I met this girl a couple weeks back, we really hit it off for a bit, going back and forth a lot, sharing our interests, flirting, usual stuff. Everything was going really well. The day before the date she ended up saying she may not be able to make it, the day of she canceled. That whole day was pretty stale compared to the others, the next morning she ghosted me. It really rocked me,
I've been working on dealing with rejection, I feel like I've been getting better with it, but I REALLY liked this girl. She was really cool, kinda more geeky/nerdy, incredibly cute, really sweet, and she had so many hobbies/interests that I either loved, or were adjacent enough to my own that I could totally get behind them. As a kid/young adult, you kind of have this idea of what your ideal woman would be like, then you spend your dating life realizing no such person exists, which is fine, that's reality. This gal got really close to checking off a lot of the boxes. Rejection hurts, I usually process and move on, but this one really stung. I know life happens, you don't always get what you want, but I was so disappointed that this didn't get to mature to a point where we could have seriously dated. I've always had a thing in dating, where I kind of worry about locking in and committing to someone, there's always something that kind of worries me. No one is perfect, she had issues that she was dealing with that could have been a struggle, but this gal was the first person I was willing to buckle in and work through the problems to see if we could make it happen. I'd be way more cool if we dated and figured out there was stuff that wouldn't work between us, but getting ghosted left me wondering if I did something wrong that could have been avoided. I've had relationships in the past that didn't work out, so since I don't have a concrete reason, I can only look back and correlate past behaviors that may have screwed this up. I have issues with insecurity that throw me into analysis paralysis and "clog up" my ability to be real, so I'm hanging the blame on that for now and trying to address it.
On the upside, this has really kicked me in the ass overall. I'm going be 34 next month, and I feel like I fell into a rut in my life. I was settling for way less and kind of sold myself on the idea that things couldn't get much better. Meeting this girl, and the rejection I was dished out, made me do a lot of self-examination, and I discovered things about myself that I didn't notice before. I've already grown closer to several family members who I hadn't been as connected as I wanted to be in the past. I broke down and started therapy, I'm moving out of my place with roomies and getting my own place. I'm negotiating a raise with my work, and looking for new opportunities if that doesn't pan out. I'm working on expanding my social circle, and really trying to allow myself to just break out and live more. I grew up in an environment that had me in survival mode my entire life and I realized I wasn't really allowing myself to just go have fun for the sake of fun, everything had to be so deep and contain an end goal. Its a lot of change, its scary sometimes, I don't always feel like pushing myself, but I'm really excited to see where this goes. I'd be lying if I said I'm not hoping for another shot at this girl. Part of my drive is that, if I get another shot, I want to make sure I don't fail because of any issues on my part. I'm no novice to dating, I know the rules, this doesn't happen, its most likely not going to happen, but hope is both my greatest strength and weakness in life. The way I see it, if I don't get another chance, I'll have transformed my life into something amazing for myself, and I'll be ready for whoever else the universe throws my way.
I know there are a lot of really cool girls out there, but this one felt so special, I know deep down I'll meet another, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like it right now. I don't know how to explain it, I was pretty desperate when I got ghosted, I acted like an idiot at the time. I'm doing way better now, but I've still got that dumb little seed of hope down in there, hoping I can get one more shot. Either way, I've got loads of respect for this gal, she never laid any deep knowledge on me, but this entire thing really woke me up and has changed my life trajectory in a big way. The shakeup made me see life from a perspective I never have before. As I said earlier, the perspective allowed me to empathize with some family members in ways I didn't in the past, its strengthened my relationship with them and with some of my friends as well. She may not have meant to, but she played a pivotal role in my life, during the short little period that she stepped into it. So yeah, if you got this far, thanks for enduring my rant. I think writing about this helps me process. I do a lot journaling, writing seems to organize my thoughts and buckle down on my resolve.