It's that we 're trying to be kind.

That's the origin of all our ineptness, stupidity and cruelty.

We hesitate to be cold and try to be nice because we are sentimental.

The essence of sentimentality is the desire to be liked,

even by those you don't like and can no longer be bothered with.

It's a narcissistic longing to continue to receive the emotion of love,

without wanting to pay for it.

But kindness has no role whatsoever to play at the charred end of relationships.

Being sweet and understanding merely prolongs the torture for the other person.

If we 're being so tender, is it really possible that we truly mean the dark things we 're ostensibly saying?

Could we be so loving and at the same time, calling it a day.

We need, above all else, to kill hope.

But instead too often, we just waffle.

Marcel Proust wisely observed, " At the end of relationships,

it's the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches."

Parting lovers may end up in the grotesque situation of one person crying because they 're being left,

and the other crying because of the distress that announcing the departure has caused them.

Tears that are mistaken by the abandoned party for signs of care.

The kindest way to end a relationship is just to make extremely brutal speeches,

of a sort that will leave the other person in no doubt at all,

that you're not an especially nice person.

The truly courageous way to leave, is to allow yourself to be hated by someone who loves you.

That's generosity.