Thought your date went well… but suddenly got ghosted? Here’s how to recover.

You’re waiting.

In fact, you’ve been waiting for a long time.

You wonder what’s happened to the date.

Didn’t she say you were the first one she was going to progress? That you were very different from the other dates you were going to have?

But two dates later, she’s gone.

You’ve double, triple, quadruple texted, but there’s been no reply.

Let’s face it.

She’s gone. But you daren’t face it, because it’s painful. And it leaves you painfully back at square one, where you wonder if there’s going to be any hope. After all, you thought this was the one.

The one and only one.

But now, she’s gone.

Poof! Gone like the wind.

Here’s a tissue for your tears.

We’ve been there.

When we start looking, we start losing

As we grow up, one of the things we start doing is looking. We look at past contacts, and wonder if that primary school friend is worthy as a mate.

Yes, we quickly decide that she’s worth going for. Even though she screamed at you and probably chased you around when you were all of six years old.

The thing is, when you start looking, you start losing.

It’s part of the game.

If we follow the normal conventional rules of modern society, where the norms are around monogamy, having one partner at a time, that sets the math straight.

Never mind if you failed your math.

When you meet someone, there’s one of three things she’s going through.

1. She’s looking
2. She’s attached
3. She’s single, but not looking

And for you to find those that are looking, you might have gone to dating apps.

But let’s not talk about that today. Let’s talk about what happens post-dating, when you get ghosted. Dropped.

And tossed away like a rag doll.

Like me.

Hope is a painful drug

One of the hardest thing is keeping onto hope in the early phases of a relationship, where you desperately wish this is the one, so you can finally stop looking.

There’s no doubt about it.

Not many people enjoy looking.

And even when you’re ghosted, deep down, you hold onto the hope that she will come back someday. There’s a Chinese saying that goes,

老牛不吃回头草。

Or the wise cow never eats the grass he’s left behind.

Though this wasn’t in the context of dating, dates who’ve rejected you are, more likely than not, not going to come back.

The key isn’t to stop hoping. Rather, the key is to be realistic.

To be a rational optimist, as Matt Ridley describes.

Understand the reasons for ghosting

Usually there are 3 reasons for ghosting.

1. The girl has found someone she’s more interested in.
2. The lady sees some red flag in you that makes her lose all shred of interest.
3. She is really going through something (which she will likely tell you if she is interested in you).

Reasons one and two leave you with little hope of repairing. It’s only in situation 3 that you could have some hope.

But more often than not, you have little hope.

Well, you could say ‘It’s your loss’

The conventional wisdom that’s often shared is that you should think of it as her loss, not yours.

I think this erroneously puts the blame on the other party, without giving you the chance to improve yourself.

It’s a balance between looking at your share of responsibility in the matter, rather than just putting it squarely on her shoulders.

It might be your fault too.

Take time to look at what’s happened, and to say,

What’s my part in this?

Do I have a part to play?

And if I do, how can I avoid this in the future?

Release her in forgiveness

You might find yourself yelling,

You f/&king c$^t!

Damn you for not replying me!

For treating me like a piece of shit…

And slowly the tears start flowing.

No, no, no, that’s not going to help you feel better.

Choosing instead to forgive her for dropping you without a word might be far easier.

You might not like it, but in the longer run, it will do you good.

Write down:

1. What was done?
2. What did I feel about it?
3. Your attempts to control the hurt
   
   1. For example you might write, “As a result, I decided to avoid you, and stop talking to you.”
4. Your decision to forgive them

When you forgive, you’re saying,

I forgive you, and I choose to hurt no more.

Ah, the closure letter

Recently, I was telling my female friend about how I wanted to send the girl who’d ghosted me a closure letter.

And she told me that she recently had a similar situation where a boy confessed to her, and she felt awkward about what had happened. She stopped replying.

When he eventually sent her a long closure message, she barely read through it.

She just thought,

Loser.

No, this is not the way most typical females think, but they can encourage you to see the futility of typing such a message to her, whoever she is.

It won’t rescue your relationship. No, this is very unlike the Korean dramas you would watch where some long, heartfelt message suddenly makes the lady think how much she’s lost.

If she’s not interested, she’s not interested.

I will say it again.

Because I think this is the most crucial message that most people miss when they get ghosted.

If she’s not interested, she’s not interested.

They think the girl has gone through something that has made them stop replying.

Sure, they could have. But if you mattered, they would have talked to you about it.

And if they still liked you, they would definitely have bothered to continue the conversation.

You wouldn’t be left hanging, because you matter.

My friend also shared how she usually decided very quickly that she wanted to go past dating.

Two weeks.

That’s all she took.

Most might not be like her, but if the girl is reasonably confident, they would go fast and furious. Because they know you’re not worth losing.

Cry, sob, but don’t give up

Dating needs an incredible amount of resilience.

Because you’re going to be rejected often. More often than you would expect.

It’s just not that easy.

And you would have to come to some point where you keep reaffirming yourself for the good within yourself.

Write that letter of love to yourself, and remember that you’re worthy of love. Remember the qualities within yourself, and how you’ve shown them in the past.

Just don’t forget. When girls ghost you, it’s not just about her. It’s about you too.

And sometimes, when things don’t work, in the short term, they hurt.

But in the longer term, when you step back, you might just come to realise how grateful you were that it didn’t.

This isn’t easy advice.

But keep going.

It won’t get easier, but you will get better.