Dumping old-style is best

Hi-tech is definitely not the way to tell your partner the relationship is over Poor Mr Nice Guy. Even now, it is 'Phil Collins, [insert age], who dumped his wife by fax'. Collins's reputation as an amiable man of the people went into free fall when the former Genesis star allegedly chucked his second wife via fax in 1994, supposedly saying, 'I'm so f****** angry with you'. Collins, it seems, also said: 'It's you that is offended that I should choose to see someone else. You are the one with the problem.' Britain's Sun newspaper promptly splashed the tirade on the front page. Collins later protested that he composed the fax only because his wife had put the phone down on him. However, doubtless also because his new flame was a much younger woman, Collins came to be seen as being in league with the devil. His story became a benchmark protocol for future communications. We understand that you are just not allowed to deliver the death blow to a failing relationship by fax, e-mail or, God forbid, SMS, even though the phrase 'U r dumped' trips off the thumb. 'Thou shalt not dump thy squeeze by hi-tech means' has become a key commandment of our age - an even worse sin than conducting a long, loud conversation on your mobile phone in a confined public space. I wonder why. I suppose it must be hard receiving a severance text just as you board a train - the temptation would be to throw yourself under it. That said, texting a curt 'Dear John' letter has a lot to be said for it. For one thing, it is clear. For another, it means the recipient cannot immediately rush at you with a carving knife. But if you voice this argument in public, it is a bit like admitting that in your spare time you torture puppies. Dump someone via a phone call, as Phil Collins claimed he had tried to do, and that is widely seen as okay. I want to know who made up the 'voice acceptable/SMS evil' rule. The key underlying reason for the distinction seems to be that the digital approach is cold. A text, unlike the human voice, cannot easily convey emotion, unless you add a smiley or take a blunt tack and write: 'I H8 U'. Another reason for the discrimination might be that we assume that since phone calls have been around longer than texts, they must be more human and, therefore, more trustworthy. It is a bit like preferring an antique rocking chair over a modern swivel counterpart. Presumably, it is more okay to reject someone via a letter, because letters have been around forever and ink smells and paper smells and the combination again feels more human, more physical. But even a letter is a kind of technology. So perhaps we should see it as suspect too. Nonetheless, we condemn only modern approaches. Beneath the condemnation lies the assumption that new technology is inherently frosty, like Darth Vader on a cold winter night, or one of Doctor Who's Dalek enemies, any time, any season. There is a word for this outlook: 'neophobia'. I assumed that, like 'chocaholism', it was a coinage with more style than substance. In fact, it is a recognised medical condition, meaning 'fear of anything new, of innovation, an irrational fear of new situations, places, or things'. The mind boggles as to how a true neophobe copes with society - every pair of white earphones, every mobile phone, every hybrid car must pose a threat. But there must be droves of them about, if you swallow the theory that neophobia is instinctual in people after they become parents and begin to raise children. Either way, to avoid becoming an outcast, it is probably best never even to dream about dumping anyone even in a remotely hi-tech way. Should this happen to you, says social commentator Des Ashmore in the Guardian newspaper, delete the message, delete the number, delete your ex altogether. The next step is to go round to the house of your ex's mother (or father), enact a seduction, video the action and send it to you know who. Do not dream of playing it nice - tapping 'sorry' just will not work. Likewise, in the reverse situation, do not begin to consider proposing via SMS: unless you are only joking, of course, and secretly hope to get dumped.