Boo, Bitch

I want to talk about what happens when you meet a person— IRL or URL— what happens when you exchange numbers, and what happens when the text chain runs cold. I want to talk about ghosting. 

I’ll be honest (because that’s what these letters are for) I started and stopped writing about this topic many, many times because every time I think I’ve got it down and that I know exactly what I want to say— words fail me and another draft gets buried under the pile. 

Not only is it difficult to encapsulate my own feelings— because they run wild without bounds like my mouth when I’m angry— but it is anxiety-inducing, thinking about anyone reading what I have to say and being anything other than in total agreement with me. 

20-somethings who’ve dabbled in casual dating are no strangers to the karmic cycle of ghosting and being ghosted. It’s a lousy thing we keep doing to each other with no end in sight, especially when the pool of potential lovers is limitless at our fingertips.

There is already a letter in me about the high’s and low’s, no’s and go’s of dating apps, so we can have that specific conversation another time. I do want to establish, however, that the approach one takes to “dating” is...different and perhaps more careless when it begins online versus through an organic connection IRL. Dating apps are a low-stakes game. At least agree with me on that, okay? Even when you’ve met a potential honey face-to-face, there’s still no guarantee that either, or both of you won’t pretend you’ve dropped off the face of the Earth after a couple of bone-dry correspondences. 

I believe in the power of text etiquette, and also, gut instinct. If one or both of these things are off in the first few conversations— I’m unlikely to continue. Though I could dedicate another letter entirely to texting etiquette, to summarise for our purposes here: avoid one-way responses showing no reciprocation, know that double-texting to initiate a new conversation is okay, show interest in who they are outside of “how was your day?”, and please, please don’t ask for nudes before you even know their last name. 

When I’m attracted to someone, I like to keep them in my orbit which means making room for them in my inbox. Admittedly, I am a terrible texter unless it’s for close friends and family but even with them, I’ve been known to neglect group chats. When someone new enters my orbit, I aim for regular responses that follow the text etiquette.

...And I say this as a serial ghoster myself. Hear me out. It’s easy when you’re the one doing it, to swipe away a notification or delete the chain of messages from an unsaved number altogether, without explanation. I mean, it was never going to work out anyway. When lust evaporates into laziness and you come to terms with the amount of energy you’ll have to exert to meet a person you barely know or care about— why bother?

It’s not so easy when you’re the one being ghosted, though. It f*cking sucks, actually. If it’s by someone you genuinely wanted to know, someone who stuck out in the sea of your matches, someone a friend set you up with, or someone who happened to fall into your life at what you thought was the right moment—it’s almost heartbreaking and definitely discouraging to have that person ghost you. It’s only natural to assume that maybe you didn’t follow their text etiquette or their gut was wrong about you. And when you’ve come to this conclusion, remember that at one point or another, you’ve made another person feel like this too. 

For the ghostee whose biggest error was being optimistic, the rabbit hole of self-doubt is deep and can lead you to imagine faults about yourself that were never there. Maybe you’re angry and want to tell them off for wasting your time. Maybe you pick up the phone and keep swiping to start all over again. Or, until your heart sweats out the failed connection like a fever, maybe you write about it— for yourself, for everyone, for no one. 

x 

— SB