Jul. 16th, 2010
National break-up day
Jul. 16th, 2010 12:18 pmMy inspiration is often quite coy. That is, it often throws up an idea on a topic whilst being entirely mum whether this is a genuine suggestion, or a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic parody. I think this is quite natural, and inspirations naturally DO do that, but it has the unfortunate downside that I have to either (a) stop to think "should I say this", or (b) accept that I'll make many apparently ridiculous suggestions, and any genuinely helpful ideas I have, if any, will be mixed up among them. The "Oh, you should XXXX. Ha! That's be great. [pause] Though, actually..."
This week's idea that came up in conversation was "national break-up day", in contrast to the many entirely positive geek holidays.
After all, it's really, really horrible when someone breaks up with you on valentines day. Or Christmas. Or your birthday. Or after you travelled a long way to see them. But on the other hand, there's no time that causes people to say "Well, yeah, it was really disappointing. But on the other hand, at least they did it on X day." At least if there WAS a special day for it, the timing would officially be "not as bad as all the alternatives"[1].
And you can have a tradition of friends ready to support you then, and so on. And maybe even some culturally accepted norms of the least bad way of breaking up, such that everyone doesn't improvise the worst possible way.
And if you have an inherently casual relationship (either because you're young, or are inherently incompatible, or because you have a surfeit of non-casual relationships already), it might provide a natural six-monthly or yearly lease to be renewed, rather than an ad hoc "hm, I forgot I was still doing that..."
But despite more reasons to have "break up day" than I expect, I'm still sure it's a horrible, horrible idea :)
[1] Except if your birthday is on breakup day. That would suck. We suggested making it a moveable feast, relative to your birthday or culturally-appropriate romantic-holiday, but decided that was too complicated.
This week's idea that came up in conversation was "national break-up day", in contrast to the many entirely positive geek holidays.
After all, it's really, really horrible when someone breaks up with you on valentines day. Or Christmas. Or your birthday. Or after you travelled a long way to see them. But on the other hand, there's no time that causes people to say "Well, yeah, it was really disappointing. But on the other hand, at least they did it on X day." At least if there WAS a special day for it, the timing would officially be "not as bad as all the alternatives"[1].
And you can have a tradition of friends ready to support you then, and so on. And maybe even some culturally accepted norms of the least bad way of breaking up, such that everyone doesn't improvise the worst possible way.
And if you have an inherently casual relationship (either because you're young, or are inherently incompatible, or because you have a surfeit of non-casual relationships already), it might provide a natural six-monthly or yearly lease to be renewed, rather than an ad hoc "hm, I forgot I was still doing that..."
But despite more reasons to have "break up day" than I expect, I'm still sure it's a horrible, horrible idea :)
[1] Except if your birthday is on breakup day. That would suck. We suggested making it a moveable feast, relative to your birthday or culturally-appropriate romantic-holiday, but decided that was too complicated.