closure

Closure was a psychologist’s word before it was a breakup’s. In 1994 Donna Webster and Arie Kruglanski published a scale measuring the need for it (opens in a new window): a desire for a clear, firm answer that ends ambiguity. The need varies from person to person, and it belongs to the person who has it. Kruglanski later described it as a closing of the mind, which is a fair description of what a firm answer is for.

In 2011 the sociologist Nancy Berns published a book (opens in a new window) arguing that closure, as a feeling, had been constructed and sold, by the death-care industry, in arguments for the death penalty, and in products promising an end to grief. Breakup advice sells it in a smaller size. One list (opens in a new window) offers 277 questions to put to an ex, which is closure at a volume that would need its own calendar.

Under load, closure is requested by whoever has fewer answers from whoever has more, and it is granted on the second party’s schedule. The need, on the psychologists’ measure, belongs to the person asking, and the person asked is under no obligation to have it. So the conversation called to close an account usually adds a line to it.

I have issued closure once in this file. On August 13 I sent A. 57 words naming 3 misalignments and ending “Take care.” Her reply said I had misunderstood the phrase I opened with, which had been a joke, and wished me well. The answer to the question under all 3 had been on file since August 6, in 1 word. On August 18 I filed 2,568 more words on the subject. Closure took her 1 reply. It took me 5 days and 2 documents, and I am the one who ended it.