I broke up with my girlfriend at the beginning of this school year. Gasp! Don’t get me wrong, she was fun to hang out with and a beautiful girl, but starting a relationship based on who can drink more without blacking out on Spring Break is more typically a Maury Povich piece than a Cinderella story.

Considering she didn’t go to school here, I was left with the option of breaking up with her over the phone (as in an actual phone call because people that break up by text deserve to have hydrochloric acid colonics performed on them bi-hourly … I’m talking to you Joe Jonas!) or doing it when she was visiting for Orientation Week. I chose the latter. It was a shitty scenario that took place sitting behind Cascadilla, but it had to be done, and I tried to do it with as much grace and tact as I could muster. Not everyone plays by those rules … isn’t that fun?

Breakups happen. Typically following relationships, so typically breakups don’t happen very often at Cornell. Unless you are on crutches, girls hardly ever get asked on dates at Cornell, and the line between constant hookup and boyfriend/girlfriend is hazier than last Wednesday at Dunbar’s, which had the most blackout people per capita I ever didn’t see (well, saw, but hardly remembered). Why pay for the steak when you can have the dessert for free? Or as a (former?) rival of mine says, “A girl’s gotta eat … or be eaten.”

My relationship only lasted a couple of months, effectively boiling down to a couple of weeks if you consider the four-hour divide that kept us separated most of the time. When we were together we ate grilled cheese and drank UV Blue with Mountain Dew then had sex in lots of different places. You may be shouting (if not, take a moment and please shout this, while shaking your newspaper or computer for all you Internet readers), “Damnit, man, you had it all!” But I felt like we were holding each other back and the fear of missing out — on senior year, on new experiences, on whatever else was out there — led me to break it off.

There are probably things I didn’t do right. I’ve been more afraid to call her to talk since the breakup than Stoop Kid is to leave his stoop. I regret this, but I do know she’s moved on. But here comes the big hairy BUT(T). There are some of us who care about how our actions affect people we claim to care about BUT there are others, who, for lack of a better word, are shit-mongering douchebag-toting asshole scum, for which I apologize to actual scum, for I don’t mean to drag your good name through the dirt in order to offend a (certain type of) person.

I’m not trying to say that I have been a beacon of kindness towards women — I have done some pretty terrible things. But since that formal four years ago (sorry again) I’ve matured (until that semi-formal this year, sorry again) and realized that my actions and words affect more than just myself when it comes to a relationship, especially when ending a relationship. SO FUCKING FIGURE THIS OUT POINDEXTERS.

How do you think it would look if you peruse Eddy Street with your ex of three year’s sorority sister? Probably not good. Or what about spreading rumors to make you look like the good guy/girl when (1) you’re not and (2) you could have just let a sleeping dog lie? Learn to do this amicably or else you’ll end up destroying all chances at any potential relationship with the actual good-catches within this four-mile radius expanse we call campus. Word travels quickly and people talk/write sex columns. Don’t think that your dirty laundry isn’t going to stink up a storm, so get some quarters real quick.

We go to Cornell — we are intrinsically smart people, but whereas we lack the social capacity to talk to a girl without the opening line, “Flip cup?” we also lack the experience and maturity to handle our problems — in life, and definitely in relationships. Just because your #2 pencil broke during your test and you had to re-sharpen it is not sufficient reason to lament FML on your pathetic Facebook status update. But when you see the person you care about clearly not caring about you, or you find out what you believed to be the truth was really just another lie, then FYL.

No need to Tweet it, though. Do, however, address it. It’s hard to talk to an ex, but tell them how you feel. They should still respect you enough to listen and hopefully act to remedy their shortcomings, just don’t be a crazy person throwing stones (actual rocks, not Keystones, although Keystones are a good projectile) at your ex from across Linden, screaming how they ruined your life and deserve to rot in the sub-basement of Olin Library and your point will likely be better taken. Just get your closure and get your clothesure (the term I have invented for when you exchange the garbage bags full of clothes that you each left at each other’s places. Yay! I have sweatshirts again!) And if all else fails, tell me about the asshole who’s slighted you. I have no problem calling them out. I just hope the asshole isn’t me.

So, you sir, with your backwards baseball cap (guilty) or your pink Lacoste polo (not guilty) or your crush party sunglasses (guilty) or your skinny jeans (definitely not guilty), walking down Dryden or College or Catherine or whatever the fuck road a freshman would walk on (Jessup?) with no regard of how what you do hurts the people you supposedly care about, are an asshole.

The point is, anyone can be that asshole, so don’t let it be you and grow up already.

Coming up next semester: “How To Get in the Sex Column” (Parts I … and II!), countless cheese references, anal sex-ploration and the torrid e-mail conversations I have with my winter break love affairs that I will accidentally forward over the Class of 2010 list-serv. After the scandal from that subsides, I will start referring to my bedroom as the Johnson School of Business. Enjoy your breaks. See you back at the Palms come January. Unless you’re graduating ... In which case, hurry up, your window of opportunity to hook up with me is closing … And in case I die in a fiery blaze of glory this break I would like my last published words to be this: DOWN WITH HANDJOBS!

Jeff K. is a senior in the College of Engineering. He may be reached, for sexual encounters or otherwise, at jeffk@cornellsun.com. Come Inside appears alternate Thursdays this semester.