Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
Check out this portion of an article from a Berlin newspaper. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!
Business is booming for a Berlin entrepreneur’s unique service — delivering break-up messages for a fee.
Bernd Dressler, who charges 50 euros ($68) to tell people they have been dumped, says he has helped end 200 relationships in the last 11 months.
“I almost never get invited in for a coffee,” he told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper on Monday. “Most of the time they’re totally surprised.”
Breaking the bad news only takes about three minutes and often leaves the message recipients in a state of shock, said Dressler, a trained economist.
Why do I find such a story interesting enough to share? I’m not certain about that. I suppose that it has something to do with the fact that, after I finished chuckling over the idea of a surrogate “breaker-upper,” I couldn’t help but think that such a development is the very epitome of what I consider to be a troubling human tendency: specifically, our tendency to let ourselves off the hook emotionally and spiritually.
It is unsettling, after all, to voice one’s desire to break up with someone. It demands the risk of honest self-revelation and the awkwardness of expressing dissatisfaction with the way things are. The appeal of a surrogate or substitute “hatchet man,” then, is obvious. Such a service lets the dissatisfied party off the emotional hook. It removes him or her from the pain of actually having to be honest in a moment of face-to-face communicational intimacy. For $68, a person can find a quick and convenient escape route from a relationship that has become undesirable. True, one’s personal integrity is jettisoned in the process. But that is a small price to pay for avoiding the unpleasantness of actual interaction.
Of course, in my sarcasm, I do not mean to imply that I am somehow above this penchant for finding quick liberation from emotional and spiritual hooks. Far from it. In fact, not so long ago, I found myself “using” my church’s committee structure to “solve” a controversial issue in our church. I made the decision, in other words, to address the problem administratively instead of pursuing a more relational and dialogical course of action that might deal compassionately with all the parties involved. Without going into specifics, suffice it to say that I let myself off the relational hook by choosing a more expedient course of action. In a sense, the church’s committee structure served as a surrogate “hatchet man,” (and I didn’t even have to pay $68!).
I’ve repented and made amends in the aftermath. But, when I find myself chuckling at the dude in Berlin who does other people’s emotional dirty work, perhaps I should remind myself not to chuckle too loudly.
God bless you, Eric.
we have become a culture of denial, avoiding conflict and confrontation because we believe nothing good can come from it. But…openness, honesty and accountability could take as a long way if we let it. Great post…made me think.