, I am dismissing and marginalizing the community. Am I right in thinking he’s making much ado about nothing and if so, how should I respond?

Disgruntled Ally from Solana Beach

I’m with you D.A. I’m not dyslexic, yet it took several months after I received the LGBTQ naming memo to get those confounded letters – if you’ll pardon the insufferable pun – straight. Even now, every time I read or hear it, I think, Oh man, could the LGBTQmmunity have benefited from a marketing team or what?

Of course, the term LGBTQ is an initialization not an acronym (acronyms are pronounceable words like AWOL or PIN) but it does break all the unwritten rules of effective abbreviating and initializing. The term LGBTQ is confusing, dispassionate, difficult to remember, difficult to cite and highly redundant according to the Department of Redundancy and Repetition Agency Bureau (DRAB). How the Queer Community Naming Committee (QCNC) could have signed off on LGBTQ as the label, let alone LGBTQIAA+, is a mystery to me.

I think LGTBlahBlahBlah should be replaced with “Queer+”. After all, the word Queer pretty much covers all those letters anyway. And before any readers begin firing off their angry missives about how a cisgender, straight male does not get to define the word Queer, it is not me defining it.

Plenty within the community employ the same definition. Ditto many sexperts, such as Amanda Pasciucco, a certified sex therapist with the American Association of Sexuality Educators who, among others, says the word Queer describes, “an individual who self-identifies as either Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer . . . intersex, and/or asexual. . .“

That said, I recognize there is no consensus on this. That’s where the plus sign comes in. It covers anything “Queer” misses. Think about it: Queer+! It’s more concise, stylish, un-redundant and easy to utter for even the most drastically dyslexic. It even goes so far as to . . . Uh oh, Cynthia! Have I stumbled off topic or what? What was the question again?

Oh right, you want to know how to respond to an Abbreviation Supremacist. Well, that’s easy. Tell him to go pluck a duck. Of course, do so tactfully, but let him know in certain terms that your inability to correctly order letters has nothing to do with how much you respect him and/or the Queer+ community.

If he continues to be obnoxious, turn the tables. Tell him if anyone is being “dismissive” and/or “marginalizing” it is he for acting ableist toward dyslexics.

Explain that the reason you scramble the letters is because you are a member of the learning disability community, also known as DDDNVOOWLD+ (Dyslexic, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Non-Verbal and Oral or Written Language Disorder Plus sufferers) and ask him to recite those letters in correct order. You’ll be joking of course, but humor is a good way to get a message across.

Edwin Decker (of Ocean Beach) is not a licensed therapist or psychologist. In fact, his only qualification is the 25-plus years as a bartender listening to the liver-aching of desperados and dipsomaniacs. Heed his advice at your peril.

Send questions to ed@edwindecker.com