Breaking Up is Hard to Do

It has been said that one of the unintended consequences of the internet and social networking sites is that we are actually lonelier. Instead of bringing us together and allowing us to communicate with more people, the technology isolates us and replaces real friendships with “friends” on Facebook.

I suppose then that it should be no surprise that now someone has come up with a website called idump4u.com where for a small fee ranging from $10 to dumb a boyfriend or girlfriend to $50 to announce a divorce, “Bradley” will call the dumpee up and inform them not only that they are being dumped but why.  After all, why get personal during your break up when most of your relationship was probably conducted by text messages and facebook postings?

According to the website it is all for altruistic reasons: if you don’t tell your ex why you are dumping them they are just going to get keeping dumped by their next significant other. Bradley calls it a sort of “pay it forward” civic duty: you are actually helping their net girl or boyfriend enjoy a better relationship.

And in keeping with this altruistic vein, the website records the calls and then posts them on their website and on Youtube.  This is so the public can also experience the joy of listening in on what should be a private and tactful conversation.  The fact that the traffic to the site may also generate some ad revenue is I am sure incidental.

I found this site by following a link from, I think, Reddit. I have to admit that I was intrigued by the concept of being able to pay someone to do the breaking up for you. After all, who really enjoys the unpleasant and awkward conversation. Do you use cliches such as “it’s not me, it’s you” or “Let’s be friends.”   Or do you vent and tell your former love exactly why you can’t stand them any more? The options and dilemmas are endless. Paul Simon was being conservative when he sang that there were 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. Now there are at least 51.

Breaking up is especially hard when the dumpee doesn’t see it coming and then you have to deal with denial, shock, crying etc.

So I suppose that this site might actually serve a positive social need. After all if you need out of a relationship but are too cowardly to do the work yourself, should your lack of backbone condemn you to an unhappy life?

But what is wrong about this site is that they then post the audio tapes of their conversations with the dumpee. I have to confess that to my shame and discredit I listened to some of them and they were quite painful to listen to. Whatever the dumpee had done to deserve to be dumped, did they deserve to be told by  a complete stranger that they had until the end of the month to move out, or that their cellphone was going to be cut off after “Bradley” had finished dumping them, or that they were too stupid to be in a relationship with?

I listened to a few segments of the calls just to determine if these were actors.  Unfortunately the calls sounded genuine,  so if this site is successful it means that there are a lot of people who get a kick from listening to a person go through one of the most painful episodes of their lives.

It is a sad reflection on the internet culture that there probably is a huge public for this sort of thing, and I would not be surprised if some copycat sites pop up. The Germans had a word for this long before the internet: Schadenfreude which is loosely translated as “delighting in others’ misfortune.”

Perhaps we should take counsel from this wisdom from the Book of Proverbs:

“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the LORD see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.” (Proverbs 24:17–18, King James Version).