What’s up with some people and how they breakup with someone? Recently, a friend of mine emailed me and said, “My girlfriend broke up with me the other day via email.”

Via email?! They dated (and were inseparable) for over a year, and she breaks up with him via email?

She told him that it was too hard for her to sit down and break up with him face-to-face, and that she thought it would be easier for her to break up with him via email. She didn’t even go into detail in the email about it — it was a short three sentence email basically saying that the relationship wasn’t working for her anymore.

Another friend of mine was in a relationship with someone for nine months. They were in love, were intimate, spent night after night together, and vacationed together.

He broke up with her via a text message. That’s right, a text message!

Do you see a pattern here? What are the rules now a days — that you break up with someone via text message if you’re dating under a year, and you break up with someone via email if you’ve been dating longer than a year?

The text message that my friend sent said simply, “I don’t think this is working out, and I think we should stop seeing each other.” That was it.

How do you even respond to that? He didn’t even have the guts to pick up the phone and call this person he said that he loved. He just sent a text message.

I remember how bad I thought it was when the story broke a few years ago that Sylvester Stallone had broken up with someone via a letter he sent FedEx. He just had to break up with her overnight, and even sent it so that it would arrive by 10:00 am. Waking up to a breakup letter is something I’m sure she really needed.

What does it take these days to get a face-to-face breakup . . . or even a breakup via a live phone call?

Do you need to have been dating for more than two years to warrant this treatment? What do you have to do for someone to feel they “owe” you the courtesy of a face-to-face talk or at least a live phone call when they break up with you? What do you have to do to get the closure and the honesty that comes from a face-to-face breakup?

We have become so addicted to technology that we can’t even give each other the time of day anymore. So many people will not even pick up the phone anymore.

Most people text. A lot of people just email instead of picking up the phone.

When it comes down to breaking up — really discussing the relationship and the really important issues — you should never do it via email or text. What is wrong with our culture today that this has become at all acceptable?

When did we become so afraid? When did we become such wimps when it comes down to speaking with one another.

Breaking up via text or via email is disgraceful. You owe it to someone you’ve been dating (no matter for how long) to sit them down. You owe it to them to be 100% honest about how you’re feeling and where you’re at so that they can have closure.

I can’t imagine if something broke up with me via text. I don’t think I’d ever be able to talk to them again, or even look them in the eye. If you’re intimate enough to look someone in the eyes when you’re making love with them, then how dare you break up with them via text or email?

Technology is wonderful. When it comes down to intimacy and your relationship, however, you need to pick up the phone or meet face-to-face to tell someone how you feel if you’re going to break up with them. You need to do this no matter how hard you think it will be for you.

Breaking up is not easy to do. Breaking up using technology, though, is just plain sad.