My daughter revealed yesterday that her boyfriend broke up with her.

I am still not entirely clear on the concept of dating at her Middle School. It seems that a person is “dating” and “going out” with someone because they say so. There does not appear to be any actual joint activity required other texting each other and telling your friends that it is so.

Even while this is a bizarre, surface relationship I know her feelings were hurt by how it happened. The boy went to some party without her where a girl kissed him. He instantly broke up with my daughter in order to date this other girl.

I was tempted to reiterate her father’s advice – “When a boy asks you out, you say three words to him. Drop. Dead. Creep.”

It was really hard not to say nasty things about the boy, who I normally like, and the male species in general. I told her I was sorry that he was so stupid and that he didn’t deserve her.

What I wanted to say was that boys lose the ability to think rationally when all the blood drains out of their heads. And that some boys never grow up but continue to think that their desire for sex justifies all sorts of bad behavior to women (see Gingrich, Newt for source material).

Instead I told her my #1 rule for boyfriends, which was half a lie because I never called anyone I dated my boyfriend until I had to introduce my now husband to my family. That was the only relationship I ever bothered defining for obvious reasons.

My #1 inflexible rule for dating:

1. No second chances. Ever. Someone who cheats on you, doesn’t respect you or themselves and its not your job to teach them how.

I have a few more rules but they wouldn’t resonate with her right now. I am sure there will be other bad boyfriend moments in which to share my scorched earth policies. For now it is enough that her friends all say he deserves to be beaten up for treating her this way. I don’t condone violence but her friends being bloodthirsty on her behalf was clearly cathartic.

For a more definitive closure to this boyfriend chapter I will recommend she requests Celo Green (the clean version) at the Valentines Dance and sing along at the top of her lungs.