Dear Steve,

I recently broke up with my girlfriend, who had been telling me things like “This isn’t working.” She was referring to things like not living close enough to each other to make getting together quick and easy, and that our financial and career situations are in very different places right now. When I broke up with her I thought she would basically agree it was the right thing to do, given her repeated complaints.

Instead, all she did was cry and screamed, and then tried to tell me that “this isn’t working,” was supposed to mean, “Just dating isn’t working so you should propose.”

I’m kind of ticked off right now because now I don’t know how to interpret what she was saying. Does the fact that I didn’t pick up on what she was saying mean I have problems reading people? Or does it mean she has problems with communicating, which is all the more reason that I was right to break up in the first place??

Signed,
This Isn’t Working