This company is hiring a Chief Breakup Officer. The salary is Rs 2.8 lakh

Helping people break up is now an actual job. Yes, you read that right. A global dating platform is hiring a Chief Breakup Officer to help people end relationships on their behalf.

In Short

• A dating platform is hiring 'Chief Breakup Officer' to end relationships professionally
• Role requires emotional intelligence, communication skills, and breakup experience
• However, experts say third-party breakups weaken accountability and deny emotional presence

Got a plumbing issue? Call the expert. Wi-Fi acting up? Call the expert. Want to breakup? Now, there's an expert for that too. In fact, there's a job opening for people to get paid to professionally end someone else's relationship.

Much like Mickey (Ranbir Kapoor) and his friend Dabas (Anubhav Singh Bassi) in Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, who secretly work as breakup consultants helping others end their relationships, except it's no secret mission.

A global dating platform, Dating.com, has turned that fictional job into a real one, complete with the official title of 'Chief Breakup Officer' (CBO). Last year, a Bengaluru-based company also introduced one such quirky posting about hiring a Chief Dating Officer. But the new one only focuses on helping people through breakups.

Who is a Chief Breakup Officer?

It's exactly what it sounds like. Someone responsible for helping people break up. The platform is looking for its first-ever CBO — "someone with exceptional emotional intelligence, strong communication skills, and a deep understanding of modern dating."

The responsibilities include communicating with clarity and empathy, using the right words and tone to call and end relationships on behalf of people who already know it's over. Analytical skills will also play a big role because you'll need to "rate the messiness: easy exit, complicated, or complete disaster."

Here's the detailed job description:

Wait, there's more.

What will give you an edge? If you've survived at least three breakups! And one reason someone might actually consider applying is the pay. Imagine getting paid USD 3,000 (approximately Rs 2.8 lakh) a month for 'dumping strangers'.

Now comes the main question: Why does this even exist?

The job exists because too many people know silence isn't closure. The dating site cited a study stating that 84 per cent of Gen Z and millennials have been ghosted at the end of a relationship. For the platform, it's about bringing more empathy to endings because "goodbye matters as much as how we say hello."

Speaking to VICE, the platform's in-house dating expert, Jaime Bronstein, explained that CBO's role is meant to help people on the receiving end find closure instead of being left in the limbo of silence forever. While she agrees that it's more respectful and ideal for the conversation to happen directly, she believes silence is worse.

This new job role may sound bizarre, but it reflects two things: the growing hustle for a second income and the slow death of communication. We'll save the money conversation for another day. For now, let's focus on the latter.

The problem with roping in a breakup officer

Breakups are a deeply human experience. It isn't just about conveying that the relationship is over, though that's a big part of it. And if even that needs to be streamlined, it's alarming.

Ruchi Ruh, a Delhi-based relationship expert, explains that it also involves taking accountability for your role in what happened, acknowledging that it was hurtful, or recognising the good and healthy parts of the relationship.

"The problem with this particular service is not that the message would not be conveyed. I do not feel it can fully substitute the accountability the other person expects. The emotional presence the other person expects when the breakup happens. It's a deeply emotional thing. And you cannot outsource it."

According to her, a third-party breakup only makes sense when there are genuine safety concerns, such as emotional abuse, manipulation or the risk of being coerced back into the relationship.

This also highlights another concern. If the CBO handles the breakup, the person avoiding that 'hard conversation' never learns anything. They remain out there, possibly repeating the same pattern. They might ghost someone again, and there won't always be a CBO or a breakup-bypass service to step in.

So, once a ghoster, always a ghoster?

Not really, says Ruuh.

"Avoidant behaviour isn't who you are; it's a pattern that can be worked on by understanding its triggers and building healthier communication. Providing a breakup bypass service isn't the real solution. Instead, people should be taught how to communicate their needs and end relationships respectfully."

"If such an emotional act now needs to be outsourced, what are we going to outsource next? Talking to a partner? Developing a relationship with a partner? Are we going to hire officers to do that too? I do not see it as a distant reality. I don't see it as a dystopian future. I think it's already happening, where people are outsourcing conversations. AI is hired for that," she says bluntly.

If you really think about it, before the advent of technology, and in the early days of computers, we were taught in school that technology exists to make human tasks faster and more efficient. Today, it has become just a little too efficient.

BTW, would you apply for this role?

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