Careful what you wish for, or you’ll get it.

And that I did.

My wish was for more clarity around why 4-Date Guy vanished cold turkey. There are so many possible reasons for this, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the problem. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this past year of dating, it’s that confusion in dating usually has a cause and is not a coincidence.

After 4-Date Guy stopped communicating altogether, right after telling me our 5th date was cancelled, I took that as a big clue to back off. I decided to withdraw (my specialty) and go through my usual routine that week. It sucked, but I had a feeling I’d hear from him again. I was curious if he’d resurface once he no longer had his son.

He cancelled our date on Tuesday and then he ghosted. I was the last one to communicate anything and was left wondering what happened. I tried to keep myself preoccupied the next couple of days, pushing aside the pure annoyance of his silence. By Thursday, I was so triggered that I went back onto my dating app to reactivate it. In doing so, I decided to delete his profile from my “matched” section. If he wanted to reach out, he had my actual phone number. His profile lingering on my dating app did me no good. Before I deleted it, I opened it and scrolled, just to see why I initially was prompted to match with him. I had looked at it last week, just to see if his photos resembled who I had been hanging out with… they didn’t really. He looked good in person, but not like his photos.

I noticed that one of his profile prompts was changed slightly. I noticed this because I had commented on it when we first started messaging. He had shortened it. I continued to scroll, staring at his photos. I scrolled back up to close his profile, and then I saw it – the mother of all clues: he had updated his Home Location to the city where he stayed when he was in North Carolina. Originally, his home location was the city where he lives in Ohio.

• Stopped communicating
• Cancelled date
• Updated dating profile, including home location

Well shit, I felt better already. It wasn’t me. He was just a lying mutherfucker.

Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. We went on 4 dates and I’m a crazy person because I’m accusing him of “cheating” when we’ve only been dating/texting/talking for 2 weeks.

What I didn’t mention is that on Saturday, the conversation we had where he said he missed me and that I made him happy, in that same conversation HE ASKED ME IF I WAS DATING ANYONE ELSE. To which I replied, “No” … and I asked him if he was dating anyone else, and he very clearly said “No” … and we continued to talk about how each of us didn’t play to date anyone else.

We didn’t have an exact conversation of will you be my girlfriend? will you be my boyfriend? we basically confirmed we very much liked one another and weren’t dating anyone else. While that doesn’t technically mean we were exclusively dating, it was a step in that direction. I suspected that conversation would be continued the next time I saw him in person.

Right? Wrong.

Thursday evening was bad for me. The week before, I was with him during fireworks after a baseball game, but on this night I got some wine and chips & dip, sat on my front porch, and cried my eyes out while I poured my heart out into my journal. My eyes leaked tears endlessly. I didn’t want to cry over this obvious asshole, I didn’t want to waste any more energy on this guy, but I had clear it all out so I could move on. At least I knew my path now, and he wasn’t on it.

On Friday, I had the day off and took my 13-year old daughter back-to-school shopping. My daughter and I were at the mall, taking a break from shopping, standing in line for an Auntie’s Anne’s soft pretzel when I see a text from him.

“Hey, hope you’re doing well. Just wanted to let you know I had a great time with you. I’m not exactly sure where things went wrong, but I’m guessing you’ve found someone. Truly wishing you the best!”

What? Seriously? Mutherfucker. I knew he’d resurface. Confusion is created, not a coincidence. He was trying to twist his silence into his favor, trying to act like I ditched him.

At first, I wasn’t going to respond. But I decided that he had to know know that I knew he wasn’t that sly. My ego perked up and was all “No girl, you are going to let him know you have a brain.”

I waited awhile before I responded “No, I simply took it as a clue that you stopped communicating, cancelled our date, and changed your location on your dating profile.”

He went silent for a couple more hours. Then he texted back with a whopper – one of those big long wishy washy texts that’s full of excuses and horse shit. Don’t mind my annotations throughout:

“Ah, I understand where you’re coming from [no you don’t, you got caught]. I don’t remember when I changed it exactly, but definitely more than a few weeks ago [I looked at your profile last week and it still had the Ohio location, we only saw each other for 2 weeks, you’re full of shit] after discussing my situation with you and realizing relationships may be a lot less complicated starting off there, provided my atypical situation [so why the fuck are you trying to date in Ohio if it’s less complicated to date in North Carolina?]. We didn’t really have the “exclusive” talk, [No we didn’t, but we started to, then you ghosted me for days and acted like I ghosted you] but I’m not romantically involved with anyone [I don’t believe you], just having conversations and discovering what I want and need at this time [play on, just not with me]. I apologize if I offended you, definitely not my intention.” [you hurt my feelings, but it won’t happen again because I’m done]

I wasn’t going to respond again, but I wanted to make it clear that I was making the choice to not move forward with him for my own best interest. This wasn’t a 1-way street for 4-Date Guy to call all the shots.

“Not offended, more confused, which isn’t good for me. I was a little sad, but just because I know I won’t do well with you being in two states. I need more time than that. Not your fault [Yes it is]. It was fun getting to know you.”

In re-reading that, it was too nice. Maybe I should’ve been a little more bitchy. At this point, it doesn’t really matter anymore though, does it?

I didn’t hear back from him after that, and I don’t think I will. The confusion has cleared. What a coincidence.

Stifle Me Not