Ghosting, anger, frustration, despair, and how does one cope
I went out with someone I met on Bumble this past weekend. We did dinner & drinks before going to a standup comedy night at a local coffee shop. I was into her, and she seemed to be enjoying herself, but I probably missed out on signs of disinterest.
I texted her the following night (on Bumble) saying I enjoyed myself, and hoped she did too. I didn't receive a response, but saw she's updated her photos since, so I'm figuring I'm being ghosted.
I'm noticing with more frequency over the past few years, that where in the past I got some sort of text going "there just isn't any chemistry" or some vague answer of the sort, nowadays I'm just not getting any follow-up responses, that they suddenly disappear off the face of the earth and I wonder: "What exactly is it? If I was that creepy, she would have just bolted much sooner. If I was that boring, she wouldn't smile her way through it. WHAT IS IT? WHY AM I SO TUNED OUT?"
I'm dealing with a mix of feelings:
-There's the silent despair of being invited to weddings and wedding showers for people younger than me, when I've never figured out how to not be single. (I'm going to be 30 in a few months, damnit)
-There's the frustration at not "getting it", and the seed of bitterness of feeling like attempting to modulate myself is jumping through so many hoops for the sake of being validated as a human being, that "travel and clubs and random crazy" is more valid as life experience than clawing one's way to a decent corporate post.
-There's the existential pain at other people you confide in telling you to "feel more, be less analytical about things", simply because the 'technical-analytical' mindset is a large part of how I've coped in the world and have gotten through life, and it feels like I'm being told to "not" be me, that I am in my current state no good for anyone.
-And there's the fact I'm typing this here, griping in frustration during work hours. Granted it's a slow morning, but when I get like this I cannot focus. And it's like this when I enter that fallacious train of thought that:
"Work is for money. I don't particularly need much for myself, and have in fact saved enough that I could theoretically go unemployed for a year , so leftovers are mostly a form of social proof to show you're theoretically capable of being a stable provider/can put any hypothetical kids in college. I'm not dating/am not quite capable of dating. Ergo, I don't really have much external motivation to keep working. Maybe I could get fired, I'll just spend the next month asleep/videogaming and just not care."
Simple rejection is one thing. Simple rejection 60-something times is another. Being ghosted by people you weren't attracted to is another thing. Yet it takes its toll, and I'm at that point where I need some fundamental thoughts on what I can do differently (besides "use a different online dating site" or otherwise).
I think some people are just rude. Others may hate confrontation, being the bearer of bad news. Others yet may have had their share of otherwise friendly dates turning vicious after being given a polite 'thanks but no thanks'.
My only advice is to stop jumping through hoops, to let you be yourself, and to really think about what you want and what you need. This is hard in itself, and doubley so when sometimes we need to get what we want so as to see it's not what we need. To see if there's a different tack you can take, different people you can attract or approach.
Otherwise, hurtloam is right. We don't know much about you from where we can start with specific advice.
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Of course, it's probably quite a bit more complicated than that.
You know sometimes, between the dames and the horses, I don't even know why I put my hat on.
"Ghosting" doesn't really apply to folks you met online and went out with a single or even half a dozen times, ie person you weren't in a committed and exclusive relationship with. Yes, it'd be preferable and more polite if the one-date girls had the courtesy to decline a second date in words... but the message conveyed (ie there will never be another date) clearly by radio silence. There might not be answers - clicking with another person is sort of hard to explain. Expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised if a second date happens.
Consider losing the bitterness at younger friends achieving milestones like weddings and babies. Life is not a zero-sum game. Your 23 yo cousin who got engaged or college buddy who had a second kid is unrelated to your inability to find a relationship.
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