She Thought She Knew
It was an ok evening. She just got hammered at work, feeling a little bit unwell. But she still thinks she could manage. She got a date that night and she just had to show up.
She put on one of her best dresses, a little blush on her cheeks, a swatch of pink on her lips and made a beachy wave to her hair. She added velvet pink mules on her feet (again, another favorite of her) and she was good to go.
It was a nice sake bar, with interior full of wood and (unlike any other shady bar in Jakarta) bright lights all over the room. And there she was. Waiting at one of the corners at the bar while questioning herself, “What would my date looks like? What would I do if he turn out to be so boring or vice versa? Did I stain my front teeth?”
Not long after, a guy walked into the room, the exact look like the picture of him that this girl has previously saw. He looks great, even better than his picture.
They talked, and talked and talked and the time just passes by.
After the night went by, she could feel a sense of decency towards this guy. He jokes like a nerd (well, he is a nerd!), he seems sincere, he’s intelligent and he’s funny too.
Almost 1 am and she needed to go back home. Unlike any other fuckboys in the city, when the guy found out that she actually lives nearby, he decided to walk her home. Everything went so great. He said he likes her and she lets all the butterfly feelings filling up her stomach. It’s no longer a blush of blush-on on her cheeks, it’s her happiness blush. They agreed to see each other again in two days.
One dinner leads to another drinking nights, more dinners, movie dates, etc. She thought everything went unexpectedly well. Until one drinking night where they both have gotten so drunk and it was such a good time. Finally, after a while, the guy said, “I think we should go back to my place.”
There were several minutes of silence. She was struck by this offer. Not that she’s not attracted to him (FYI, she IS VERY attracted to him), but she couldn’t help but think, “This man looks and behaves really decent. My question is, does decent man still exist in this world? He looks kind, but is it just another trick to get girls to bed? He is geeky. But maybe the geeks put more consideration and not speaking upfront about their true intention to the girls? Is this just another trick?”
She didn’t know if it was the drink, if it was her being desperate (oh boy, it is so hard to be a thirty-something single woman in this society), or if it was just a glimpse of hope, that this might really be her time, she decided to ignore her gut feeling and made a stupid decision she’ll regret months after.
To her believe, they have developed a friendship. She wasn’t really ready for another relationship anyway, she just got out of a painful one. But being around him made her feel comfortable in a sense that their friendship offers no drama, she could phone him and ask him out for harmless dates every once in a while, or just spending time together watching Netflix in his apartment. Truth be told, she likes every cuddling moment they shared at a cinema, every walking session they spent after a night out and the way they hold hands awkwardly every once in a while.
She had her own side on his bed.
And all this intimacy left her drooling with happiness (“I thought this was never going to happen in my life!”) and a little bit (if not a lot) unpreparedness too.
And one day he disappeared. Not even gradually. She got completely off-guard. They just spent a nice Friday night together, then he answered coldly to her text the next night, and completely ignoring her for the rest of the week.
She spent nights wondering what went wrong (“We just spent Friday night watching Netflix together, felt like nothing went wrong. Did I do something wrong? Did I say something bad? Did I give him an STD and now he got Herpes all over his lips? I wish he would say something to me. I don’t mind he’s gone but just tell me what went wrong!”)
She sent WhatsApp texts. Endless of them. From just plain “hey there” until “please tell me if I did something wrong” which were all went completely ignored. All her friends stopped her from texting him, “The silent treatment says everything”, “It wasn’t you, it was just him being a guy.” Still, they couldn’t stop her from thinking about him.
All she thought about was it was almost unbelievable that this kind of guy could also do such a horrible thing to her. She knows men disappear. But she thought he was different. She thought they were friends. And she denies everything by thinking maybe he was just busy with his work, got so stressed about something and doesn’t really want to think about girlfriend as of know. In the end, she finally stopped texting, but she couldn’t get her mind out of him still.
Until one day. It was a weird morning. Her mom wakes her up because she forgot where she put the house key, she couldn’t go back to sleep after. She randomly surfs on pictures on Instagram, and randomly remembers one familiar face that she saw. A girl with a fabulous body and amazing holiday pictures on her account.
She opened her Instastory and boom! Found him. She got to a point where she felt worried if there’s something bad happened to him (“Does he even still alive?”) yet there he was, all alive, looking as great as ever and even smiling from ear to ear next to that pretty young lady. Unbelievable.
She left in shock. She could feel her body’s burning. There’s a sense of sadness emerged but it was even too complicated for her to feel it. She finally came to the end of her denial. It was all clear now.
“I thought there’s a sense of decency in this man. He seems sincere, he seems nice, he seems harmless. But maybe that’s the thing about our society today that I should learn to get used to. You’re screwed even when you did nothing,” she thought to herself.
She felt like she had nothing to offer but a pure companion. Of course, she hoped for it to grow to becomes love (“What’s wrong with it? People hope to feel loved all the time. It is human nature. I’m mature enough to embrace those kinds of feelings and I just want to feel good,”). But she thought by giving it the time to grow was the best way to keep it casual. She didn’t know that it was indeed pure casual for the guy, with no room to grow at all.
She didn’t feel used. Not even a bit. She just hates herself for being naïve and stupid. She grew up in very loving surroundings, therefore she never knew that it wasn’t always black and white for people and not every people has a decent intention toward other human beings. They’re just so consumed by confusion, loneliness, desperation and other stuff until they can’t help but dragging other people to their holes so they’ll feel the same. They’re just so good at covering it up.
Although she is now sure to just walk away (she was looking for the answer “why”, and then by finding the picture, she realized that the answer doesn’t always have to come in verbal), she is now unsure if she still has positivity left to deal with this situation.
She erased his phone number, his WhatsApp windows (with endless unreplied messages at the bottom) and trying to erase the memories and regrets that she has over him. Just moving on, this too shall pass.
She should’ve listened to her gut feeling.
