(This one's dedicated to Tyger. Sorry, hon.)

This entry is all about the "Silent Dump", i.e. pulling something like this in order to dump someone you've been seeing long enough where uh, you know you really shouldn't be pulling the silent dump. The old "I'm just going to never call her back and never return her phone calls and all will be well for me" (or in the case of a guy my roommate dated, packing up all his shit from her apartment and leaving nothing but the key behind) trick.

Let me just say that anyone who does this? Is a torturer. You are being cruel and nasty. You may think you are not, but you are.

(Pardon the slant towards men, but I know of no women who pull this on anyone as of yet.)

Sure, it's the easiest way of dumping for you. You don't ever have to deal with her again. You can pretend she got the hint and it blew over and everything is fine. No pain for you. But this? Is what you're doing to the girl. This is what she thinks when you do it. Watch the Crisis Scale, where 1= mellow and 10=homicidal.

You tell her "I'll call you" after your date on Friday, then flee and change your address and phone number:

Day 1 (Saturday): It'd be nice if she heard from you today, it'd be great, but she's still enjoying your date from yesterday, so she's okay right now. Crisis Meter Scale Score: 1 1/2.

Day 2: "Hmm, he hasn't called. I wonder why. Did something come up? I guess it must have. Well, he'll probably call tomorrow if he's following that stupid guy three-day rule." She rationalizes, and is still fairly mellow and sane...for now. But this will change. CMSS: 2 1/2.

Day 3, 11 p.m., when she realizes it's highly unlikely for you to call this late on a Monday night: "What the heck? Didn't we have a good date? I thought he liked me. Did something come up? I hope it came up. I hope he has a good excuse, because if he just has an excuse for not calling it'll be okay. I want it to be okay. I want him to like me, I don't want to be dumped yet again!" She's still in the hopeful stage, which is promptly heading towards ridiculous hope, and thus she still makes up excuses for you and tells herself she'd be stupid to go nuts over this if it turned out you were just busy. CMSS: 6.

Day 4: "He'd BETTER have an excuse for not calling. He'd better be DEAD. I'm going to go check the newspaper and see if any accidents have occurred in the last few days." However, there is no discernable excuse for him not to have called. If she can at this point, she might try to ask around through their mutual grapevine, but most likely she will have the same results. "Shit, should I call him? What would I do? Yell at him? Try to be 'light and breezy' like the Rules Girls? See if he's dead? (Unfortunately, no man has ever turned up dead in real life in this situation.) What if I scared him off? I didn't mean to!" She will beat herself up about this all night long, whether she actually calls or not. Calling won't make her feel any better though, as you will not answer her calls or return them anyway. She is firmly in the land of Unreasonable Hope. She is very determined NOT to be dumped, so she is trying to ignore your "get the hint!" evidence. CMSS: 8.

Day 5: "I WANNA KILL HIM!!!" By now, all aforementioned unrealistic hopes have died. She now knows "it's not me, it's YOU," but she doesn't know why or what she did to scare you away. She feels like the dog's dinner. She beats herself up about it. She calls you all sorts of dirty names. She badmouths you to everyone with a vagina that she's ever met. Did I mention that she wants to kill you? Congratulations, you've just done the female equivalent of kicking her in the balls. With steel-toed boots. For FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT. CMSS: 12.

Day 6: Heavy drinking ensues, and your dumpee now has at least a little less trust to give to the next guy she dates. Even if he likes her and would never act like your shitty ass did, any time he's late in calling her, she will wig out and immediately go to CMSS level 8 in a panic that he too is going to suddenly treat her like shit and she'll never know why it happened or what set it off. Thanks, jackass!

Okay, now picture the alternative to this nasty scenario: You're ending your date, and instead of "I'll call you," you say that you're just not attracted, nice meeting you, good luck, and walk off. She's most likely stunned and a bit hurt, but at least she knows what's going on and not to expect to hear from you again. She goes inside, she has a little drink, she bitches with a friend or two on the phone for awhile about losing another fish to the sea, and moves on to the next one. Within a day or two, you're out of her memory. Why? Because she knows what went down with you. And she's not losing brain cells for days wondering what the hell is up.

That is one of the greatest kindnesses any dumper can give.

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