This past Friday at about four in the morning, I was ascending the library steps when I caught sight of an acquaintance doing the same. Without a word, we instinctively huddled closer for safety, and when I smiled at her, amused by our newfound proximity, she returned a pained grin. I noticed her eyes were misty. She was upset. Very upset.

The cause, I later learned, was a recent break up with a long-term boyfriend. I assured her she would be alright, and I even pointed out how pretty she was before I gave her the whole “many fish in the sea” schpeel, but I could tell she didn’t buy it, and I scarcely helped her feel any better by the time we parted ways.

The incident got me thinking about why it is that some relationships don’t work out, and if there’s an ideal way of breaking up with someone if the necessity arises. So far, I’ve elaborated on how to initiate romance without stating an exit strategy, and sent you all off like troops into the vast and confusing world of dating.

Why? I sure as hell didn’t feel qualified to draft a memo on how to pull out of an unpromising relationship. This one time, I thought it was a great idea to walk up to a guy I was dating, sling my arm around his shoulder and tell him that he would make an amazing friend.

Hold on, it doesn’t stop there: I then lifted my fist and said, “Now gimme a pound, bro!”

It was all very tactful, and I was shocked when he didn’t oblige. Now, a lot of girls would think I was crazy to blow that one over, and blow it over so badly at that. Theoretically, this guy had the whole package: He was attractive, smart, sweet, fun and open to commitment. That’s what snared my interest to begin with, but after we started dating, I quickly realized these theoretical ideals didn’t suit my current desire to have unrestrained fun during my last semester of college. So I wanted out, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him because I assumed nice girls were supposed to hold on to nice guys. I was blindly clinging to this idea of what I was supposed to do, and not being honest about what I really wanted to do. So instead of talking to him about it, I freaked out and asked him for a platonic pound.

Don’t do that.

Aware of the fact that I’m grossly misinformed when it comes to break ups, I asked my friends for their input, and the flood of messages and calls I received attests to the fact that there are many a college student aggrieved by bad breakups, and — more interestingly — so many people want to talk about it because they still can’t make sense of what happened.

I heard horror stories about a relationship that was ended on Facebook (unbeknownst to the girl being dumped), people cheating and being cheated on, drunken fights and screaming matches in public places — even a girl who read that her boyfriend wanted to break up with her on his public blog. When she confronted him about it, he told her that he had wanted to break up for a while but pretended to still love her during finals week so she wouldn’t fail her exams.

In every story that made me cringe, I noticed a pattern: There was a profound absence of courage and honesty in all the memories that people unearthed when the words “worst breakup” came to mind. Could two things so simple be the secret antidote to post-breakup trauma?

I think so.

Believe it or not, most bad breakups are preventable, given two things: 1) Both parties grasp that there’s a difference between expectations and reality, and 2) The person whose reality defies the other person’s expectations is honest about the discord. The ideal exit strategy is actually quite simple: Be honest, courteous and resolute. This requires a great deal of courage, but so does dating, and if we can muster enough guts for the purposes of initiating something, doesn’t it only make sense that we scrounge up enough to end what we started in the same way?

Let’s not be so concerned about how we’re supposed to feel, or get caught in a situation where you’re with someone solely because you think breaking up with them isn’t the “nice” thing to do. Stringing someone along when you’re just not into them isn’t nice. I mean, let’s not be so myopic here. What’s nicer? You breaking up with them now and causing a bit of pain, which time will alleviate, or staying with them because that’s what you’re supposed to do, marrying them after college, moving into a little suburb, taking a job at a firm you hate because it’s close to home and becoming a brooding, hostile spouse because you’re still harboring regret that you couldn’t bring yourself to cut things off that one day back at Georgetown, when you were both still young and there were plenty of fish in the sea?

Your prime years are a gift. Use them for the betterment of your happiness — whatever that entails — because the various expectations that others hold us to will eventually transform into uncompromising duties. You know, things you can’t just shrug off with a pound.

Jane Yu is a senior in the College. She can be reached at yu@thehoya.com. This is the last Between the Sheets.