Welcome back, manslatees. A woman named “Tara” has a situation that I’m sure many, many of you have come across at one time or another. She writes:

We women need all the help we can get, Jeff Mac, so thank you for translating for us. I have a question:

Do men sometimes behave badly in order for the woman they’re involved with to get fed up and finish with them?

I was dating a man who initially was eager, funny, attentive, caring and kind. We got to know each other well, and he said we had a ‘soul connection’. I thought this was poetic, and became very attached to him. He had told me however, early on in the relationship, that he’d never had a relationship last longer than 6 months. Lo and behold, 5 months down the line, he’s a lazy slacker, rarely calls, can’t be bothered, always late, doesn’t shave…basically, he cools right down. But when I approached him about this, and asked him if he was wanting to break up, he became all defensive, accused me of being paranoid/clingy/demanding/needy…you get the picture. Should I have finished it sooner? Did I misunderstand the early attention as affection, and the later behaviour as just being more like himself? I need a manslation, please, in case this happens again.

Dear Tara,

First of all, do men sometimes behave badly in order to avoid having to do the dumping?

Yes.

Men absolutely do that sometimes. It’s usually because we can’t handle being the bad guy — the breaker upper. It’s often to avoid the crying. Don’t get me wrong — we don’t love the “getting screamed at for being a jerk as you’re dumping US” either, but we REALLY hate the “you crying because we’ve hurt you” stuff.

See, we don’t really cry too often (most of us). And so when we see someone crying, we’re pretty sure it’s an emergency. Like, one that might involve an emergency room. And we certainly don’t want to be the cause of THAT.

So, yeah. Sometimes you’ll find that a guy will suddenly become so intolerable that you just seem to have NO CHOICE but to dump him. Sorry about that. Hey, what can I tell you? Sometimes that’s what it takes.

OK, YES, I’VE DONE IT 

Years ago, I once dated the wrong woman for long enough that I’m embarrassed to tell you how long. It was mostly because a.) there was nothing else going on, lady-wise at the time, and b.) she would cry whenever I brought up breaking up. And I’m talking, like, “mother having her child stripped from her arms during times of war” kind of crying. (I kept thinking, “Uh, lady, I’m just this DUDE, ok? Seriously, take a real good look before you go off the deep end with this thing.”) And every time she’d have a meltdown, I would cave. And so I just had to become so difficult that she dumped me. (P.S. it worked.)

And yes, it sounds like this guy was definitely trying to get you to dump him.

HOW DO I KNOW HE WAS DOING THIS?

First of all, I’m a freaking genius. But more importantly, this is yet another example of the First Law of Manslations: Whenever there are mixed signals, ALWAYS, ALWAYS FORGET WHAT HE SAYS AND LISTEN TO WHAT HE DOES.

Here’s how you know this is happening — the defensive thing, the angry lashing out at you, blaming YOU for the problem when you bring it up. All of these are classic signs of that. He acts like a jerk, and then, when you ask him why, he acts like YOU’RE being unreasonable. When you ask a reasonable question, and a guy gets really angry, that’s usually a cover. In this case, he wanted to make very sure that this fight was YOUR problem with HIM. And that he was FINE. But his behavior (the laziness, the unattentiveness, the general douchebaggery.) was clearly that he already had one foot out the door.

Sounds like you finished it right on time, Tara. I don’t think you need to worry about having misinterpreted his initial affection. (Unless you want to, I guess. I know some people for whom worrying in hindsight is something of a sport.) I mean, it seems like you guys genuinely had fun for a few months. And then, for whatever reason he wanted to break up as you approached his standard six month expiration date. (If it helps any, in my head, I’m imagining that he had a gypsy curse put on him as a youth, where if he stays with someone for more than 6 months, he will grow antlers or something. If it HELPS, I’m saying.)

Whatever the reason was for him wanting to break up, hey, it happens. But it seems like you made all the right moves here. You stayed until it wasn’t fun to stay, and then you left. That’s what we in the manslations business call a “Perfect Dismount.”

Stuck the landing, Tara. Thanks for writing, and good luck!

-Jeff Mac

Anybody out there ever have a dude behave badly to get you to dump him? Or any guys who DO this want to chime in?