Tag Archives: Ghosting

Ghosting is not okay!

09 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by in Daily Life, Daily Message, Dating

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“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.” ― Andy Rooney

After I published the last post, I received a reply to my text:

The rest of the text reads: “soon as I felt it, but it just very recently has happened.”

At least he replied, but I still think that was a rude and coward move. I guess he was never going to say anything.  Ghosting was his chosen way to end things. 

Why leave me thinking that he is going to call? Why not contact me?  Why leave someone in limbo?

Am I being unreasonable to expect someone to let me know that they have changed their mind?  

I have no expectations after one date, good or not.  But if I have 2 dates that were great and the person keeps in touch and mentions a third; in that case I believe we have something and expect at least a courtesy text.

What saddens me, is not the rejection, but the fact that people think this is an acceptable way to treat each other.   It will never be acceptable to me.

I will not behave in such way, and I will not accept it as being okay.  I will continue to conduct myself in dating, as I do in life, with kindness, respect and thoughtfulness. I will continue to let the Golden Rule guide me.

I should write an online dating etiquette guide. I believe a lot people are just clueless, and perhaps not mean spirited. 

Onward and forward.  Stay tuned, the next post is about my date last night.

“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.” ― Roy T. Bennett

Second Date? What second date?

13 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, Finding Me

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“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”― Rumi

The Saturday night dinner never happened.

Why?
Your guess is as good as mine.

He never called or texted. On Friday night I sent him a text. He never replied. Not an excuse or explanation. Nothing. Just silence.

I cannot say I am shocked. When it comes to dating nothing shocks me anymore.

I am baffled and perplexed. I am also curious. And sad, happy and grateful.

Why would he ask me out if he had no intention of following through with it. He went on and on about taking me to dinner Saturday night. Why?

Why ignore my text? Why not reply something like: I am busy or I have to work, or I changed my mind, anything…

What should I learn from this? According to Rumi everything is a lesson and everyone is a teacher. What is the lesson here? Perhaps in this case there was no lesson, there was only a grapefruit martini that was divine and I hope to have it again.

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor…Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”― Rumi

If he changed his mind, which I have been often guilty of, why not say so? Why act like an immature person and hide? I have zero respect for ghosts. This is ghosting, right? This disappearing act.

I am sad that people behave in such way when there is absolutely no reason for it. On the first date we talked about being respectful and preserving other’s feelings. We talked about honesty and integrity.  All talk I guess.

I am happy that I no longer need to know the reasons behind people’s actions. I just accept and move on. He acted like a jerk. End of story.

“Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.” ― Rumi

I am grateful! Grateful that he showed me who he is right away. No energy was wasted.

Any time something like this happens I always think that is the work of my always alert guardian angels. This person was not for me, not even as a friend and my very efficient angels quickly removed him from my life. How much more blessed can a person be?

No harm done. There will always be jerks and I can’t always spot them.  Still, I am not discouraged.  I am still going to get excited about dates and potential dates.

And on that note, A.-The Renter and I are back on track. I had ignored his last text because I was not happy with his lack of communication. On Saturday, about the time I would have been on that date that didn’t happened, he called.

He again explained how busy he is because of the promotion. I don’t think he will ever be the communicator I want but at this point I am still excited about the potential. I want to meet face to face before I make any decision. We are making plans to meet in 3 weeks. I will say more when the time comes.

“Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.”― Rumi

Be nice and say good bye, don’t just disappear!

21 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, Finding Me

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“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.” – Michael J. Fox

I struggle.  I struggle with not having answers. I need them! I want them!

I struggle with not having good byes.  I struggle with disappearing acts. I struggle with ghosting. Why would someone just fade without a reason?

I don’t want to force people to stay.  I want them to leave if they feel the need to leave.  Stay or go, just tell me what you are doing and I will wish you luck.

It is not the leaving, it is how the leaving is done. It is sudden and unexpected. And in as much it is sudden it is also slow and painful.  The days drag on and you wonder if this is really the end or is the person going to surface and just say they were busy with work, their dog died, they had amnesia, etc.

Ghosting is not only not fair, it is also cruel!  It doesn’t matter how much I have learned, grown and evolved I still need and want answers.  It doesn’t matter how much I don’t care about the person or if they are actually doing me a favor by disappearing, I still want answers.

Disappearance is such a cowardly act. Why not just say good bye?  Why not come up with some excuse if you cannot reveal the truth?  The curiosity gnaws at me.  I want to know why people just disappear.  Is it just easier?

What would happen if everyone in the dating world told the truth, no matter how inconsequential or painful?  Or even better, what if everyone were to become a little bit more honest with everyone in every dealing?  Would we have a better world or chaos?  More harmony or more hurt feelings?

As you can see I am still looking for answers from that “wonderful” man I met.  For a while I still thought he would return and give me a perfect reason for why he disappeared.  It didn’t happen.  Whatever it is I already accepted it as being what is best for me.  It is the Universe conspiring to remove from my life whatever doesn’t belong in it.  Still, having some kind of good bye, rhyme or reason would make things more palatable.

Is “accepting” being able to accept without question?  If that is the case then I still have more leaning to do in “acceptance”.  I accept amidst the struggle.

So, moving on, I have a dilemma that it is somehow related and yet it is not.  It is about volunteering the truth when no one has asked my opinion.  It about dispensing constructive criticism when none was requested.  When to say something and when to keep it to myself?

I went on a date last week with a man that was very nice, but as usual there were no fireworks. He wanted to see me again and I politely declined.  Not only there was no chemistry I also didn’t like how needy he seemed to be.  Anyway, the whole point here is that I think he needs to see a dentist.

His teeth were black in some areas. And when I say black I don’t mean yellow or discolored I mean really black as if rotting. He said he didn’t smoke so I am not sure the cause of it.  I have to point out that I don’t have perfect teeth. I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars in every kind of dental procedure you can think of, none of it cosmetic.  I have done gum graphs, bone graphs, implants, etc, so I am not about to judge someone on the perfection of their teeth.  Also I appreciate imperfection and I refuse to close the small gap in my front teeth to just confirm with everyone’s ideal. But in this case, his case, having blackened teeth sends the message of lack of cleaning.

I think his life, dating and otherwise, would improve drastically if he visited a dentist.  I know he has the means to do it.  The first thing you notice about anyone is normally their smile and once first impression has set in it is hard to change that.  Do I tell him that or do I keep that to myself?  After all he has a mirror and I cannot imagine him not being aware of it.

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” – Confucius

An update on my dating life, or lack thereof

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Daily Life

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“A good place to meet a man is at the dry cleaner. These men usually have jobs and bathe.” – Rita Rudner

  1. The Doctor continues to text every now and then and it seems that we have settled on friendship.  I am happy with that.  He is not boyfriend material as he doesn’t seem to know what he wants, but he can be a great friend. File under “No romance, but great conversations”
  2. The perfect guy that was emailing me has not reached out since I didn’t reply to his last email.  Were he real he would wonder what happened and probably write inquiring.  File this under “I dodged a bullet!”
  3. The much younger guy totally disappeared.  I am considering filing a Missing Person’s Report. :-). File under “It was going to be a mistake anyway”
  4. I met someone (still from the Craigslist ad).  We had a great time at dinner.  He asked me on a second date that same evening and I said yes and said I would let him know when.  I am having second thoughts now.  He is recently divorced with 5 kids, and I have to say that 5 kids scare me. Also not a whole lot of chemistry, so I am not sure if I will go through with the second date.  File under “Perhaps… the jury is still out”
  5. There was another guy emailing me, and even though he seemed nice he kept pushing me to meet him.  I explained that my mom is in town and I am having some other stuff to take care of and asked for his patience.  Still he continue to push me. I hate to be pressured on doing something, and I told him so.  I think that it is the end of that. File under: “Patience is a virtue”
  6. My great blogger friend Vanessa from the Vanessence blog thought she had the perfect guy to introduce to me.  Unfortunately when she reached out to him she found out he just got a girlfriend.  I am not disappointed at all as it was a real long shot, but I am extremely happy that someone would think I am a great person to introduce to friends. File under: “It is good to be thought of”
  7.  And now for the last update.  On my post of May 11 I talked about a man from my past that I dated in 2007.  He has never given up and always texted me every now and then, even thought I always ignored him.  Right after Mother’s Day I gave in and replied to one of his texts. We started exchanging flirty texts, or so I thought; only for him to tell me that he has had a girlfriend since 2008.

At which point I said I was not interested, but he is still trying.  Here are the texts he sent the following day (May 12):

Screenshot 1

I didn’t reply, I thought he would get the hint, but then again he doesn’t understand hints, so below are the texts from yesterday, to which I replied:

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

Screenshot 4

I cut off the rest of the message as there were personal information and names of people pertaining to the details of this event. I didn’t reply and will not again.

I have to come clean and confess that a tiny part of me would love to attend this Dinner Dance event.  I also would love to see him again after almost ten years.  I am curious.  But not looking for drama.  So this is an invitation that was easy to pass up.

If the past is any indication I will continue to hear from him every now and then.   It is up to me not to reply again.  Even though he has no business contacting anyone if he has a girldfriend I have no ill feelings towards him and I still think he has a good heart.  I feel he is just misguided.  He should invest the time he is wasting texting me into fixing his relationship.

Clearly they are growing apart.  I once too thought it was okay for my boyfriend and I to go to events alone and take vacations apart.  I am talking about the first boyfriend (one day I will write about that relationship – we were together for 20 years!!).  I remember he never wanted to attend my work events.  Even though I had always lied to myself and said it was fine, that he was just not comfortable in that enviroment, it was never fine.  It signaled  problems in the relationship.  We disguised the unwilligness to support each other as freedom and individuality.

Relationships are hard work.  It takes compromise and the willingness to venture into the uncomfortable to support each other.  I want my significant other to be there next to me.  I no longer need to stand alone somewhere to prove that I am my own person.

I would hate for somebody else to spend 20 years with someone that is not their match.  Still, not regrets!  Hidsight is 20/20.  Moving forward.  Looking back to just see how far I have come!

and file all this under: “Keeping the faith!  It is not if, it is just when”

“Sometimes the comfort of being in a relationship lulls you into mundane complacency; you become irrelevant in each other’s lives. We call this phenomenon ‘growing apart’.” – Steve Maraboli

 

When people leave they do you a favor!

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, EX Files, Finding Me

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I turned 50 years old on Monday and the world didn’t stop 🙂 Nothing really changed.   I am not feeling completely renewed or anything like that.  There was no huge celebration.  It was just another day.

I took the day off as I didn’t want to deal with my co-workers wishing me happy birthday.  That didn’t really work as I got all the birthday wishes and cupcakes the next day.  This was my sister’s birthday also (we are identical twins), so eventually we will be taking a big trip to celebrate.

I am promising myself to make 50 look like 25!! I want to really wake up for each day and embrace it.

***

As I mentioned before I have been taking a break from online dating, but I am already starting to get bored.  I know, I know that I could be doing many other things other than dating to cure my boredom, but the truth also is that I know my Prince is out there so I intend to look for him, or at least help him find me.

I am now trying to decide what online dating site I will try next.  I have tried E-Harmony and Plenty of Fish, and they both had good and bad points.  I am thinking of Match or perhaps Ourtime.  Any suggestions or recommendations?

***

Do you remember the doctor that I dated for awhile back last summer/fall?  When we dated I thought we would be perfect for each other.  We had similar ideas about a lot of things.  I thought he was incredible.  We were seeing each other twice a week, then he disappeared for a month.  Later he started texting again every now and then.  I kept an open mind but as time passed  and he remained mostly silent I lost interest.

I had not seen him for months but still every time he texted I replied because I still think he would be a cool friend.  On Tuesday when he texted I mentioned my birthday the day before and he wanted to take me out to dinner to celebrate.  I said yes.

It was awesome!  Amazing restaurant, amazing food and drink, but the best part for me was having the confirmation that I have zero interest in him romantically.  At the end of the evening I let him kiss me goodnight and I felt nothing.

At one point during dinner I asked him:  How is your dating life?  He said:  You are not allowed to ask that.  I started laughing.  For many reasons:  First because I remember asking him that same question before and getting the same answer,  second because I believe I can ask whatever I want, and last because the question was meaningless to me,  it was just a conversation topic for me as we were both catching up on each other’s lives.  It would have not made a difference what the answer was.  I thought it was funny that the thought I would care.  I also found him distasteful.

I felt so blessed at that moment.  I felt blessed that the answer (or non-answer) that at one point in the past hurt me, now made me laugh.  In the past when he refused to answer I thought he was actively dating other people and I felt hurt and a bit betrayed.

I guess he thinks that I am still interested in him romantically.  Now I have to decide what to do when he asks me out again, as I know he will.  I want to go as friends, but I could tell that he probably thinks that we can pick up where we left off.  We can’t!  That ship has sailed.   The moment is gone. I guess I will cross that bridge when I get to it, and will exercise honesty always!

I love realizing that his disappearing act was a blessing. It was the needed break that was instrumental in my realizing that he is not for me.  I was infatuated with him and everything that he has accomplished and I had let that blind me.  What a mistake it would have been if things had become serious between us.

For awhile when he disappeared I felt like contacting him.  But then I realized gracefully that things and people are removed from our lives for a reason.  Sometimes is for us to appreciate them more, other times for us to realize we don’t need them at all, and we are deserving of more.  In this case it was the latter.

Wishing everyone a blessed weekend!  May you notice all the little miracles around you!

Update on the previous post: He is alive and well, he was just ghosting me!

08 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, Finding Me

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“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” ― Marilyn Monroe

I texted him.

I didn’t text to find out why he disappeared but to say things I wanted to say. I don’t like feeling I left things unsaid.  I also have been making a point of letting people know any time they have a positive impact in my life.

I had meant to talk to him about a couple of things next time I saw him (before he chose silence I thought we would continue to date and even grow closer).  I wanted to discuss my stupid question in the middle of the kiss (I asked: Are you dating other people?).  I also wanted to talk to him about how hot things got in my apartment and how to handle things next time (we both had talked about wanting a more meaningful sex life and not just a lustful act).

Here is what I texted: “By your silence I know where you stand on seeing me again. I was waiting when I saw you next to tell you a couple of things but since that doesn’t seem likely I will tell you here and now.  I am sorry I put you in an awkward position last time we were together.  My excitement and impulsiveness got the best of me, still that is not an excuse, so I am sorry.  Also, thank you for inspiring me!

I felt great about saying what I wanted to say and really didn’t expect or even wanted a reply.  Hours later he texted:

“Nice to hear from you.  I thank you for your text message but please do keep in mind that I have just as much responsibility for what transpired.  I’d like to chat with you. I will give you a call in the next couple of days if that is OK with you.  I hope you are having a great day.”

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson

Is he feeling guilty or bad about coming into my apartment and things getting hotter than we anticipated?  Well, even though it would probably have been better not to have invited him in I don’t regret it!  First, we didn’t have sex and second I am almost 50 and he is 55, we are not kids.  Going forward we could still take things slow.  So I fail to see the problem.

Whatever his feelings were he should have given me the courtesy of talking to me about it and not just going silent.  I didn’t reply to his text and say it was okay for him to call me in a couple of days.  That is 2 days longer than I want to talk about this subject.  At this point it just feels silly. We are done, talking about it any longer feels like beating a dead horse.

I appreciated him coming into my life and motivating me to do more, read more and experience more, but I expected a better treatment from such a spiritual, well traveled, well educated, well read person, mature person.  In only 3 dates we had talked about everything.  We didn’t talk about the usual.  All our conversations were deep and meaningful, so his silence was not only strange, it was hurtful.  Giving me the silence treatment was the worst thing he could have done to me and it is not the way I want to be treated.

“You will never change what you tolerate.” ― Joel Osteen

***

Did you guys ever hear the term “Ghosting”?  It seems that there is now a word to describe the silence and disappearance of someone you are dating.  So it seems he was ghosting me!