GHOSTING GUY:

For those of you who are not familiar with the term “ghosting”, I was also unfamiliar, before I joined dating sites. However, I soon found out that “ghosting” is this thing where you are going along just fine talking with someone new on a dating site, and they suddenly up and disappear with no explanation whatsoever. It happens so often, that it became referred to as “ghosting” (gone / disappeared). Now, this has happened to me multiple times in real life, in actual relationships and friendships. I just never called it that. When it happens in a real, actual relationship, and you have been with someone exclusively for 2 months, or 7 months, or 2 years, it hurts like hell when they just up and abandon you with NO explanation. They stop all contact. They don’t take your calls. They change their number sometimes. Like you were nothing to them. Like you imagined the whole thing. Like you’re some stalker and not someone who has been their GIRLFRIEND for the past 2 years. (Yup, that happened to me.) They become a ghost.

When it happens on dating sites, it is much less hurtful, simply because in most cases you haven’t known them long enough yet to be hurt by it. However, it is EXTREMELY frustrating, disappointing, not to mention rude and spineless. And when it happens over and over, you start to get a complex. What the hell is wrong with me that all these guys keep disappearing? For me, this is one of the most cowardly things a person can do. Just up and leave your life with zero explanation, as if you are not worthy of one, or as if you don’t deserve one. I’m sorry, but MAN UP! This is something only a boy would do to someone, not a man. It makes my blood boil, and if I really care about the person, it is so painful. In any case, its not a kind thing to do to someone, online or in person. It makes you question everything. When you are just meeting someone and getting to know them online and on the phone, and you are under the impression that things are going really well, it is just such a hollow feeling when they suddenly go silent or begin ignoring you. It happened to me quite a few times on the sites, but one particular time stung the most.

There was a guy I was talking to first on the site, then we exchanged numbers and began talking on the phone. We talked for weeks, often. He lived a couple hours away from me, and he seemed non-committal about actually getting together for a date. But, he was very flirty and funny and sweet and we had a good chemistry and friendship on the phone. One day, I finally asked him if we were ever going to meet up for a date. He said he “wasn’t ready.” I wondered to myself what the hell this guy was doing on a dating site, if he wasn’t ready to, ya know …. date. He said: “Soon. Just not yet.” So I waited. And then I asked again, because there were other guys on the site who DID want to go out, and I wanted to know if our thing was going anywhere or not, and I don’t particularly love feeling like I have to beg someone to go out with me. He stopped calling. I wrote him an email saying that maybe we should just be friends right now, because I really liked him as a person but he clearly wasn’t ready to go out with someone. I wrote this long, lovely email to him about how I think he is such a sweet guy but I was going to accept a date with another person who I had been talking with also, and that I thought I should let him know in case he still wanted to meet up, and he responded with: “Okay.” A one-word response to my well-thought out letter to him. And then he disappeared forever. Blocked me on the site, like I had done something horrid to him. Ghosting.