I used to think love was possible but I don’t believe that much anymore. I’ve been in loving relationships, but the more I witness and personally experience in regards to dating and love, the more I realize that my pessimism is more than warranted. Here are some things I regularly encounter:
- Being ghosted When I first heard of ghosting, I thought it was a rare phenomenon. Who were these awful, evil guys running around, stringing women along, then dropping off the face of the earth? Were they raised by wolves? What was their problem? Then it happened to me twice – the first time by my husband, of all people, who was too chicken to properly end it while I was in another country. The second time was by The Sicilian back in May of 2017; a guy who swept me off my feet, charmed the pants off of me, then disappeared… only to return in November of 2017 asking if I wanted to get together and “exchange gifts.” I politely reminded him that he had ghosted me six months before and he could “exchange gifts,” whatever the hell that meant, with someone else.
- Being breadcrumbed Because ghosting isn’t enough, there’s breadcrumbing where men, instead of coming on strong then disappearing as they do with ghosting, drop breadcrumbs in the hopes you’ll gobble them up and fall for them. Having been breadcrumbed but being smart enough to not gobble up the crumbs, I’ve managed to sort of avoid this BS.
- Being benched What really sucks is that although I haven’t been benched, I HAVE been the cause of another woman being benched. How do I know? I was told by the guy: “I’m interested in both of you, but I’ve put things on hold with her to see where things go with you.” I’m sorry, WTF? After an argument about what he was doing and him denying that he was benching her, that was the end. I’m assuming he went back to see her – until he found someone else for whom he could bench her again.
- Being (poorly) lied to I realize lying, especially when it comes to dating, love, and relationships, is nothing new, but come the hell on! If you’re going to lie to me about where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with, cover your tracks! Don’t let yourself get tagged in an Instagram or Facebook photo. While I don’t advocate for lying, I can say that no woman would let herself get caught in a lie, because we’re smart enough to plan it all out properly!
- Being ignored So there I am texting a guy and then he just stops responding. For days. When I hear from him again, I get the whole, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t see your texts because I wasn’t near my phone.” Oh, really? This is 2017; we’re all in some serious relationships with our phones and, boy, I saw you liking photos on IG and retweeting crap on Twitter, but go ahead and tell me again you didn’t see my texts. You straight-up ignored me; at least own up to that crap.
- Being called a whore On the flip side of being ignored, when I’ve decided that things aren’t working out with a guy, even if we’ve only dated a couple times, I get called a whore for it. Sometimes a bitch, occasionally the c-word, but either way, me taking the high road to say I’m not interested, as opposed to ghosting, leads to me being insulted. And, disgustingly, if I took the low road and ghosted them instead, I’d get the same response. It’s really hard for women to win in this dating game; we’re all a whore when we piss off a guy.
- Being negged Even if you’re not familiar with the term, you’ve probably been negged. I know I have – and when it was happening to me, I actually said to the guy, “Are you trying to neg me right now? Because I’m not falling for it.” (It helps to write about sex and dating for a living sometimes when it comes to such bull.) Negging is basically a technique men use to reduce a woman’s confidence with backhanded compliments. It’s done so the woman will do whatever she can to get the approval of the guy because no woman wants a backhanded compliment! She wants a real compliment!
- Being told “I love you” when it’s convenient for them I have this one guy in my life who tells me he loves me fairly regularly, but it’s a word he uses on his terms. He knows if he says it to me, I’ll usually respond with, “I know,” but on the phew occasions I’ve said it to him, without being prompted by him first, he pulls away for a few days as if I’ve just told him I have the plague. It’s so much like clockwork that it’s become a joke with my friends: “Oh, I haven’t heard from so-and-so for a few days.” “You told him you loved him again?” “Yep. Although he told me he loved me a couple hours before, so I thought I was in the clear this time.”
- Being passed over for someone “better” Being passed over isn’t quite like benching. Benching is something you have to figure out is happening to you on your own, while being passed over is something that’s usually done to your face with the oh-so eloquent wording of, “I met someone better for me.” Better for them actually means someone they think is better than you.
- Having to hear “I’m not looking for anything serious” over and over and over again Yeah, dudes, I get it. You’re not looking for anything serious – unless you find that woman who looks like she’s been torn from the pages of Vogue and is willing to suck your junk 50 times a day. Oh, believe me, I get it. Groan. Eye roll. Groan.
