The doomsday clock is at 17 minutes. Brace for impact.

The phone will ring louder than normal — at least it will feel like that’s the case. You may have a lighthearted ringtone, but “MMMBop” by Hanson will not serve its longstanding purpose of providing instant delight this time. It will startle you. You asked him to call you yesterday, and he ignored you all day. He was curt with you upon finally answering your texts late last night, and said he’d text you when he woke up. It’s now 5:30pm and this is the first you’ve heard from him since (and that’s a damn long sleep, even for him). It will be jarring, after having waited all day, and a part of you will be relieved that he’s even still alive.

Run to get your headphones. They’re in the other room. Put them in before the phone stops ringing, quickly, but make sure that when you first speak you don’t sound out of breath. Never let ‘em see you sweat, never let ‘em hear you breathe, never let ‘em know that running up the stairs is sorta hard for you.

16 minutes. Keep your cool. He may open the conversation with a too-casual and notably strained, “what’s up dude,” like he didn’t just more-or-less ignore you for 36 hours. He may tell you he’s just been “hanging around” his apartment all day, like you haven’t been waiting by the phone for the duration of your day off — a day off you both had (a rarity), and expected to spend with him (apparently too much to ask), and ultimately wasted (waiting by the phone). Certainly this will be rather annoying! Lead with concern over irritation. Surely something must be wrong if he was so quiet all day.

15 minutes. Internalize it when he says, “I just want to be real with you,” and quell any feelings surrounding the fact that this may be the first time in seven months that he has chosen that route. Know what’s about to happen.

Let him talk in circles for a bit, and say all of the things he planned to say. Let him tell you that he feels like he can’t be in a relationship right now — not just with you, with anyone. Let him tell you he doesn’t have the time and how he feels like he can’t be there for you in the way you want him to be. Let him tell you that he feels like he keeps letting you down, and he doesn’t want to do that anymore (except for right now, of course... One last ride). Try not to argue, even if it’s your instinct to. You will not be begging someone to stay with you today.

13 minutes. In trying not to argue, you may find yourself thinking about the ways that you feel he is wrong in doing this. Do not concern yourself with the amount that you two laugh when you are together, or how he told you that his mom thought you were smart and kind (and that that was huge coming from her). Don’t think about the time you went to brunch at his friend’s restaurant, and you sat close in a corner booth and he kept his arm around you and you felt safe and appreciated. Don’t think about looking at him from the passenger seat of his car, or the way he would come hold you from behind when you stood on his balcony, or even just the time you spent together on his couch with the too-low back. Marinating on the better moments will make this particularly bad moment even worse.

Additionally, it will only frustrate you further to think of the things you have sacrificed in the name of this relationship. Do not attempt to quantify the brain space that you have dedicated to his favorite baseball team, despite your opinion that baseball is firmly the Worst Sport. Do not think about everything you did to be as flexible as you could to accommodate his schedule and lifestyle. Don’t worry about how you started wearing more dresses because he said he liked them, or how you even got back on birth control, which you hate, for fuck’s sake. Perhaps instead think of some times when you tried to access some emotional intimacy with him, or any intimacy at all, and felt rejected. It may help to soften the blow.

12 minutes. Hear “I don’t really know what else to say,” and be unsurprised.

Think of every time you tried to get him to talk about how he was feeling. The positive, the negative, and the in-between. Did it feel like pulling an anchor out of the sea with your bare hands? You can’t even do one pushup — perhaps you haven’t the upper body strength for this. Think of all the times when you tried to talk about your own good, bad, and in-between feelings, tried to open up, tried to connect with him, and were met with aversion: he’d make a joke, he’d change the subject, he’d pretend you hadn’t said anything at all. He was the deGrom of deFlecting (remember, there is no longer any need for excellent Mets jokes!). Think about whether or not that’s worth it.

10 minutes. He may blame his career: working as a cook in fancy restaurants is too demanding to also maintain a personal life. Crazy hours, hard work, busy every weekend. He may act like this is new information, as though you did not know it would be like this when it all started seven months ago, as if you were not fine with it, as if you did not think he was worth it. He may tell you that you shouldn’t date someone who works in restaurants. Resist the urge to tell him that he doesn’t need to be telling you what you should and shouldn’t do (especially in the middle of breaking up with you). There is no use starting an argument right now, even if he is assigning complaints to you that you never actually expressed. At least not consistently.

Refrain from spinning your wheels over the possibility that you planted this seed. Your friends may have invited you on a camping trip a few weeks ago, and told you to bring your boyfriend if he was around. It was on a weekend and you knew he wouldn’t be able to come (see above, work, etc.), but you invited him anyway because you think it’s meaningful for people to feel like they are invited, included, and welcome. You assumed he would say no, and said as much upon inviting him, but he didn’t immediately decline. He expressed interest. He asked some questions. The door was left open, and you got your hopes up. You’d been in a relationship for a month, and actively in each other’s lives for another five months prior, and he had never really spent any time with your friends or family. This could be a good place to start. Upon following up, he said he couldn’t swing it, and you were disappointed. You expressed frustration at how other people can see their partners more than once a week, and they can go on little trips like this, and you don’t get to do that. This was the first time it had been presented so explicitly that your relationship had to be different from those of “other people,” and it would require some adjusting and adapting on your part. Such adjusting and adapting may have been a touch difficult at times, but you had been doing it and felt willing to continue doing it. Because you thought he was worth it. You were just feeling frustrated right now. “I hear ya,” he had said. “But this is the life I chose.” Fair. You told him you knew that, and you weren’t trying to make him feel guilty or bad, you were just feeling frustrated at this exact moment, and getting yourself upset. You knew it was just a feeling. You’ll go to sleep, wake up in the morning, and it will have passed. Because you thought he was worth it. You had thought that was the end of it, but you may worry now that after this conversation, that seed sprouted and rooted and grew and mutated in his head. But how were you to know that? He did not talk to you about it, and, try as you might, you cannot read minds. It only came up again within an argument a few weeks later, when he suddenly said you weren’t “on a good trajectory.” You told him again that you didn’t feel like you were being shorted with his time, that you knew, you knew, that this was how it was going to be, that you respected and appreciated that he spent such a significant chunk of his free time with you, and that even if that free time is not abundant, you thought he was worth it. He did not have much to say. You were still together at the end of that conversation, but, quietly, in the back of your mind, so began the doomsday clock.

9 minutes.

Tell him you are not happy but you are not surprised.

Tell him you knew going in that it was going to be like this and that you thought it — he — was worth it (you might feel like a broken record at this point, but that’s okay. Make yourself heard, even if you feel like he’s not hearing you.).

Tell him that if there is any issue that is happening, it is in fact a communication problem.

8 minutes.

Remain calm, and keep in mind that this doesn’t really feel like it’s about you. Don’t be petty: don’t tell him he needs to return the dry shampoo you left under his bathroom sink, and don’t tell him to sign out of your streaming services that you signed into on his TV. Give him access to The Wire, which he loves, whenever he pleases. And maybe he’ll use the dry shampoo, too. That’s your gift to him (well, he bought it… That’s his gift to him). Lead with compassion. Not only is he amid a job transition right now, but over the last seven months, you have deduced that he is very emotional and sensitive, but that he also holds his cards very close to his chest. He seems like he quietly holds onto a lot of things. You had seen them bubble over and reveal themselves in unfortunate ways. He seems like he struggles to access and express his emotions. You had hoped you would be able to break through that, but were continually met with more walls. You wanted him to soften when he hugged you, and you wanted him to mean it when he kissed you, and you wanted him to look into your eyes, and you wanted to feel close to him. It made you so sad to so seldom feel those things, because you knew it would be difficult to actually connect with someone who held you at an arm’s length. You wanted to try anyway. You wouldn’t have quit. You wouldn’t have dropped everything. You wouldn’t have done this.

7 minutes. Perhaps some irritation will creep in. He started it, after all. He slid into your DMs. He wanted to go out with you, and he made it relationship-oriented out the gate. He did. Within weeks he was telling you he liked you so much, and you were telling people you could probably make him your boyfriend by the end of that first month if you wanted. And you didn’t know if that was what you wanted. You had to tell him that relationships kind of freaked you out, because your last one was a difficult and disappointing mess. But you thought he was cute. You thought he had nice arms and a sweet smile. You soon knew that you would regret it if you let it slip by because you were too scared. So you engaged with him as much as you could, while you took it upon yourself to do the personal work necessary to garner enough courage and will to actually enter a relationship with someone. And once you trudged through that, and got to where he was, suddenly it was different: like as soon as you co-signed the contract, the deal was null and void. You thought this was what he wanted. You might feel a little stupid. You might feel a little hurt. You might feel like you just got absolutely clocked in the face by a 94 mile an hour pitch like Kevin Pillar did earlier this season (Why do you know this? Release the Mets knowledge from your brain. It no longer serves you). Be gentle with yourself.

6 minutes.

Allow yourself to roll your eyes upon hearing, “You’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever dated.” You know that the “it’s not you, it’s me,” narrative is too easy to subscribe to, especially when you are dating someone with a consistently different schedule than you. It may make you suspicious. Give yourself a moment of space to wonder if it’s really just you — he lost interest, he may have liked you first but once he got closer and it became more real he wanted nothing to do with this relationship, he got to know you better and didn’t like what he saw, you are not who he thought you were, et cetera — and blaming your schedules is just the easier conversation to have. Then you can let it go.

5 minutes. You may be running out of things to say. The clock moves faster in silence.

Let him tell you that he hopes you can still be friends, but know that is unlikely. Famously, his schedule is too chaotic to actively maintain a relationship, so one could imagine it will be similarly difficult for friendships. Be cordial when he offers to keep the line of communication open, when he tells you that you can still call him anytime. You may not be sure when you would ever need to do that, as he was never a very receptive person to talk to about anything that would warrant a conversation that starts with, “I didn’t know who else to call,” but still do him the courtesy of offering the same. Maybe you will want to be his friend. Or maybe not. Maybe this is a moment where he needs you more than you need him. Or maybe not. Either way, be kind, and remember that he is not a malicious person. There is no need to get angry or vengeful toward him. However, it is best to acknowledge that not a lot of guys with limited free time, even the nicest ones, are reaching out to their ex-girlfriends for casual hangs, and the end of this phone call may well be the last time you speak. Mourn that.

3 minutes.

It’s okay to wish that you could have just talked a little more about how you were both feeling. About how you could each better suit each other’s needs. Or whatever stuff adults in relationships are supposed to talk about when there’s a disconnect like this. You wished he felt like he could do that with you. You hoped he would surprise you, like any of the young players the Mets have pulled up to combat their ever-growing injury list (holy shit — enough with the fucking Mets). Sit in that disconnect. You consistently tried to tell him that it would always be better for him to just tell you how he was feeling, and that you would always try to meet him where he was and express tenderness and understanding. You may worry if you did anything to make him feel like he couldn’t. And here you both are, just blaming it on his lack of time. But you never really wanted more of his time. You just wanted more of him. You could tell him that, but it’s okay if it doesn’t make it out of your mouth.

2 minutes. 

Right now, do not worry about being single. Do not worry about how much you hate dating apps, or the daunting task of finding a new person, or turning 25, or the false idea of having a limited amount of time to find the next one, or whether there will even be a next one, or if anyone will ever really love you. Thinking of these things immediately, in the middle of being dumped over the phone, may indicate that you are in fact more attached to the idea of having a boyfriend than this boyfriend in particular (or perhaps you are just trying to force yourself to feel that way). It’s okay if you still miss him. You will. It’s better to not ignore that.

30 seconds. “I have to go.” Let him.

10 seconds.

Right now: take a deep breath.

3. 2. 1. Hang up.