The Best of Happy Woman's Kiss-Off Letters

By Kate Heidel

 

Men can be so disappointing sometimes. When you are no longer able to deny that your Prince Charming is really the Duke of Loservania and must be stricken permanently from your appointment book, we invite you to choose from among our finest collection of kiss-off letters in the known female universe. We also invite you to send it on Valentine's Day for maximum impact. No, it's not nice, but neither were those dates with Lord Boring, so karmically you're just about even.

 

Dear ___,

 

It has come to my attention that my friends find you a bit appalling. I wish I could say that others' opinions don't matter to me, but I'm afraid they do. I'm almost sure you will find a girl one day whose friends find you merely irritating. Best of luck in that department.

 

Dear ___,

 

Happy Valentine's Day, the perfect time for us to go our separate ways. Those ways should ideally be in the opposite direction. So, for example, if I'm heading northeast, you should travel southwest. No awkward meet-ups and all that.

 

Happy trails!

 

Dear ___,

 

No one has better taste in after-shave cologne than you, my sweet, but my oh my can you be completely obnoxious. Why is that? Oh, well, I'll leave it to you to excavate childhood clues and write a best-selling memoir. Then you'll be rich, but surely no less obnoxious. Congratulations on your potential future success as an author! Don't call me ever again.

 

Dear John,

 

I just love how your name is "John." Guess where I'm going with this.

 

Dear ___,

 

Your sister always gives me the fish face when we have dinner at her place. Among the things I won't miss now that we're through, it's Little Ms. Fish Face.

 

A journalist would point out that I buried the lead in that first paragraph. It should have read, "We're through, and among the things I won't miss is your sister's fish face." I can admit when I'm wrong.

 

Dear ___,

 

Call me "crazy," which you have on numerous occasions, but today is our special day to call it "quits." Think of the opportunities this opens up for you to tell lots of other women that they're crazy, lazy, boozy floozies. You're such a freaking poet. Call me "single." And don't forget "ecstatic."

 

Dear ___,

 

As your adorable son/daughter ___ likes to say in the car, "Are we there yet? Huh, Daddy? Huh??" That is so adorable.

 

To answer his/her question, no, ___, your Daddy and I still aren't there yet, after __ long years of Daddy's girlfriend knocking herself out. Daddy needs to find himself another girlfriend to kick around like a soccer ball, doesn't he. Why don't you go help Daddy pick out a nice stupid new girlfriend.

 

Dear ___,

 

It has come to my attention that you may in fact be a nerd in hipster's clothing. You do realize this means I am retroactively humiliated for all the film festivals I attended with you under false pretenses.

 

Happy Valentine's Day! My lawyer will be in touch.

 

© 2010 Kate Heidel

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Heidel is a freelance writer living in Minneapolis. Her work includes humor essays and poetry, genres so incompatible that Kate's resulting inner turmoil can only be soothed by frequent shopping trips to Designer Shoe Warehouse.