By Bunmi Sofola

Over a year ago, the sporting world was enthralled by the details of how Caroline Wozniacki, the Danish tennis sensation player was unceremoniously dumped by fiancee golfer Rory Mcllroy. Caroline revealed weeks later how her Northern Irish golfer, the love of her life, ended their three-year relationship just days after their wedding invites had gone out.

According to her, the end of the romance by the love of her life “Came in a brief phone call, no longer than a couple of minutes, during which he said nothing except the wedding was off. No reasons, no remorse. He left those for the press release that he shared with the entire world a couple of hours later”.

Caroline admitted that the split left her ‘shocked’. “I thought at least  it would be face-to-face or something, but there was nothing. It was a phone call and I didn’t hear from him again.” Sadly, Caroline’s bewildering humiliation mirrors a lot of the heartache suffered by women dumped unceremoniously by their pompous and selfish exes.

“After 20 or so dates in eight weeks, each one more heart-stoppingly exciting than the last, I was pretty sure that Muri was the one,” recalled Tamilore now in her late 30s. “‘Good-looking with the naughtiest twinkle in his eyes, he was also smart, stylish and, most importantly, funny. My 35-year-old head knew perfection was not possible, but my heart said something different.

And, from the passionate nature of our relationship, I assumed he was similarly besotted with me. Naturally, I was desperate to share my good fortune, so I broached the idea that maybe we should make our relationship public. “Wait a bit,” he said. Reluctantly, I agreed even though the last thing I felt like doing was muffling my excitement like some guilty schoolgirl with a crush.

“A few weeks later, the big night came when he invited me to dinner with a few of his friends. I climbed the stairs to his flat with my heart in my mouth. This must be it, I thought. Inside, there were two men and three girls, all a lot younger than me and all unnervingly beautiful. Perhaps the warning signs were there when Muri introduced me as ‘my friend, Tamilore’.

Dinner then proceeded with a slightly odd atmosphere, with Muri appearing to show more interest in some of his other guests than me. I went into the kitchen to talk to him as he arranged for wine glasses. ‘So what do you think?’ he said. ‘Of what?’ I replied. ‘Of her,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the dinning room and the stunning girl in a tight designer dress and a well- groomed  extensions.

“I looked down at my flat sensible shoes through to my pulled-back hair-do. Suddenly it became devastatingly clear that this was his way of ditching me. Not for him a tearful break-up during a stroll to the supermarket, nor even a 2-am phone call in which he pledge to be my best friend for ever. Instead, unable to do the decent thing he invited me around to show me the reason I was being dumped.

Humiliated, I tried to hold on to my dignity—but the fried rice stuck in my throat and I gulped down the wine like it was orange squash. Mind you, I’ve been dumped by text during a shouting match in front of a lot of people at a wedding, and even by a man who got his best friend to tell me. But never like this. Forget ‘it’s not you, it’s me’, this was ‘it’s not you, it’s her’. This experience (it still makes my blood boil and fists clench three years later) comes to mind whenever any of my friends get unceremoniously dumped”.

 So what is it about men that they can’t end relationships with manners, dignity, and yes, some emotions? Why do they think that it will be easier for the woman if they don’t show their feelings, rather than shed a tear and at least come up with a lame excuse? Tamilore believes that “there are ways for a man to dispatch a woman, and Muri clearly needs some practice.

As does the spineless worm who dumped my sister after passionately courting her for almost six months and having mind-blowing sex to boot! All he said literally was ‘goodbye’ before walking out. No wonder she was left sobbing on my sofa for weeks. During her emotional outpourings, my sister was lamenting not only the end of a long relationship but the fact there wasn’t a reason for the ending. The loss was bad enough but the not-knowing why was worse.

“There must have been a why, it’s just that the man—and let’s be honest, most men—found it nigh-on impossible to express it. Women need closure, while men seem able to suppress their emotions and build impenetrable walls around unfinished aspects of their lives, as if those loose ends no longer exist. I’ve been subjected to many crass dumping since I first kissed a guy 25 years ago, and I’ve no doubt my experiences are pretty standard.

There was the long-term boyfriend who finished with me as we walked towards a taxi after a party, with the words, ‘This isn’t working, it’s over.’ Then he jumped in the cab and took off. I cried for two months and felt paralysed with regret about the possible reasons for his emotional brutality. I obsessed over the fact we argued about whether to eat out or stay in. Was it my personality, fashion sense, family, friends, look? The shortcomings of my character was endlessly assassinated by my worst enemy— me.

“Months later, I bumped into him. It turned out he’d got together with a mutual friend who he ‘always had a thing about’, but thought it was best not to tell me. He assumed he was being kind—but that’s one of the things that differentiates the sexes—one man’s ‘kindness’ is another woman’s ‘crass insensitivity’. I

appreciate there’s never a good way to end a relationship and, after almost three decades of experience, I’ve nailed the golden rules for leaving a relationship. Anything less than six months deserves at least a phone call letting them know where they stand. Anything over that—especially if the physical bond has morphed into something more serious with thought about ‘the future’—then a face-to-face chat is a necessity.

You know the scene—TV ominously switched off, wine glass filled, together on the sofa but with little eye contact. The lines are just as femiliar. ‘We can still be friends’, ‘This isn’t about you, it’s me’; ‘I just think we’ve grown apart’; ‘Il always love you’; blah, blah, blah…

Explaining why men are so incapable of being respectful when dumping a woman, a relationship expert, Linda Papadopeuloss says: “It’s pretty simple. It’s all about how comfortable you are with your emotion. And if we must gender stereotype, lots of men are not comfortable with it. The technology age has made it even easier for them to take the path of least resistance, to disengage with minimal confrontation.”

“Perhaps then,” conclude Tamilore, “it’s time we women radically changed our approach. To stop looking for reasons and to start being selfish. To be ruthless not wet, emotionless, not soppy, to embrace the clean break rather than look for a made-up excuse.”