The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
Asking for a friend
Your problems solved by The Midults
Q:Dear A&E, I met a man online three months ago. We made each other laugh and I felt sexy and safe with him – I’m in my early 40s and thought that maybe the search was over. He gave the impression of feeling the same. He met my friends and mother, took me away for weekends. But I haven’t heard from him in three weeks; my Whatsapp messages to him have gone unread. Embarrassingly, I’ve completely melted down. I feel so ashamed and stupid, as though I imagined it all. Each day I’m more desperate and I’m not sure how to get through this. — Ghosted
Dear Ghosted, what is WRONG with these men? Believe us when we say that his behaviour is information about him, not you. We can be sure of various things from your letter (edited above). First, you have opened your already bruised heart to new experiences, which is admirable, and necessary if you are going to – at some point – have a fullbodied and fulfilling relationship.
Online dating is a virtual jungle that us grown-ups now have to explore. Though your coupled-up contemporaries may crow ,‘ i’ d do it i fi were single !’, you have to have been burnt by dating apps to comprehend that it is a parallel moral universe. One in which nobody is answerable for their actions. One where boyfriends of three months can simply… evaporate. As though nothing ever happened. But it did, and you are not to feel ashamed.
We know several wonderful women who have been in this boat. One met a man on Tinder, and after several holidays and meeting his kids found out he was still online, scoutingfordates.
Mediocre men can become giddy online, with all the attention they receive with no hint of accountability. This sounds sexist but it is true. Perhaps take yourself offline and out into the real world for a while. Not only will this reignite the possibility of a chance encounter, it will give you perspective. Passionate though we are about our sofas and our beds (truly, a love like no other), isolation is not a recipe for robust self-esteem.
And while you fill your time – do things that give you pleasure, exercise (do not underestimate the power of endorphins when it comes to heartbreak: one of us once lost six stone to the break-up treadmill) and see friends – you will be slowly detaching from this man. One morning, you will just... be better.
Do establish fierce boundaries when it comes to social-media stalking. Muting without blocking might be best: then he won’t know that you can’t see him and you don’t look hysterical.
And then it could be time to have another go. To ask people to set you up; to contact that old Facebook friend you always fancied who is now divorced; to find joy again and to be vulnerable again. And perhaps to get hurt. AGAIN. We know.
But as Brené Brown points out in The Power of Vulnerability , ‘You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those [hard feelings], we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.’ You take the rough with the smooth, Ghosted.
Lastly, of COURSE you are devastated. You have not been delusional (he met your mother ,for goodness’ sake), you have been loving and hopeful. You have kept your faith.
Sometimes, these things are just sheer bad bloody luck. But it’s highly likely to be OK in the end. You may not get ‘the dream’. You may get a different dream. Anything could happen. And it will…