I’m all about self-affirmation, body positivity, blah blah blah. All that noise. I believe that if you feel good in a mini skirt or a crop top, you should rock it regardless of your dress size. I also firmly support any women out there placing sticky notes with upbeat messages around their mirror, even if you use tough love on yourself and your notes mostly say things like “Suck it up, buttercup” or “For the love of God, stop eating, Whitney.” I think the world is really fucking hard on women, and for the most part, we don’t need to make it any more difficult on ourselves by needling pointlessly at the little things that don’t really matter.
That being said, I also think we have a problem with thinking we are immune to sucking. We all have flaws. And while we should accept them and love ourselves despite them, it’s bogus to pretend they’re not there. And I know it’s no fun to face what’s wrong with us in the face of rejection, especially when it comes to ghosting.
I’ve held the hands of a lot of friends who have been ghosted, and of course, the first instinct is to comfort a friend who’s feeling rejected. That’s fine. Sometimes, a dude just disappears on a girl for no real reason, and that’s tough. Most likely, though, the guy in question just wasn’t that into you and he stopped texting you because he DOESN’T LIKE YOU. It really can be that simple. It’s definitely not that big a deal, and it shouldn’t shake your entire foundation of self-worth. To quote Kacey Musgraves, you can’t be everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s chill. We can’t all be universally loved.
But I almost never see this sort of level-headed reaction from the ghosted women of America. Most of them, in fact, friends of mine included, jump straight to blaming the guy. “He ghosted me. He’s such an asshole. At least have the guts to say it to my face, guy who only hung out with me twice.”
I admit freely that sometimes, the guy really is just a tool. But other times, he’s a normal dude who took a hard pass on you, because of some shit you did or said that he wasn’t into. It’s devastating to the crazies, but it’s real. Friends of the recently ghosted, rather than analyzing the situation fairly, talk her up all night, and assure her that, yes, he is a psychopath, his mother didn’t love him, and he is MISSING OUT, in rejecting her, because she’s perfect the way she is.
Newsflash for all of you: you aren’t perfect the way you are. There are a lot of parts of yourself that could most likely be improved. If guys are ghosting you on the regular, that’s a red flag to take a look at the vibe you’re putting out there. Guys are assholes, but their signals are pretty clear. Did you get wine drunk on the first date and end up tearfully showing him picture after picture of your Maltese sleeping on a couch cushion? Yeah, he was freaked out by that. And by no means is he required to deal with any aspect of your crazy that early into a relationship. He doesn’t have to be able to handle you at your worst until there’s a rock on your finger, and even then, the pre-nup will most likely keep you in check.
The stories that girls tell themselves for why they get ghosted are also insane 99% of the time. And the friends of that girl are no better for telling her that it’s definitely just him, not her, even though she broke his phone during dinner by throwing it against a wall when he got a text from his mom. He didn’t delete your number and block you on social media because he wants you to try harder to get in contact with him. He’s ghosting you because you took four tequila shots before the date and you wore your dress backwards. You seemed like too much drama to deal with. If your friends don’t keep it real with you at times like these, they’re part of the problem. My best friend tells me when my ass looks fat in my jeans, or when I acted like a batshit crazy person at the bar after a shot too many. Even when that honesty makes me want to tit punch her, at least I can trust her to be straight with me and tell me that, yes, he did ghost me because I talked about my UTI at dinner.
So, the next time that guy who you thought you really hit it off with disappears off the face of the earth, consider the remote possibility that you might just suck a little bit. It’s always the craziest girls who think they aren’t crazy, so make sure you own whatever level of psycho you are before dragging a man down to your level. You’re welcome for the tough love, and if you’re offended by this, it’s probably because you know it applies to you, Whitney..
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Shannon Layne
My favorite things are tiaras, compliments, and free drinks, which are becoming harder to come by the more I tend to show up at the bar in sweat pants. The proudest moment of my life so far has been landing an actual, paying job that allows me to Facebook stalk people for a living. I tweet about my mom way too often, who is constantly trying to remind me that I'm not nearly as cool as I think I am. Please send me funny stories to read at work here: shannon.laynee@yahoo.com
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