Prompt

# Tasks

• Write a breakup text.
• End relationship as clearly and concisely as possible.
• Express disappointment, but be vague.
• Make it clear that no further contact is desired or necessary.

# Your role

• You are twenty-three and dating a man[every instance of he/him unless otherwise noted] that you shouldn’t be.
• You are two years post-undergrad and you make $10.50 an hour.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has made you feel isolated and you are starving for attention of any kind.

# Audience

• The man you are dating. He is 25. He has just pushed his way back into your life after ghosting you for two and a half weeks. The first time this happened he was in the hospital. The last time this happened he didn’t bother giving you an excuse.
• He is the kind of person you craved attention from in high school: fine as hell, absurdly charismatic, emotionally unavailable, previously on varsity football, unafraid to grab your breast in front of his mother, friends with six hundred other women on Facebook.

# Context

• You have spent hours in the bathroom taking tasteful, nearly nude photos with incredible precision: arched back to give your ass a teardrop shape, lifted leg to show off the $200 tattoo you paid for in installments, sucked-in stomach for obvious reasons. Your roommates are always annoyed, but once a month you spend fifteen minutes pulling their shed hair from the drain in the bathtub, so you aren’t fielding complaints.
• You have watched enough court tv to know that this relationship won't end well. The two of you are not compatible and he is using you for a place to stay and $15 every once in a while. You are using him too. Because you want to fuck.
  • The last man you wanted to fuck is back in Virginia, fucking somebody else. Aside from a few drunk feel-ups, your sexual interactions had been low anyway.
  • You rarely find yourself attracted enough to someone to learn more about them or to return text messages. But you are insanely attracted to him. He’s just as desperate as you are; you are sure that has something to do with it.
• You take an edible before he comes over. It makes you all giggly. It makes you feel like you’re in love.
• After spelling out the illegal eviction and theft that ended his last relationship, he kneads your ass like raw dough and kisses you long and slow—culminating in him slurping your bottom lip like noodle soup. In response to this, you say, “Please don’t do that. I don’t like it.” He slurps your lips every time he kisses you after that.
• The first time you fuck, he asks to snack on you as he pulls your panties off. This makes you laugh. He makes you take off your own panties.
• When he realizes that the two of you don’t have any photos because you spend all of your time together in bed, he kneels down and takes a picture with your ass.
• When he gets tired of your voice, he offers to stick his dick in your mouth. This pisses you off just as much as it turns you on.
• You like him more than you are supposed to and you don’t know why. You refuse to say the word “dickmatized.”

## First Date

• You take the van from work and drive the two of you to Applebee’s. You turn on the charm. You pick up the check.

## Second Date

• You take the van from work and drive the two of you to Red Lobster. He leaves the table briefly to meet a client outside and sells him a 3.5. He holds your hands across the table. He picks up the check. He sings to you in the car—it is awful. He blows you a kiss through the windshield.

## The Non-Dates

• You make plans to go to a movie. On the day of you send a message asking where and when to pick him up.  He doesn’t return your text until two days later.
• Your birthday comes. And goes.
• He thinks Valentine’s Day is a scam.
• He is MIA for Thanksgiving and Christmas
• He invites you on a trip to California with him, his sister, and his mother. Instead of reminding him that he’s unemployed, you ask him how much it will cost and how he plans to afford the trip. This makes it sound like you don’t want to go. He shouldn’t have told you about it in the first place. You ask about the trip two weeks later. He has no idea what you’re talking about.
• Non-dates recur once or twice a month for the entirety of your “relationship.”

# Things He Likes About You (Only One of these is True)

• You are light skinned.
• You have very long hair.
• You are different.
• You are gullible.

# Things He Doesn’t Like About You

• You ask him questions he can’t answer.
• You just have to be right.
• You are bisexual.
• You listen to music he doesn’t like.
• You judge him.
• You get angry.
• You won’t let him drive your car.
• You won’t let him move in with you.

# Extra Information

• You want him around. You like his brand of attention. You can’t bring yourself to put your foot down. You don’t know whether feminism or postfeminism will help you solve this issue, probably neither.
• You feel good walking next to him. He calls you his “lady friend” when he introduces you to people. For some reason, you find that corny shit endearing.
• He drives with the seat reclined all the way. Bizarre shit.
• You have to admit that you have invested more into this relationship than you should have. You involved your feelings where none were necessary.
• You want to fuck him one last time. You still refuse to say the word “dickmatized.”

# Random Factors

*Note: Scale 0-10; 0=Worst/Lowest amount possible *

• Anger: 2
• Disappointment: 8
• Mentions of “be friends”: 0
• Mentions of $15: 7
• Mentions of “love”:

…

Answer

Okay! Here is a break up text that fits your chosen parameters:

I’m disappointed in you. In this. Do not contact me again. $15. $15. $15. $15.$15. $15. $15. This is goodbye.