America needs to get better at breaking up.

"Don't shit where you eat."  A mantra we all follow, or at least acknowledge the merits.  But it doesn't stop there.  Don't date a friend's ex.  Don't date inside your friend group.  Don't date anyone in your band.  Don't date your doctor.  Don't date your kid's teacher.  Basically don't date any person you would have a shot at meeting and having a conversation with.

Where the fuck is anyone supposed to date?  My calendar looks like an episode of horders.  How many niches do we have to carve into ourselves before we start to look like leather?  You know why so many people shit where they eat?  Because we eat all.the.time. and we have to shit somewhere.  Does any human actually work 8 hours a day?  I haven't met anyone who works less than 11 hours since 2002.

There's a common thread between the "don't date" maxims, and it's prevention.  It's not how great your relationship will be while you're having it, it's how bad things will be when and if that relationship ends.  Of course, there's nothing wrong with prevention-brushing teeth, applying sunblock, wearing a seat belt.  But heartbreak is not a root canal, skin cancer, or fatal car accident, and it doesn't need to turn us into a truck-smashing Carrie Underwood.

Let's go through a break up for a second.  We love each other, but we're not happy and we're not willing to change.  We stick with it longer than we should, because the love is still there, but the unhappiness grows all the time, joined later by sacrifice, loss, and resentment.  Eventually the love runs out, and the resentment takes over, and it's time for the conversation.

This part is why we can't have nice things.  Also Carrie Underwood, but this too.

Why did we wait until now to take the other person's wants seriously, or attempt to be flexible, or decide where our boundaries lay?  It's too late to be civil now; the reserves are bone-dry.  All empathy has gone out the window.  All the tactics we learned in COM 101 are gone.  All Sunday School lessons, PBS propaganda, children songs about sharing and giving and listening, done.  Because now it's about

I DIDN'T GET WHAT I WANTED, FUCK YOU.  Here we are at our weakest, our hearts at their most vulnerable.  No more compassion.  No more religious, agape, love-for-fellow-man.  Now we strike with the claws of Mephistopheles.  We have seen each other naked, we have caressed each other's scars in the dark, and now we dig our nails in and rip them open in broad daylight.  The sun rays burn our wounds, and it's tear-for-tear.  You rip me, I rip you, you pull wider, I pull deeper.  We
don't stop until we're both crawling away.

And with that, we cement each other as the most painful thing that's happened in the last 5 years.  We can't even bear the thought of each other.  We have to change up the times we each go to our favorite brewery.  We have to make our friends choose who they're hanging out with to make social events easier.  We immediately post hot pictures of ourselves on social media advertising our singleness and new-found freedom from that bitch/asshole.  If we see each other, the best-case scenario involves grinding teeth and chugging water until the moment ends.  The worst-case scenario involves lawyers, restraining orders, and debt.

Does this sound familiar?  Because this is why we can't date anybody, anywhere, ever.

But Tindr!  But Bumble! But OKCupid!  Oh, you mean the apps we all hate and complain about because they burn us out with alarming consistency.

Okay, I know they actually work for a lot of people.  But for the minority of cavemen that still desire to meet people organically, there should be a more effective strategy.  And regardless of technology, at some point we all have to gather at the river, hold hands, and find some way that we can take a risk on each other without ruining our lives if it doesn't work out.

For example.  Has it ever occurred to us as a species to be more peaceful when it's time to break up?  If not to make dating easier, just to make life better in general?  To learn that pain doesn't have to be accompanied by malice?  To grow in our perseverance and patience?  To show the aliens we're not a self-destructive animal?

Let's go back to that break up.  What if, instead of ripping open your wounds, I gently opened mine instead?  What if I acknowledged that I made a few mistakes?  What if I kept my part of the conversation about the things I did wrong, and left your own reflection to you?  What if I viewed you as an autonomous being, as the only person who could decide if and how you were going to change?  What could we walk away with?

We wouldn't just keep our dignity.  We'd keep the part of each other that we originally liked and respected.  We may not be best friends any more, but I might be able to continue trusting your professional opinion, or enjoy the unique twist you add to our friend group, or stay focused on how I can help my child succeed in your class.  Hell.  I might even be able to keep working in the same building as you.