Dear Sally Ann
I am going out with someone I now just want to be friends with. How do I tell him without causing a lot of pain? I think he wants to stay together. Although I still really like him and would like to stay friends, I want to meet someone who, maybe, I will spend the rest of my life with.
T

answer

Well, you know what they say, don’t you? If you want to get rid of a guy without hurting his feelings, tell him you love him! Only joking. (This can work but it’s a risky strategy.)

Getting dumped is always painful but there are ways to cushion the blow. You say you would like to remain friends with this man – this is achievable in the long term but it will be tricky to begin with. If he really likes you he will feel terribly rejected and let down.

Don’t on any account tell him that you want to meet someone new. Rejection is just about bearable if it doesn’t involve other people. It’s grisly if it does. There’s an etiquette to chucking gracefully and it requires a good dollop of self-blame and responsibility. Although they are a cliché, sentences like, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’, or, ‘I’m not ready to have a serious relationship at the moment’ are useful meaningless statements that allow the chuckee some dignity.

As your feelings towards this man are so friendly, I suspect he’ll have intuited that you aren’t madly and passionately in love with him anyway. The two are usually mutually exclusive. I think he will be shocked but not surprised when you end it and, given time, he will want to be friends with you too. Treat his feelings with great care, don’t let him know too much about your social plans (especially if they involve seeing other men or double-dating with mutual friends) and let the situation calm down and cool down.

ivillage uk

Dumping him (nicely)