Dear Miss Information,

My boyfriend broke up with me a couple days ago. We'd been dating for a year, and I loved him, but there were a lot of problems that we just weren't handling well, and lately it had been especially bad. I'd been thinking about breaking up with him for a while, but I kept trying to make it work. Then, out of the blue, he called me, told me he loved me but he couldn't do this anymore, and hung up.

This kind of thing has happened before, so I didn't really register that it was over. Then I went on Facebook and saw that he'd deleted me and all of my friends. It finally hit me that this was it, and I kind of broke down. I texted him saying, "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm going to really miss you," and he responded, "Bullshit." He wouldn't talk to me when I tried calling him, and responded to every text with "whatever" and "why should I care?"

I don't think he was wrong in breaking up with me. I shouldn't have dragged it out. But I hate how he did it. I know it's dumb and I shouldn't be angry at him for that, but I am. I feel like he's ruined how I think of our relationship. It stings that he thinks it was all bullshit now. I can understand him not wanting to talk to me or see what I'm doing right now because he's hurting. But the way he's treating me, he's clearly saying he's done with me forever. He once told me before about how he's still close friends with his other ex, and all I can think about is how that's never going to be us.

Am I crazy for being hung up about this? I miss him and I hate that he thinks badly of me. I'm having a really hard time letting this go. I'm checking my phone and email constantly. What am I supposed to do now? Is there such a thing as a "good" break up?

— Broken Up

Dear Broken Up,

You know the saying, "the opposite of love isn't hate; the opposite of love is indifference?" Or its cousin, "love and hate are two sides of the same coin?" He's lashing out because he feels some kind of pain, likely pain he can't quite process yet. If he honestly didn't care about you, and if he honestly had no stake in this relationship, you wouldn't be provoking this kind of passion in him. I know it sucks to be treated scornfully by someone you love(d), but you just need to recognize it as what it is — the symptoms of a wounded heart — and give him the space to heal on his own.

Meanwhile, don't compare yourself to his now-friend, once-ex. Some exes can be friends and some can't. Their relationship was fundamentally different than yours, so its outcome will also be different. If you really want to be friends, maybe you can — possibly in six months, or two years, or when you bump into each other in a grocery store after you've each gone through a messy divorce and you fall tearfully into each other's arms. My point is, you can't force this relationship into a mold set by your interpretation of his last relationship. You've got to each take the time you need to ground yourselves without each other. What happens after that is up to fate, chance, or specials on steak at Safeway.