Great article. I gave a guy a chance recently who was about five years younger than me. I’m an Xennial but he was squarely in the millennial generation.
He actually put some nice work into taking me on a great date. He made a suggestion of a restaurant, checked in with me on text up to the time of meeting, complimented me about my appearance when I arrived, said he was happy to see me. Conversation was great, he acted very interested in getting to know me as a person and shared about himself, treated me to a lovely dinner.
We had met before and we were both interested in becoming lovers.
I wasn’t looking for a new relationship exactly, but I wanted to be with a lover that I could connect with and enjoy time with. I figured that this guy probably wouldn’t want a long term relationship as we were from different religious backgrounds and religion seemed important to him, but he had attracted me and charmed me, and when he asked me out I agreed.
We hooked up and it was nice. I enjoyed it mostly because of the effort he had put into connecting with me and making me feel good.
The next day we texted and he said he was looking forward to seeing me again and sent a heart emoji.
I was thinking that he really liked me and I got excited about the prospect of being with him again. He impressed me with his intelligence and gentlemanliness. He had complimented me very heavily. I wanted to hear more of what he had to say, and I started to have that special feeling you get when you fancy someone and everything about them starts to seem delicious and amazing. I knew those feelings were a bad sign, as that kind of excitement never seems to lead anywhere good.
He texted me sporadically saying he was thinking of me and wanting to meet up again. He suggested days and times, but then when I followed up on those days he was busy with work. He had told me that he had his own company in Silicon Valley, so I understand that a guy like this might legitimately be very busy with his work, and I tried not to take it personally that he wasn’t following through on making plans.
But his behavior was starting to baffle me. He was acting interested and suggesting dates but not following through on plans. He called me one day when I was out of service range. Then when I called back, not only did he not follow up to actually talk to me, but he stopped contacting me altogether.
I figured he had just gotten discouraged because our schedules weren’t matching up. Obviously hooking up with me wasn’t his number one priority and that was understandable for a variety of reasons. I was disappointed but ok to let it go. I had a feeling that I might hear from again after awhile as my experience has been that guys always seem to come back if they disappear.
A few weeks later, I happened to be visiting his area, which is in a different town from where I live. I had only been in his town for a few hours, when I ran into him in the grocery store. It was an amazing coincidence. He acted happy to see me and said he would text me later to get together. He texted right after I left the store, asking me out for the next night. He said he would like to take me out to dinner. He said it was great to see me and we must be destined to get together again.
The next day I texted around evening time regarding the timing of our meeting. He confirmed that he could still meet. He told me he was just finishing up some things at work and would text me when he was ready to meet.
Then he ghosted me.
I cannot for the life of me understand why this guy did this. It seemed so bizarre and unnecessarily cruel and insulting. It would have been so easy for him to send a short text saying “I can’t make it tonight after all” or something to that effect. Or if he just “wasn’t that into me” he did not have to ask me out again. He did not have to suggest dinner if he didn’t want to take me out to dinner. He did not have to confirm the plans when I checked in.
It was so weird. But I guess this is the kind of dick move that has become normal within millennial dating culture.
Call me old fashioned, but if I date someone and have sex with them, I think of them as a “lover.” With the affection, respect and positive regard that the word lover implies.
Update to this story: two weeks later this guy wrote to me. He said he had lost his phone the night of our date and my number with it. Someone returned the phone to him two weeks later and so he was reaching out to let me know that he never meant to ghost and had enjoyed spending time with me.
