Dear Dr. Wes and Gabe: I recently saw your “Breakup Tip #2” on Twitter @wescrenshawphd. You said, “Do it in a public place. Occasionally, breakups go badly, so go to lunch, eat, get it said, go.” I was wondering at what point you should do it? Probably not during appetizers, because then you’d have to sit through the rest of the meal and it would be awkward, but do you have a whole normal meal, then drop the bombshell?

Wes: I had to chuckle when I saw your message. All I could think of was, “What’s on the menu? Oh, breaking up.” That wasn’t quite what we meant in the original article that generated that tweet.

Double Take columnists Gabe Magee and Dr. Wes Crenshaw

I’ve learned over the years that getting apart is, for most teens and young adults, more difficult than getting together, so breakup rules are a critical part of dating. There were several concerns illustrated in our proposed lunchtime breakup. First, one should never dwell upon the loss, nor process it with the dating partner. Going to lunch and getting it said means doing the deed in person, not lying awake at night texting each other back and forth, creating a transcript of sadness to be read again and again forever. It means not pleading and begging and justifying and avoiding the inevitable.

Second, in some cases breakups can get ugly and occasionally even threatening. While you don’t literally need to eat a salad to end a relationship with your once special someone, doing it in a well-attended public place will not only keep everyone’s behavior in check, it will allow you to easily access help should the need arise. Ridiculous overthinking? It might seem like it, but I’ve had many a young person take the private route and get into a scary or at least, upsetting situation.

Finally, it’s called breaking up because someone thinks the relationship is broken beyond repair. So, it’s important to honor that time-honored tradition of getting out and on with your life. A clean break is the only way to get started. In 2016 that means unfollowing and unfriending and especially shutting down snap chat. This seems an amazingly difficult ritual to today’s young people. So much so that I’ve come to view social media as the ultimate threat to healthy endings and worse, new beginnings.

Whether or not you want to order off the menu before saying goodbye is less important than following Breakup Tip #1: When breaking up, break up.

Gabe: Going through a breakup is not a pleasant process for either party, so there is no best point within the meal to drop the bomb. You just have to find the least bad time to do so. Always try to leave on good terms. However, if you’re partner has committed some unforgivable sin, I wouldn’t give them the courtesy of a meal.

The most difficult part of a break up lunch is definitely balancing the timing. Breaking up with them before the meal probably isn’t a good plan. Neither of you would eat well afterwards and you’d probably be in for a bad conversation throughout. But at the same time, do not break up after the meal is finished – lingering too long after the bill leaves the table is no good. Plus, if they offer to pay for the check, it could lead to an awkward situation on top of an awkward situation. Instead, you might want to consider paying it yourself. Either way, you want to start the discussion so soon that it is done before the check arrives, but not so early as to bring lunch to a crashing halt.

Civility is important when ending a relationship, especially if you want to remain friendly. Just because the romance is ending doesn’t mean your humanity has to.

— Wes Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP, is author of “I Always Want to Be Where I’m Not: Successful Living with ADD & ADHD.” Learn about his writing and practice at dr-wes.com. Gabe Magee is a Bishop Seabury Academy senior. Send your confidential 200-word question to ask@dr-wes.com. Double Take opinions and advice are not a substitute for psychological services.