Breaking up is hard to do

[Joria]

I'm just not the heartless home wrecker I think I need to be.  I have to have 8 love interests and have no clue as to how to break up someone else's romance.  It's hard enough to have more than one love interest when there is a large pool of men to choose from, but finding 8 Mr. Right's is baffling.  So, can someone tell me, how do you break up someone's romance so you can snag the guy, (and then leave him)?

[Schipperke]

For the Crazy 8's Collecting challenge, I mostly focused on single men.  My sim did get a couple of married guys on her list, but it didn't seem to be necessary to get them to break up with their partners.  Just do a lot of romantic/flirty interactions until you judge the moment to be right for a big kiss, and you've got a romantic interest.  At least, that's how I did it - I'm certainly no expert in this area.  

As for the second part of your question, the part about leaving them, what I had my sim do was take them to dinner and then tell them she just wanted to be friends.  Most of the men reacted with dismay or anger, but Thornton Wolfe was quite relieved - Mr. Commitment Issues himself!  It was a different way of playing for me, but a lot of fun.  Enjoy!

[Metropolis Man]

Kiss 'em and leave 'em, Joria. Well, hit the Romantic Interest level (First Kiss) in the Challenge and take them on a date, and then leave 'em. You shouldn't need to break up at all because it's all about speed in that challenge. Don't even Ask to Go Steady because then you're creating more work for yourself.

[NancyJ]

I don't even kiss 'em

You don't have to break up married couples to get to Romantic Interest but singles are easier generally (fwiw, to get someone to break up you have to be already romantic interest with them IIRC - when the relationship is high enough you get the option to ask them to break up with their partner)

Flirty and Hopeless Romantic sims are the easiest of all - you can get them to romantic interest before the relationship is even high enough to take them out to dinner.

[Metropolis Man]

I don't even kiss 'em

Flirty and Hopeless Romantics can get to the Romantic Interest level in a relationship without even "First Kiss?"

[NancyJ]

The 'target' doesn't need to be flirty/hopeless romantic to get Romantic Interest but they get there much quicker. I'm probably revealing too much here heh, knowing that is probably going to be a big help in the heartbreaker challenge You can get Jamie Jolina to romantic interest within 3 or 4 interactions but that's not enough to get the 'eat with others' option, snobs are actually much better for that

[Metropolis Man]

The 'target' doesn't need to be flirty/hopeless romantic to get Romantic Interest but they get there much quicker. I'm probably revealing too much here heh, knowing that is probably going to be a big help in the heartbreaker challenge

Indeed. Flirty and Hopeless Romantic traits are kind of a no-brainer choice anyway in that challenge. Not really a news flash, but I'll have to do some testing on decay before I actually begin that one. I'd like to finish Wishmasters first, but that's probably another 2-3 weeks of work.

[Pam]

I'm seeing abbreviations that I don't know:  FWIW and IIRC. 

[Twinmum]

FWIW = for what it's worth, not sure of the other one

[Metropolis Man]

If I recall correctly (IIRC).

[Joria]

For the Crazy 8's Collecting challenge, I mostly focused on single men.  My sim did get a couple of married guys on her list, but it didn't seem to be necessary to get them to break up with their partners.  Just do a lot of romantic/flirty interactions until you judge the moment to be right for a big kiss, and you've got a romantic interest.  At least, that's how I did it - I'm certainly no expert in this area.  

My difficulty is finding single men!  They are all with someone else, or too young, or just too absolutely hideous personality wise.   So far I've hit romantic interest, (without a kiss too), with three men, one being Gobias so you can see how desperate I am.  Everyone else, once I ask if they are married, usually are in a relationship with someone, and if I try flirting they are give me that "eeeeuuuuwww" face and pull away.
The three I did manage to get I made good friends first, then it was off to being romantic interest with a few, (ok a lot), of flirty things.  The minute I hit romantic interest I took them to dinner and then after we ate I headed for home. Since it was late at night and they were already showing they wanted to go to bed they didn't seem to mind me zooming off on my Simspa. 

 I picked them up out in front of the theatre where I would play music, (got virtuoso trait) for tips.  Once I spotted a likely candidate the concert was over, but all too often, so was the potential relationship.  I figured I had to break up the relationship between a guy and his wife/fiancee in order to get him to stop making faces at me and just allow a romantic interest.  I'm staying friends with one of the guys because I can see playing this Sim more after the challenge is over.  I like her. 

[Pam]

They don't have to be single, Joria.  If you can get a married man up to Good Friends first, you can usually start romantic interactions successfully.  I had no trouble at all with the romantic part of the challenge.  In fact, I could easily have had twice as many.  Of course, my Sim was Elvis Presley and not many can resist him. 

[NancyJ]

You might have to try for some ladies - there are loads of single, easy women in SV - at the working friends house there's Monika Morris, Tori Kimura and Madison VanWatson - they're all really easy to make friends with, IIRC Madison and Monika are snobs so a few compliments and they're yours and Tori is in politics and is hard working - so she's an easy target too.  Fiona McIrish, Molly French, Zelda Mae and Jamie Jolina are flirty, Agnes Crumplebottom and Blair Wainwright and hopeless romantics. From my experience of playing female sims, its slim pickings as far as the men go. For single men I think you're pretty much limited to the Frio brothers, Iqbal Alvi, Leighton Sekemoto, Gobias Koffi, Christopher Steel and Cyc0n3 Sw0rd - and some of those aren't always single at the start of the game. There are about 15 potential single ladies at the start of the game - some do pair off (I've seen Monika Morris and Tamara Donner sometimes be in relationships)

[Joria]

They don't have to be single, Joria.  If you can get a married man up to Good Friends first, you can usually start romantic interactions successfully.  I had no trouble at all with the romantic part of the challenge.  In fact, I could easily have had twice as many.  Of course, my Sim was Elvis Presley and not many can resist him. 

Too true!  Remember my age?  Guess who my hero was?  Yeppers!  The king himself.  I was the first president of the first Elvis Presley fan club and my collections of records and albums was awesome.  So when I moved out and left them behind, (temporarily), my parents threw them out.  Can you imagine what those pristine vinyls would be worth today?  And some were even signed, as was my handwritten by him letter.  Sorry.  Off topic.

So the thing is, it is MUCH easier for a man to find a woman than for a woman to find a man.  I've considered inviting foreign visitors that I've become good friends with but I'm thinking it would be much harder to get rid of them.  Today's success was a random firefighter I picked up at the park.  I'm hoping pizza delivery will be as successful.  It seems a couple of new guys/families has moved into town also so perhaps the pool is getting a bit bigger.  So far I've gotten Christopher, Leighton, Gobias, the firefighter, (poor guy, I can't even remember his name), some guy with a long Polish sounding name, and I'm hoping to find 3 more.  Ladies are just not my cup of tea.  Haven't tried the Frio boys and CycOn3 hated me from the get go.  He was flat out mean and nasty no matter how nice I was.  I swear I will never do another challenge that requires finding a boyfriend/girlfriend and beyond.  Quelle horror!  I saw some new names run past while I was playing today so maybe I can catch them at some time.  The firefighter was pure luck.

[NancyJ]

Connor is unflirty and Jared is Meanspirited and inappropriate. You might have better luck with Stiles McGraw if he's still single. You might look out for Ian Bowler - he's flirty and easily impressed but isn't guarenteed to have moved in (he lives with Sunny Bakshi and Abraham Finkel - who is also not a bad choice)