Meet Joe BlackBerry

This girl I've been dating for a couple months really likes me, but I'm not feeling it. Because we've done a lot of texting, I'm thinking of breaking up with her by text. It would be a lot less uncomfortable.

--Departing

Getting dumped is bad enough; it's worse when your soon-to-be-ex not only won't spare you face-time to do it but stiffs you on vowels. (If your girlfriend doesn't have unlimited text messaging, it could even cost her 20 cents to find out "its ovr.") Smartphones make life easier, but not everything in life should be. Once you've spent more than a few naked hours with somebody, you can text them to tell them you're late, but not that you're never coming back. As for this girl, even though you're "not feeling it," breaking up in person will be hard for you, and she'll see that, making the experience less dignity-eating than if you used your phone as a buffer. In other words, compassion, not cellphone technology, should be driving your breakup behavior. But, if compassion's not really your thing, at least consider your text messaging limits, and maybe keep your phone in your pocket and program your Roomba to go tell her it's over.