Orpheus isn’t heartbroken. As a recovering victim of rejection, Hollywood might like to romantically portray him bent over his phone, pining away Kleenex in hand, unshowered with a crazed look in his eyes. But let’s be real: Orpheus is a real-life, socially-adjusted Stanford student. So, when the object of his affection quietly removed herself from his life, the void was replaced with swirling questions.

Let’s start from the beginning. Our unfortunate protagonist’s story begins with meeting a girl. How is rather unimportant, but our more visual readers could conjure up cliched images of the crowd parting at EBF Happy Hour and Orpheus seeing the girl through the hot-boxed haze. Or maybe she’d been coyly glancing over her shoulder during French Pornography lectures. Regardless, they met, exchanged numbers, sent a few flirtatious Facebook messages (not pokes — remember, Orpheus is socially adept), and even went on a date or two. They clearly established that they enjoyed each other’s company, but the nature of the relationship was still in question.

Then the tides began to change, but for the better. Nameless Girl called Orpheus to go on a date. They went to a party afterwards, got a little tipsy, and ended up making out on the dance floor. Orpheus awoke the next day to a sun shining with expectant opportunity. And then, the sound of birds chirping was drowned out by Dies Irae and our newly revealed antagonist stops returning Orpheus’s phone calls.

Proper etiquette when ending a relationship, be it an almost-budded romance or a full-fledged breakup, is just as important as proper etiquette when starting a relationship. However, this point is often overlooked and the rules are less defined.

The sample space of breakups is rather large, so for the sake of depth rather than breadth, I’d like to address Orpheus’s particular predicament: silent rejection. For readers unfamiliar with the exact definition of silent rejection: One, I envy you. Two, it occurs when one member of a (potentially) romantic pairing decides to opt out. Yet, instead of directly telling the person or slowly making their dissatisfaction known, silent rejection is characterized by an abrupt avoidance of all contact. This tactic seems to reside in many people’s arsenal (as I and many others have been on the receiving end), but the purpose of this column is to eliminate it, and possibly replace it with a more effective means of expressing romantic disinterest.

Orpheus initially didn’t know what to make of it. The girl’s silence, preceded by a “too-busy” claim, first left Orpheus wondering if she really was busy. After all, Stanford can be a hectic environment for any couple. However, after a week or so of silence, it became vaguely apparent that forward progress had ended. But Orpheus still clung to his vestigial hope for at least a little while longer, because maybe she was just really busy. Through her silence, The Vanishing Girl’s strategy failed to achieve a clean break.

Her method also failed on the friendship front. From our earlier vignette, we know that Orpheus and his girl enjoyed each other’s company. Why not continue to enjoy each other’s company, even if it doesn’t involve physical intimacy? Avoiding all forms of interaction certainly doesn’t equate to any type of friendship. So, while silently fading away definitely is the easiest out for the exiting partner, this strategy lacks consideration for the other person involved. Two people can be mutually interested in each other, cease to be mutually interested, and move on to a mature and platonic relationship.

Just as entering a relationship necessitates a certain amount of respect, exiting one requires it as well. This means putting in the time to either talk to a person when it seems as if the end is near, or at least letting them down less abruptly. I know recommending a different course of action is easy, but the hard part isn’t so much in making an effort to act differently. The real difficulty lies in how the rejecting party overcomes the perceived awkwardness of the rejection. I’d like to believe that this girl still wants to be friends with Orpheus, but because she thinks that he’d be offended by the rejection, she’d rather avoid a potentially awkward situation. Truth is, even though at one point he wanted more, he really started getting to know her because he just wanted to be her friend. Sadly, she’ll never know that because she continues to avoid him.

Orpheus doesn’t really question anymore. Instead, his only regret isn’t that he’s missing out on a girlfriend — it’s that he’s missing out on the opportunity to build a friendship simply because he momentarily pursued a girl he found to be attractive and interesting.