I broke up with my boyfriend of 2 years with a Google Doc, I don’t regret it as I didn’t have to do it face-to-face
BREAKUPS are never easy – but one woman decided to pull the plug on her relationship using a Google Doc.
Laura Esposito realised her time with her ex had run its course after two years, when she was about to move to a new city at the age of 22.
However, instead of ending it face-to-face, she revealed she took a digital approach, and it didn’t go down well.
New York-based Laura explained to Insider: “It seemed impractical to drive two hours to northern New Jersey, break it off with him, and then drive back home.
“Plus, I was an anxious driver. Did anyone want an already nervous person behind the wheel, doubled down with grief? It’d be a liability.
“So, to put it simply, I broke up with him in a Google Doc for the greater good of humankind.”
She compiled a “single-spaced, two-page document”, which explained to her ex that they needed to find out who they were without being in each other’s lives.
Laura added: “In other words — I was a coward and couldn’t bear witness to his pain, knowing that I was the cause.”
While she stood by her reasons for the break-up, she realised doing it by Google Doc may not have been the best approach when she saw him in a bar a few months later.
Laura said her usually-calm ex “yelled” at her saying he couldn’t believe she had done it that way.
But she isn’t alone in breaking up with a partner over a device.
A 2020 Pew Research Center survey found one in five adults feel it is acceptable to split up with someone over text or online.
However, Laura added that although breaks can be virtual, she now realises they “shouldn’t be if you can help it” and she “cheated her ex out of the respect he deserved.”
Laura is now dating someone else and she’s agreed that Google Docs are “off the table.”