I’m glad I was ghosted, here’s why

“Even though my insides feel like mincemeat and the sadness in my throat hurts like I’ve swallowed a golf ball, I’m somehow grateful for the way things have transpired.”

I started dating Aaron* nearly four months before he dropped off the face of the earth. We’d moved slowly through the steps of dating, seeing each other twice a week for very polite dates at Melbourne’s various cultural institutions and we waited a good month before sleeping together.

As a chatty, deeply anxious person, I was grateful for Aaron’s steady temperament and readiness to listen, and it seemed like I’d finally met someone cool who I wanted to date properly. He’d tagged along with me to a few events where he met those closest to me, and we rarely went a few days without messaging each other. 

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Then, one night, after a couple of drinks and (very fun) sex in the missionary position, I suddenly became overwhelmed by the worry that I was boring in bed. I hate not being instantly perfect at things – it’s why I got my provisionary driver’s licence when I was 26 – and it’s the reason why I get bizarre performance anxiety when it comes to things like giving blowjobs and being on top during sex. (On one occasion, while very drunk, I did do the Cookie Monster voice before blowing someone because I thought it would be a good ice-breaker. It was not.)

Instead of keeping my barrage of anxieties to myself, I began to say, in staccato with a few ums thrown in for good measure, that I was “Sorry for being boring at sex”. Then I mumbled part of the anecdote about not getting my Ps until I was 26 because I was so scared of being bad at driving, and he looked at me like I had three heads. I panicked. I apologised for being weird, then apologised for apologising, then apologised for apologising about apologising.

Then I pulled the doona over my head in embarrassment like a toddler having a tantrum but soon realised that it was not an invisibility cloak, and I’d eventually have to talk to him. I popped my head out and said “Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. And now I’m embarrassed about being embarrassed. Do you think I’m crazy?”. At the time, he responded by telling me to stop thinking about it because the more I thought about it, the more I’d get tangled up in my anxiety. 

When we parted ways the next morning, I felt sheepish and like a bit of a nuisance. He’d gotten up at 6am and promptly got dressed to go for a run. Still naked, in his bed, I felt completely in the way and quickly found the emergency toothbrush I’d snuck in my handbag, preparing to make an escape. He pecked me on the lips goodbye and I winced when I got into my car.

‘How could you have been such an idiot?’ said the mean little voice in my head. ‘You’ve scared him away.’ And while my mean little voice is usually wrong about these things, this time it was right. After seeking advice from my friends, and having them assure me that my little whoopsy was not the dealbreaker I thought it was, I messaged him that afternoon asking when he’d like to hang out next.

This was pretty typical for us, as we usually made plans for our next hangout either while we were still in each other’s company or not too long after saying goodbye. However, 36 hours passed and I still didn’t hear from him. He’d been online but I suspected he was deliberately choosing not to open my message, then at the 48-hour mark, I saw the ever-dreaded word ‘seen‘ appear underneath my message. 

For the next few days, I oscillated between feeling incredulous and just deeply, deeply sad. The fact that he could date me for nearly four months, meet all the important people in my life, lend me a jumper on our last date, and then drop me like a hot scone with no explanation was (and still is) just impossible for me to comprehend. I gave myself headaches trying to make sense of it, furrowing my brow when no answer seemed to make sense.

Maybe he just didn’t think I was worthy of an explanation. Or maybe, as my friend hypothesised, he’s been horribly maimed in a violent accident? While that last one can be easily disproven, as he’s been active on social media, I’ll never really know Aaron’s reasoning for giving me the cold shoulder. 

Even though my insides feel like mincemeat and the sadness in my throat hurts like I’ve swallowed a golf ball, I’m somehow grateful for the way things have transpired. Seeing how Aaron handled my feelings of anxiety has shown me that I need someone who’s more robust, and the fact he ghosted me demonstrates that our values are just fundamentally incompatible.

I’ve already sunk four months into dating a guy who was wrong for me, and at the end of the day, I’m glad I didn’t waste more of my precious time. If you’ve been ghosted, I’m really sorry. It’s a shitty thing to have happen to you. It’s cowardly and needlessly cruel. As the dumpee, it can make you feel worthless, unlovable and subhuman. But I promise you, it’s a blessing in disguise.

Sure, a cursory “I don’t want to date you anymore” text would have been the polite thing to do, if not the bare minimum. But I actually think the other person giving in to their desire to flee says so much more about their character. Yes, it feels terrible and I did nearly have a panic attack driving into work today, but I’m alright. For now, I’m taking a quick breather while my wounded ego heals, and I know I’ll return to the dating world more aware of what I want (and what I don’t).

 *Name has been changed for privacy reasons

For advice on how to cope with being ghosted, head here.