When I was in college, I dated a girl who I quickly lost interest in. She was always worried that I would become interested in or sleep with someone else. The regular discussions of this topic was one of the major reasons I lost interest. I stuck it out a bit longer than I should have, but I finally said “I want to stop seeing you.”

A couple days later, she called me and said “How come I haven’t heard from you?” I said, “Because we broke up.” She said, “No we didn’t.” I said, “Yes, we did.” After a bit of calm back and forth about this, I broke up with her again.

A few days later, she called again and we had essentially the same conversation, though this time I was a bit firmer that we are really broken up. “I don’t want to see you anymore” was one of the things I said, which seemed very clear.

A week goes by, and she calls again, and it’s the same story. So I told her, “Look, I have told you several times I want to break up, but you don’t seem to be able to hear it. So - I slept with someone else.”

This was a lie, but it worked. I never heard from her again.