People have strange rules involving break-ups: You can’t break-up with someone within 72 hours of having sex, 7 days before or after their birthday, during the month that you celebrate your anniversary and all manner of strange rules that are supposed to ease the pain of break-up.

Let’s be clear, break-ups are never easy but they are a necessary evil. If you’re not putting a 100% shift into a relationship you are doing yourself and your partner a disservice. In my experience I have found that men employ five primary break-up techniques. I will discuss these below in the order of difficulty, from easiest to hardest, and hopefully provide some insight on why a man might have chosen a particular method in your past:

1.The Houdini: He disappears.

The easiest of the methods, all a man has to do is fall off the face of the Earth. He doesn’t have to explain himself. He doesn’t have to have any awkward talks. He doesn’t even have to come up with a good reason, or a reason at all! This is reserved for women he does not care about: jump-offs, side chicks, weekend entertainment.

It may also include women he is confident he can avoid running into for the rest of his life (or at least 6 months), such as: out-of-towners, one night stands, girls he met at a wedding, friends of friends of friends of acquaintances who don’t generally fall in any of his circles. You may disagree, but he has decided you are not worth the hassle of the break-up discussion. This is the most low-class disrespectful move a man can pull, yet it happens every day.

Conclusion: Much like the break-up you are a low-class, worthless woman that he had no more use for

2.The Illusionist: He remains only in form.

Rather than formally break-up, he slowly withdraws from the relationship mentally, physically or emotionally. He wants out but he is not brave enough to end it. Instead, he lets the relationship die a slow painful death. There will be no mercy kill. As the calculating escapist he is, he might break-up with you over text or via a surprise Facebook status update to ‘Single.’ 

What he really wants is for you to break-up with him so that he does not look like the a-hole who ditched a girl who liked him and did him no wrong. If you offer him no such reprieve, then he will look for sneaky ways for it end without it being entirely his fault. However, if you are equally weak willed or too stubborn to accept it’s over, this pathetic excuse for a relationship might last forever.

Conclusion: You are obviously a girl of some substance and while in real terms you matter very little to him, your role in his future reputation is of importance to him

Not to worry, muchene will give you the other three later on in the week. Kwanza, take in those two and see if your guy has been pulling those stunts of late….