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The “Dear John” letter.

For a little background history — and I'm sure Military City, USA, will appreciate this (or not) — the term is commonly believed to have been coined around World War II from the letters written to servicemen stationed overseas by girlfriends or spouses who'd found another love interest while they were away, according to Wikipedia.

Well, to make a long story short, I had to write one — five years after the fact.

A few weeks ago, I came home and saw a letter sticking out of my door (yes a real-life, pen-and-paper letter). I cautiously opened it, hoping it wasn't the guy who lives in the building next door and is always asking me to dinner or the guy from the sushi place who is always putting coupons in my door and doesn't realize that, despite the flirting and Brazilian accent, I'm irritated with him and his ilk because no one looks at those coupons anyway and they usually just blow away and create trash.

To my surprise, the letter was from an ex (who lives in Houston, by the way) whom I broke up with five years ago. It confessed his undying love and asked if there was any chance we could get back together.

Now, ladies and gentleman, my first instinct was to say, “There's a reason we're not back together after five years!” I told girlfriends about it (who almost unanimously preferred that I rip into him) and guy friends (who thought I shouldn't respond at all), but none of their solutions seemed to be something I would do.

I strongly believe that though one partner may be more of a jackass than the other, it still takes two. And obviously, the guy was hurting, or at the very least wondering “what if?” Sometimes, in the wake of a breakup, even years later, we have a tendency to want to vilify an ex or stoke self-pity for the travails endured. And neither is truly “moving on.”

In the end, it became an introspective moment, an opportunity to look at where I'd been and where I am now. It was a chance to see how I'd screwed up and how much I've grown over the years — and how, in many ways, I'd outgrown my ex and others since.

So I wrote back, in summary: Dear John, you're a really great guy, just not great for me.