Last week I grabbed coffee with a longtime friend. She had moved in with her boyfriend of five years the previous summer, and I asked whether she and “Joey” would be interested in coming to a pregame that weekend.

“Actually, I didn’t want to bring it up,” she said, “but Joey and I broke up.”

Of course I immediately apologized and offered my condolences before she sketched the relationship’s biography, cover to cover. No, there hadn’t been cheating, at least in the CliffsNotes version. And one wasn’t moving halfway across the country and long-distance wasn’t for them. They had simply discovered this was the end. As in, “I love you, but I don’t think I love you forever.”