The pointless breakup

You’ve been dating someone for a few weeks. It’s casual. And then, he or she does something particularly dodgy and you realise this person is NQR (not quite right). It could be after you caught them kicking your cat when they thought you weren’t looking. Maybe they’ve suddenly morphed from normal person to creepy stalker. Or perhaps you've discovered, a la Kevin Costner, that they shagged your mother and your grandmother before attempting to date you. Whatever the niggle, it’s time to cut and run – but how? Do you sit them down and have the break-up chat, or take what many see as a cowardly move by letting the whole thing fizzle like a Berocca after a big night out?
A reality dude I know believes The Chat is crucial at any point in the dating game – if only to let people know where they stand. But others differ.
“Letting things fizzle may not be as clear cut, but it’s easier,” says Penny.
Kate agrees and insists few people would put their hand up for another kick-in-the-guts break-up. “If you’ve only been on a handful of dates, the fizzle’s kinder. I’d rather that than the totally irrelevant dumping I received on a first date last week. The guy turned to me and said, ‘You’re a great girl, but I just don’t see this going anywhere’. Who needs to hear that? What’s wrong with saying, ‘Thanks for tonight’ then pissing off and never seeing the person again?”
Another friend remembers a first date who announced that as they ‘had no chemistry’ he hoped they could still be friends. “Pompous ass,” she mutters. “I didn’t fancy him either, but it didn’t occur to him that the feeling might actually be mutual!”
Fizzle versus the pointless break-up – it’s a tricky one. Is the former really so cowardly, or more a tactic to help the other person save face while giving them the message gently? As for the pointless breakup, could that be a symptom of the no-end-in-sight dating world many of us are stuck in – a place where we become so cut and dried we’ve lost our sensitivity? What’s your M.O. – and on the other side of the fence, how do you prefer to be treated when something’s going nowhere?