the crazy-making
by rantywoman
Needless to say, I never heard from that guy again, the one from a few weeks ago who I admired so much and hit it off with so well. I’ve learned that when the disappearing act occurs I’ll feel irritated and snappy for a few days but then, like most women, I’ll just move on. Pretty soon I’ve forgotten the dude altogether. This is what we’re advised to do, and I’m unsure what the other options would be, but it doesn’t seem to approve the overall dating landscape when nobody ever gets called on the carpet!
http://www.tressugar.com/Annoying-Things-About-Dating-Women-34293834
You’re finally dating. You’ve worked through the early stages of dating communication weirdness and you’re on the other side. Things are moving right along. You are literally saddling up the horse to ride off into the sunset to Happily Ever After when . . . he vanishes. Poof! Gone, without a trace. Last night he sent you a sweet “Good night, beautiful” text and conveniently left off the: “Have a nice life.” You literally go from talking multiple times a day and seeing each other multiple times a week to checking the sides of milk cartons for his face. WHAT WENT WRONG? Unfortunately, in these types of situations, you rarely ever get real closure. Usually the guy just disappears into the night, never to be seen or heard from again
That’s a bigger mystery than the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. (Perhaps we should equip men with flight recorders, but those are still useless if you cannot recover the black box in the first place.)
“they can’t all possibly be “just not that into us” . . . right?!?”
If they are not that into us from the get go, I can understand that, no problem. Disappearing after only one, or even several dates, not a huge deal. But to be so thoroughly into someone that you are spending loads of time together and have almost constant communication, and then all of a sudden, not be, that is just weird. If they think women are crazy, that may indeed be a clue as to how they got that way.
/filed under ‘unsolved mysteries’
//expect it to stay there
“they can’t all possibly be “just not that into us” . . . right?!?”
Bingo.
Disappearing after only one, or even several dates, not a huge deal. But to be so thoroughly into someone that you are spending loads of time together and have almost constant communication, and then all of a sudden, not be, that is just weird.
A woman’s best strategy to combat the negative effects on her self-confidence of men “flaking” is a defensive one, to wit:
1. Delay any kind of intimate physical contact with a man until you know him quite well. Becoming physical at an early stage short-circuits the chance of his appreciation for you to grow and inserts a dynamic that favours the worst part of a man’s nature. NB: There are always exceptions to this but these men are outliers. As in baseball you will succeed over time if you play the percentages.
2. In the early stages of dating have other irons in the fire (other men you are also dating or interested in dating) i.e. spin plates. If there aren’t any men IRL that fit the bill use online dating and ensure you are chatting with at least 2-3 men online who you might be interested in dating. Expand your geographical radius/age range in your profile if you aren’t getting any interesting hits.
3. Keep contact regular but relatively brief in the earlier stages. No “constant communication” unless you know him very well. You shouldn’t be seeing him several times a week until you know him really well. Same with telephone conversations. Texting a few times a day is okay. If he is being really persistent, be friendly back but let him initiate all contact and you just respond.
4. What makes a man interesting and worthwhile isn’t whether there is an initial spark between you but rather what he reveals about his character over time as discerned from his actions,
Everything hinges on point 1, so if you fail to heed it, 2-4 on their own won’t make much of a difference.
If you follow these rules and a man “flakes” it won’t have much of an effect on you. It’s called taking control of your dating life. Believe me, I speak from experience.
The exact same thing happened to me recently. I was dating a man for about a month, and we were seeing each other and talking regularly. I let him do most of the initiating. Then one weekend when I was stuck at home sick, he suddenly disappeared. He never even reached out to ask me if I was feeling better. Two weeks later after some gentle prodding, he sent me this lame excuse about how I’m a wonderful girl but that he isn’t looking for a serious relationship right now. Then a week or so later, he finally came clean and admitted that he had bumped into an old girlfriend the weekend I was sick and immediately decided to go back to her. So I guess I wasn’t that great of a woman to him if all it took for him to get his attention turned was bumping into an old girlfriend. If he had really liked me, he wouldn’t have immediately left me for her without a second thought. So now I’m back to being alone and celibate again, and wondering why the Hell I am even here.