FBS: Sudden Turn-offs and The Point of No Return

Anita Patterson/ Morguefile

We’ve all experienced the romantic anomaly that is the ‘Sudden Turn-off’. You’re hanging out with somebody new and it’s going great. You’re getting along well and have lots to talk about. You’re actually thinking this might be heading somewhere… then it happens: for no apparent reason you’re suddenly turned off.

All at once, the things you found cute and endearing yesterday become childish and unattractive in the harsh light of today. The laid-back attitude you thought was so cool before now reveals itself to be simple laziness and a lack of ambition. Literally, all the positives invert to negatives. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re finished with this person, because once you’re turned off, you’re turned off for good.

Ok. So just end it and walk away. No problem, right?

Oh but there is a problem, my friend. You now have to pull a Relationship Rewind and retrogress things back to their pre-romantic beginnings – which is an extremely difficult thing to do. Once you cut off a fledgling relationship how do you move forward with that person as friends? When you “all of the sudden” change your mind about someone you’re dating, how do you do it without looking like a jerk?

It just hit you like a ton of bricks that you don’t want to be with this person, and you’ve got to let them know. But it’s a difficult concept to articulate because all your behavior up to this point signaled “all systems go” – because you really meant it at the time – and directly conflicts with your present state of attraction (or lack thereof). So how do you explain your sudden change of feeling?

Jdurham/ Morguefile

This is truly a conundrum; and I’m going to go ahead and be honest and just admit that I have no succinct answer to this question. I’ve found myself in this situation a few times in my life; and I am not too proud to admit that I almost always ended up taking the awkward way out (A.K.A. Just letting things linger on until a confrontation was absolutely unavoidable).

I’m all about direct conflict when someone makes me angry or acts unjustly; but I hate having to initiate those awkward confrontations that occur when the other party hasn’t done anything wrong. In some ways, it’d be much easier for me if the person I’m trying to dump would get angry with me.

But, as it stands, this post specifically discusses instances in which the party being ditched is entirely innocent, and is only being let go because of a sudden change-of-heart.

So, I’ve decided to leave this one open-ended and ask what you would do (or have done) in a situation such as this. You can either comment below or email me personally at Slake@theeagleonline.com with your answers, advice, and comments.

Cheers

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Suzette Elizabeth Lake writes mainly for her personal blog FavoriteBirdSpeaks (affectionately referred to as FBS) and contributes weekly to The Incubator blog Dating in The District (DITD).

To anonymously submit a dating related question to Suzette’s advice column, Ask Suzette, please email her at SLake@theeagleonline.com. All personal information will be kept confidential.