The Real Reason All Those (So-Called) 'Jerks' Broke Up With You

Your friends are telling you what you want to hear. But here's the truth.

By Marina Margulis — Last updated on May 22, 2023

Photo: Andrii Zastrozhnov / Shutterstock

Look, I'll keep this article short ... but not so sweet. No word mincing or dancing around the issue.

Have you ever had to tell someone you're dating that your relationship just isn't going to work out?

While you may tell that person, "It's not you, it's me," ... in reality, you know perfectly well every single thing you found wrong about them. Usually, it's a myriad of things the other person is either lacking or has an excess of — it's their values, their upbringing, their manners, the way they dress, or even their dog who tries to bite your hand off every time you try to pet it.

So, we lie. We say it's about us when we know it's about them.

But what happens when someone we're dating tells us it's not working out?

When a guy dumps a woman he's not interested in ... she runs to her friends who instantly tell her (and by her, I mean you) a long list of things that are wrong with that guy, right? Women still make it about him. Did he break up with you? Clearly, he's cruel, blind, stupid, and doesn't know a good person when he sees one.

It's a defense mechanism; blaming the other person shelters us from the pain. Unfortunately, it also shelters us from the truth.

Your friends mean well, but they're wrong

Case in point: Scrolling through my daily social media updates recently, I noticed a post by a woman in her late 30s. In the post "the victim" (read: woman) vented her complaint about a guy she's been seeing for a few months. She thought things were humming along quite nicely, until the one week that she was "very busy with kids" and couldn't see him.

As a result (or so she claimed), the next time she texted him for a date, he refused, saying that he was seeing someone else. With that, the victim (again, read: woman) concluded that choosing her kids over her date cost her a relationship.

Needless to say, this drew a plethora of comments from her online friends. Some of my favorites:

"His loss! ... If he fails to see your value and know you are worth the wait, the hell with him."
"He proved he is not worthy of you."
"He… [is] full of himself and wants to be the center of attention."
"He sounds like a spoiled brat …"
"The guy is truly a moron …"

And, the most astonishing:

"Good riddance to bad garbage."

It's not them, it's ...

And it wasn't just women throwing stones. Her male friends also chimed in (probably with high hopes of scoring big with the stone-throwing women). The comment thread went well above a hundred comments ... and with that, I couldn't stand it anymore.

It's a pattern that repeats itself over and over. And men are just as guilty of this as women.

The problem is we can't comprehend that someone may not like us. Some idiot out there does not appreciate our physical and intellectual beauty, therefore we find an excuse for our rejection. In the case of the woman above, it was her children. For someone else, it's probably work, school, family or a travel schedule.

In reality, if we are rejected, it is because the other person isn't into us. End of story.

Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, if the "loser" above was really into dating this mother of the year, he would not hesitate to wait a week for a chance to see her again. In fact, he'd wait a month if he had to. He'd adjust his schedule to complement hers. He'd look at her kids as if they were the cutest, smartest, most adorable creatures on earth. All because he was so into their mother.

And if a woman likes a guy — really likes a guy — she puts up with his busy schedule and does her best to adjust hers just to see him.

Quite frankly, I'm not even sure that the guy in the example above really did meet someone else. What I am sure about is that he was not into this particular woman. And, I can assure you the children had nothing to do with it. The matter was a lot simpler than she wanted to admit.