@nonurbusinessyo@xanga - You'd be surprised.

This is the most emotionally hurtful thing one person can do to another without malicious intent.It's the equivalent of taking a container that is normally filled with Kool-Aid, removing the label, and filling it with pesticides for your garden. If the guy drinks it, even if you didn't mean to, you hurt him. If you don't feel terrible guilt and regret because you removed the label and it was his fault for not observing the difference, you are seriously an asshole. You can argue that you didn't do it to hurt him, but you're only arguing to clear your own conscience. For the guy who drank it, what's the difference if you did it on purpose or not? He was hurt just as badly either way. By arguing that it's not technically cheating, you're trying to selfishly preserve your own reputation and making it all about you which only adds insult to injury.Even if it's not cheating, the effects are indistinguishable to the person it really matters to; the person who is hurt by it.

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - If it's not official, that will be used as a reason for many, many things including sleeping around. We know this to be true. The fact that it's not "official" means you can do things you otherwise wouldn't because you don't have to answer to anyone. When it is official, you are giving the person a say in what happens in the relationship, and (in the exact opposite way) you rightfully should answer to them before making any decision that affects him/her. Removing the title is to do something without giving him/her a say in what happens which almost always results in hurting that person, and that is cheating.

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - "no. removing that title is simply removing that title."Right... there's no purpose to it whatsoever. Keep telling yourself that. And saying it is just saying it, the purpose of which isn't to defend your opinion or your previous decisions.More and more it's becoming apparent that burying one's head in the sand is an advantageous trait. It's hard to hate a person for being ignorant, even if it is by choice."i broke up with him because he sat around making fun of me with the "cool kids" so he could be a "cool kid" and i decided that i would not be the mat for some teeny bopper brat's door to social popularity."Why didn't you just stop talking to him? Why didn't you just leave him alone and continue dating other people (or not dating other people)? Why didn't you get revenge on him instead?As you grow up, you (and in the distant future, all of humanity) will come to realize that removing the official title is used as both a last ditch effort to passive-aggressively hurt the person one last time before they no longer care what you think/feel and to lay the foundation for future relationships.Your reply about your shitty boyfriend makes it obvious you were using it as the last ditch effort, but of course in your little mind being "officially" single comes in handy later on purely by coincidence when you just so happen to meet someone else you like.By nature, humans take advantage of things, often unfairly and often without realizing it and continue to do so increasingly until something negative happens to them as a result. When you're an adult, it takes effort to not do this and to keep yourself in check.You are a deceitful slut, but not on purpose, so I forgive you.http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/3ACV16/05.mp3You really make it hard on a person to give you helpful advice.

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - Just some points (in no specific order because I'm kind of in a rush)..."youre a whinny offensive ass." "...if he hadn't turned into a mean whinny awful bitch..."For future reference, "whinny" is the neighing sound a horse makes. The word you're looking for is "whiny" (one "n")."...i wouldn't have had to publicly dissociate him from myself."You mean you wouldn't have had to dissociate yourself from him. Domineering much?"did you ever think that not telling him i was breaking up with him would hurt him a lot less than him finding out that i was with another guy?"Yes. You wouldn't believe the amount of time and energy I've spent thinking about this and things of a similar nature. He's going to find out you're with another guy either way. If he's hurt less because you shared a few words with him before continuing to the same end result then he's an idiot. The relationship is over either way, you end up screwing another guy either way, he is at the same loss no matter how you spin it. Telling him you no longer want to be in a relationship before continuing to act against his wishes is like telling a person you're going to punch them in the face before you do it. Either way it's going to hurt just as badly. So yeah, you're a fucking saint for considering his feelings and going out of your way to take them into consideration while still placing a higher value on your happiness than his pain.So to answer your question:"how do the people out there feel who have been dumped versus the people who have been cheated on?"I can't tell you how others feel about it because I've never asked them, but to me (when I truly love the person) it's the same damn thing. I'm not saying you're a bad person so I'm not really sure why you find my opinions to be offensive (especially when I'm always open to changing them if you present a better and more logical approach) but if I wasn't committed to someone already, I wouldn't date you unless you became more aware of your potential and as a result changed your values.I've come to the conclusion that our disagreement is based on a rather simple difference in our personal experiences. I never said it's not possible that in your life you did the right thing and you did it in the best possible way you could in regards to your specific romantic situation, so maybe it's that I'm arguing a general rule and we have different situations in mind, and maybe I would've done the same thing in your situation.I think if you were like me and found someone who you truly loved with all your heart and would devote yourself to unconditionally and that person returned your sentiment and swore you were the only one for them ever and forever and that person dumped you, then you would understand how it feels the same as cheating. Perhaps I'm arguing against myself in trying to educate you because that's something I would never want you to go through. In this case, ignorance is bliss.

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - Whatever. Between your comments and mine, you were the first to even use the word "slut" (and it was to justify what you assumed I thought about you). Since you've pretty much already expressed that my opinion doesn't matter to you, I don't see how you'd find me (or rather, my replies) "offensive". I can kinda see why you'd think whiny (because of my OCD tendency to over-explain things, which could be mistaken for caring a little to much about what you think of me, but really it's because I care a little too much about my articulateness, yet another form of a compulsive urge to make things neat, clean, and tidy). I suspect that's also why you get the impression that I'm so judgmental and have such strong, unfounded opinions... because my over-explanations and going into detail probably make it seem like I'm arguing more passionately than I am. That being said, the snippiness of your replies is pretty understandable, but I just don't feel like explaining this to every person I enter a discussion with, so I tend to get snippy in return.On a side note, what would be really patronizing is ending every other sentence with "...in my humble opinion." like you're naive enough to think what I'm saying is absolute fact. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you're mature enough to take what I say with a grain of salt, so I might as well just throw what I'm thinking out there and let you interpret it as you see fit (with the understanding that I can't possibly know the whole story and my opinion is a work in progress).

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - I used the most recent smiley to express a dismissive feeling toward your reply because what you said is blatantly false and I found no point in directly addressing it (the equivalent of saying "Anyway..."). When it comes to my comments, if you don't understand the emotion I was expressing with a smiley it's best to just disregard the smiley altogether. They don't really add anything significant and I kind of throw them in sloppily anyway, sometimes adding one even if it only vaguely resembles the face I would make for the feeling I want to express via comment.Although I was skeptical that you actually believed I would call you a slut simply because you have a sex drive (after all, so do I), I decided to reply in the context that you firmly believed it to be true rather than if you had simply suspected I'm just that much of a prude. I took your comment at face value and considered just how incredibly far off your assumptions about my character have been and I couldn't help but think you must've been getting the wrong impression, so I came up with a possible explanation for the disparity between the person you continue to portray me as in your comments and how I actually am. You probably don't believe it was entirely sincere because I didn't intend it as an apology, further proving my own suspicion that you're having a hard time cobbling together an accurate idea of what I'm really like. I'm almost certain it has to do with the fact that I often go back and reword sentences before submitting my comments (especially the longer ones) because I get a distinct feeling some of them are too ambiguous, and doing that might screw up the flow and the tone of my writing. It wasn't so much an apology as it was an attempt to explain what I thought was an underlying cause for our disagreement and get your opinion in order to better understand why you have such difficulty believing I'm actually quite an open-minded person who states his highly provisional thoughts frankly and openly.When I write informally on here it's almost always misinterpreted by at least one person and I'll get an irrelevant reply, so I got in the habit of ensuring my comments are virtually impossible to take the wrong way, but I'm slowly realizing that it comes at the expense of taking virtually all of the personality out of my writing and it's unfortunately very easy to assume I'm being pompous or 'stating my opinion as fact' rather than being decidedly articulate.

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - "as to the "fact" thing, you do often seem to be a bit of a pompous ass."I started writing the way I do now so my comments aren't ambiguous and not liable to be misinterpreted due to trivial semantics for the benefit and ease of understanding of the person reading them. That's the irony of it. I'm extending more time, energy, and care into my writing for the benefit of the other person (because after all, it's advice; it's for their benefit anyway), only for my ideas to be seen negatively and thereby disregarded for their tone instead of the actual content.There seems to be a tradeoff as to whether I would rather be more frequently misunderstood or if I would rather be more frequently seen as a pompous ass.Being misunderstood is due to people not placing any significance on certain things I've written in a personal way with emotion that should make it more relatable.Being seen as a pompous ass is due to people placing far more significance than I intended on other things I've written in an objective, unemotional way that should make it more understandable. Even if it's true, the harder one tries to explain they're not an asshole, the more they will be seen as forcing their opinion (of him/herself) on others, i.e. as more of an asshole.While most people in a similar situation would quote a popular French expression "C'est la vie -  That's life."... I quote Virgil “Fléctere si néqueo súperos Acheronta movebo - If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.”. Even more ironic is that the expression "raise hell" has been so ravaged by misinterpretation that it has taken on a meaning of its own. Originally, it meant to improve, to figuratively "raise" it up to the heights of Heaven, to make it equal to or surpass... but of course it has the word "Hell" in it so it must mean doing something bad, rather than implying that there is an exclusivity to Heaven that breeds a negative air of elitism. If the Gods ignore your plea for rain, you dig an irrigation ditch. Thus is the meaning. "If I cannot move (the will of) Heaven, I will raise Hell.". If I cannot change your opinion, I will go about describing it in a different way. My reply wasn't an apology. It was an explanation.

@LauraDeLuna@xanga - Although a guy being allowed to physically force his girlfriend to stay with him is not at all what I was implying, I'll improve on not leaving my comments open to that interpretation.