There must be 50 days to leave your lover

I'm told that this is a tricky time of year to become single. Over dinner recently the conversation turned, as it so often does, to the predicament of becoming single. I discovered that, as far as women are concerned, there are only a limited number of days on which it is acceptable to elbow one's nearest and (formerly) dearest. Anything between Thanksgiving and Christmas is out, because it might involve awkward questions from relatives during family gatherings over the festive period. There's only so many times one can hear 'there's plenty of fish in the sea' from an aunt without justifiably resorting to violence. Between Christmas and New Year is socially difficult since, plans for the biggest piss-up of the year may need to be altered at the last minute. Straight after New Year just shows that you were only waiting to do the deed out of social niceties, and less than a month before February 14th is bad because women care about such things as Valentines day. That leaves an open window of only ten days, from January 5th - 14th inclusive, assuming you don't want to have to wait until Lent (although even I must admit that that does seem somewhat appropriate, since Lent is all about giving things up).

Fortunately I am completely unperturbed by either scruples, tact or conscience, so I am free to ditch someone pretty much any time of the year. Sometime between opening my presents on Christmas Day and having to introduce her to the family at Christmas Dinner seems like pretty good timing to me.

But how, oh how, to do it? Hopefully you've made the necessary precautions throughout the relationship and made sure she doesn't know your home address, in which case you can just block her phone number and add her mail address to your spam filter. That isn't always possible though, in which case more overt tactics need to be employed. A fax to her workplace saying 'Welcome to Dumpsville. Population: You' has always been my preferred method, since it avoids a scene. Some people like to use text messaging, but I'm a man of many vowels and something like 'dnt wnt 2 c u ne-more' just doesn't do it for me. Some women are more persistent than others of course, and these subtle hints sometimes don't always get through. If you find yourself in this situation you may need to use the nuclear warhead of break-up lines, so-called because it's deployment carries the risk of Mutually Assured Destruction. Tell your unintended that she's a really nice girl, then add 'but I don't want that, I want a dirty girl. And your sister's* filthy'. Sure, it may end up tearing her family apart, but it's guaranteed to ensure that she never wants to see you again.

*If she doesn't have a sister, then use mother instead - I would probably avoid using 'brother' for all but the most extreme cases.