A text message has become an acceptable way to end a relationship. We are in The Decline.

     E-- and I have been together for months and I felt she deserved better than a text message, but I didn’t know how to break up with her.

     T-- suggested dinner at a fancy restaurant and cutting her loose after dessert.

     “That’s awful,” my sister said. “I would stab you with my spoon.” She told me I needed to go to E--’s and tell her to her face. “Then you sit there,” she said, “and you listen to her until she has nothing left to say.”

     I didn’t like the sound of that, so I called my father for ideas. “You’re a grown man,” he sa...

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