Figuring Out Girls

I'm driving in the car with my crew (five boys and one baby girl), and the new Olivia Rodriguez song Traitor comes on. It's about halfway through when my twelve-year-old son says, "Mom, why is the girl in this song so upset?" 

 I shrug. "Because a guy broke up with her." 

 "Oh," he says. "Huh..." After thinking for a moment longer, he adds, "Maybe the guy just doesn't like her.  Aren't you supposed to break up with someone when you don't like them anymore?" 

 "Yes," I say. "But also no." 

 "Yes but no?" 

He's totally confused now, so I explain further. "Look," I say, "there are three options when ending a relationship with a girl. Option one: she breaks up with you; that's totally fine. Option two: you die. While upsetting, that's also fine. Then there's option three: you break up with her, and things are not fine. They are very, very not fine. The only thing that makes option three fairly tolerable is if you end up never dating again and die alone. Then things are still not fine, but it's tolerable. The boy in this song made the mistake of not only breaking up with her, but he started dating someone else. 

 My son is more lost than ever. "But aren't you supposed to keep dating someone else until you find the person you marry? I mean, you can't --" 

 "Die alone!" I cry, cutting him off mid-sentence. "She breaks up with you, you die, or, if you must, break up with her and then die a-freakin-lone!" 

 At this point, the questions stop and he starts gazing out the window with a pensive look on his face. I think we're just a few Taylor Swift songs away from him totally getting it, but he's close.