Dating Games: Disappearing act

It’s one thing when a guy doesn’t call after a first date, but to vanish after two months is rude and inexcusable.

By TAMAR CASPI
disappearing date (photo credit: Courtesy)
disappearing date
(photo credit: Courtesy)
I was on Facebook, catching up with “friends,” when all of a sudden something caught my eye on the right side of the screen. It was a familiar picture listed under the “People You May Know” section and the name struck a chord.
It was Greg, a guy I had dated pretty seriously, albeit not for that long – until he disappeared off the face of the earth.
Of course by now I had gotten over Greg, the person, but what he did to me had really hurt and left me dumbfounded. That was a dating scar that had yet to heal, even though I was no longer part of the dating scene.
Greg and I met on JDate, we spoke a few times on the phone, and then he took to me on an incredibly romantic first date. It was lunch at a really upscale restaurant on the water and afterwards we walked along the rocky shoreline, holding hands.
We made plans to see each other a few days later, and soon we were seeing each other about twice a week, with time spent talking on the phone when one of us was out of town.
When I hesitantly asked if he would accompany me to a distant family member’s wedding, he accepted without hesitation and was the perfect companion. We had a lot of fun together and even though we hadn’t had “the talk,” there wasn’t any pressure, or any doubt that we were headed in the right direction, a good direction.
We had been seeing each other for two months when, for the first time, he didn’t call when he had said he was going to call. I called him and, for the first time, he didn’t answer. I left a message, but it was never returned.
I waited a week and called again: no answer; left a message, and never heard back.
By this point I was beyond wary and wasn’t going to waste time stalking him, but if he called me with a really good excuse, I wasn’t going to give him grief, either.
HE NEVER did call, and I never saw him again.
It wasn’t that I was in love with the guy – in fact, I wasn’t even at the point of beginning to fall in love with him, but I did like him a lot and was enjoying our spending time together and getting to know each other.
About a month later, I ran into a mutual friend and asked her what was going on with him. She said she had recently bumped into him and his new fiancée.
Speechless and stunned are not strong enough words to describe how I felt at that moment. Chills went through my body, my heart started beating double time, and I broke into a cold sweat.
I don’t think I was asking too much of him to have simply called me after our last date and told me he had met someone, and it was getting serious. That would have burned, yes, but at least it wouldn’t have been as core-shattering as this news, which came out of nowhere.
I didn’t even care that I had been rejected for another woman; that type of stuff doesn’t bother me, but getting frozen out and systematically blocked from someone’s life does.
This guy met my family, we hung out with each other’s friends, we spent quality time together – so why not at least give me some closure? Why couldn’t he simply pick up the phone and break it off with me? Why would that have been so difficult?
I don’t care how non-confrontational someone is, it’s not like I could have slapped him through the phone (not that I would have) and he wouldn’t even have had to look me in the eye. If I had started crying (which I wouldn’t have) all he’d have had to do is end the conversation.
It’s one thing to not call after a first date – because it is, after all, just one date – but to completely disappear after two months of dating is rude and inexcusable.
Needless to say, I did not add Greg as a “friend” on Facebook, but I did take the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity and check out his profile to see if there were pictures of his wife. As happy as I am with “S,” it was gratifying to see that she wasn’t very attractive (I know, I know, there are far more important things in life than looks, but it was good for my ego after being burned so many years ago!)
Now that I’m happily in love with “S,” I can wish Greg and his wife well, but I still shake my head in utter confusion when I think back to that time.
I hope I have never caused someone so much stress simply because I was too scared to say I was no longer interested. It’s not a nice way to live, and it’s not fair to do that to someone if you don’t fancy being the victim of a disappearing act yourself.
What goes around comes around, so treat your dates the way you would want to be treated, whether you intend the relationship to continue, or not.