Context

It was nearing the beginning of the semester, meaning the end of my dating escapades because no one has time to be pissed off about a man on a school night, quite frankly. The plan was to find someone to flirt with on occasion, but I managed to find and develop minor feelings for Wildcard. We went on two dates before he went distant and eventually ghosted me at the most inopportune moment- right after I sent a selfie. This bothered me so much, that I had no other option but to really hash it out in my journal.

The Excerpt

Overthinking It

“While we are on the subject of this guy ghosting me. I really wonder what it is that I did. Now, logically, I know I shouldn’t assume that someone decided to stop texting me after I sent a selfie of my very beautiful face… is a reflection of a misstep on my part. But, it does make me feel slightly insecure.

So again, I ask myself- why did he ghost me?

Is it because my teeth are yellow and I have halitosis or something? Or do I look ridiculously horrible in the pictures he took of me on his camera and he was so disgusted by the sight he had to stop communicating with me effective immediately? Was it because I slightly overshared with him on our second date by telling him about the effects of middle school and colorism on my mental health? Did my running mouth ruin the fantasy and mystery of the girl he thought I was therefore making him no longer attracted to me?

Did I make it too easy?

Was the thirst trap pic too much? Did he realize that a part of my attraction to him fell through the first time he showed his ass and he decided to leave before I could leave him? ….. if I knew I would get ghosted like this on my ‘last hurrah’, I would’ve kissed him more. THAT REMINDS ME! Is it because I kissed him on the cheek and didn’t easily give into my lustful thoughts on the train which made him realize that he would have to work a little harder for even a slight chance of getting into heaven (having sex with me)? Did he take offense to the ‘don’t be hasty’ comment? Did he think that I was in love with him or something because I sent a selfie w/o him asking???? Did he find my tumblr and realize that I am still thinking about a guy long before him? Are niggas scared of non-factor ass niggas now?? AM I CATFISH??“

Acceptance

“All of this weighed heavy on my mind about a month and a half ago, but now I honestly don’t think about it that much to the point where I am scourging through every single possible reason. Now, it’s more of a ‘huh, wonder what happened’.

Like a ‘Huh, that’s all you got??’

I expected more from him really. Mr. Wildcard made himself to be some sort of mystical, mysterious, ultra-entertaining person. He was putting on a performance, I knew it. It was entertaining, so I let him cook for the most part. What can I say? I love the game, the cat and mouse, the push and pull of dating. I tried to tell him… there’s no need for pretending around me- but not too much, because that would make me a hypocrite. I was still trying to convince like 15-25% of me that I would be cool with this with him. I could be wrong, he could actually be like that, and I don’t doubt that a part of him is for a second, but it was like he was amplifying it to impress me. I was attracted to his passion and zest for life though. And how unafraid he was to share his art. I was hoping he would show me something new, but a man is a man in the end. Ah well. He’s cool peoples.

A shame he ghosted, because I would have been completely okay with being friends and never kissing him ever again.”

The Reflection

For someone who is no stranger to rejection, this situation affected me in a way I still cannot fully communicate. But why? Ghosting is quite common nowadays and is more or less considered acceptable. Shit, I’ve ghosted a few people in my time. We were only in communication for a little over a month, so technically he would be well within his rights to up and disappear. Sure, it would probably sting a bit, but there would be no reason for me to dwell on the situation. Why would this ever be the last thought on my mind at night and my first thought in the morning? I thought that I was long past the days when my self-image could be completely demolished by some offhanded action. I was wrong.

It wasn’t the ghosting alone that got me- it was ghosting me right after I sent a selfie.

It’s triggering. It’s so humiliating, the thought that the message that sent him overboard was a picture of my face. It’s the kind of humiliation that makes you want to turn your back on the world. The kind of humiliation that makes you feel like wearing a paper bag over your face and drawing the curtains. The kind of humiliation that breeds a paranoia that strangers could smell it on you, the ripe scent of an imaginary pie slathered all over your face.

It’s the kind of humiliation that could turn you away from God.

Okay, I’m being very dramatic here, but please believe me when I say this is literally how it felt. Nothing was funny for months. I was walking around feeling like Quasimodo. Nothing would make the insecurity go away: not a new hair color, picking up more shifts, getting promoted, music, writing, I mean NOTHING.

I was still struggling while writing this blog post. If you couldn’t tell from the excerpt, I was in denial about how much this affected me. I couldn’t help but feel completely discarded. It wasn’t fair and I could not rationalize it, which scared me more than anything else. IF such irrationality exists, how can I prevent this from happening to me again? Will I forever be subjected to the whims of whoever I make the choice of whoever I decide to care about?

So, how did I get over it?

How I get over most of the things that have occurred in my life-

I charge it to the game.

It’s much easier said than done, and it took me a while to return to normal mentally. I still have moments where the embarrassment creeps up to ruin my day. When that happens, I try the following:

Confidence boost

I remember that I am cool, hot, intelligent, creative, and overall a really good person. I remember that my self-concept does not revolve around how my love life is going. I also remember that I am objectively good-looking. I look back at the selfie too. It’s really a good selfie. I look kind and pure of heart.

Staying grounded (aka applying logic)

The simple fact of the matter is that there was nothing I did or didn’t do that caused him to ghost me. It wasn’t up to me. It was not in my control. It happens. This is something that I had to wrestle with for a while, especially when I decided to write this blog post. I came to the following conclusion: I needed a perspective change. This will be elaborated upon in the next journal excerpt.

I also came to understand something very cliché about rejection: it is literally redirection, not a dead end. Before you roll your eyes at me, please believe me when I say that clichés exist for a reason. Take the time out to feel the emotions that you need to. Don’t rush past the unpleasantry. The world doesn’t stop; you don’t stop breathing (even if it feels like you can’t). You don’t get it until you do.

Conclusion

In the end, this is something that I can laugh about now. I laugh at how preposterous the idea of me being ghosted FOR sending a selfie is. I laugh at how much it affected me, how long it affected me. And even though I definitely would never like to go through that again, I laugh because I’m kinda grateful. If not for Wildcard- or his disappearance much rather, I probably would’ve had to learn these lessons later down the line. If my relationship with Wildcard went the way that I planned for it to go (whole time I had no real plan), I would still be running about from talking stage to talking stage, never taking a moment to really think about what I really want. Maybe the apparition’s reason was to get me to slow down, to actually heal, and not just pick up shifts to ignore the gnawing at my chest. For that, I wish them all the best.