Gone Juan
I'm a 20-year-old woman, and for three months last year, I dated a 21-year-old guy. Suddenly, out of the blue, he stopped returning my calls. I spent about a month trying to find out what had happened, but he wouldn't respond to texts or email, either. Well, last week, I ran into him, and he said he'd just gotten really busy with school. He wants to date again, and I really cared about him, so I'm tempted.
--Please Talk Me Out Of It
"Really busy with school," huh? When...150 years ago, when there were no phones in the one-room schoolhouse in "Little House on the Prairie"?
There's playing hard to get, and then there's being impossible to locate. The first is a canny strategy; the second is casual cruelty in action. In this case, after three months of dating, a breakup phone call (in lieu of face-to-face) would have been semi-appropriate. A text would have been better than nothing. A telegram would at least have had historical flair. Yet, there you were, repeatedly trying to track him down and getting the reception most of us give random collect calls from "guests" in the long-term bed-and-breakfasts known as federal prisons.
As for your toying with the absolutely absurd notion of dating him again, your slacker of a brain is partly to blame. Admittedly, our brains require a lot of energy to operate, so they like to take energy-saving shortcuts whenever they can. They do this with what I call "thinkpacks" -- the brain's version of those Lunchables combo boxes -- prepackaged thinking sets that allow us to act automatically (without thinking through every last little detail). These come in handy when, for example, we're dining and we can just pick up a fork and use it; we don't have to wonder what a fork is and whether we use the pointy bits to stab the food or the person next to us.
But in psychologically complicated situations, these mental shortcuts can get us in trouble. Take the state that social psychologist Leon Festinger named "cognitive dissonance" -- our simultaneously holding contradictory beliefs, such as "He's not that into me!" and "He'd make a great boyfriend!" Well, the inconsistency makes us very uncomfortable, so our mind wants to smooth it out pronto. So, easy peasy, no problemo -- it typically just up and erases whichever belief goes most poorly with our ego. Unfortunately, reality isn't so simply dispensed with, and before long, "He's not that into me!" is back and "He'd make a great boyfriend!" is facedown in the storm drain behind the dive bar.
A way to avoid reality erasing is by getting in the habit of "metacognition" -- basically, thinking about your thinking. The guy who came up with the term, developmental psychologist John Flavell, called it "a kind of quality control." In this case, you unpack your thinking about this guy: "He'd make a great boyfriend!" and your wanting to believe things could be different. Lay those out on the bed next to the facts -- how he behaved -- because what you do reflects who you are and what you're likely to do in the future. In other words, what you can trust about this guy is that you can't trust him to show even the most minimal concern for your feelings -- not with even so much as a poop emoji goodbye.
LW, where the hell did you pack your self-respect? After the boorish way he treated you, you should give him nothing short of a "Fuck off and die, thoughtless jerk!"
Patrick at September 22, 2015 7:47 PM
You needn't be so tough on LW, Patrick. In this case, I suspect that attachment, on her part, anyway, is the joker in the deck.
Keep in mind that the LW was still a teenager last year. I'm not sure this whole story is indicative of a lack of self-respect on the part of LW, so much as her lack of experience with the barracudas of the "grown-up" dating world.
Blue Crab at September 23, 2015 1:41 AM
Blue Crab, you're probably right about that. But hopefully, situations like this will become a "no-brainer" for her eventually.
Patrick at September 23, 2015 6:49 AM
I think I agree with Blue Crab on this one -- this is more an example of lack of experience rather than lack of self-respect. Some of the lessons we pick up along the way can be painful and embarrassing, so it's best to learn them early, as LW is doing.
The only part of LW's letter I'd react to specifically is this: "He wants to date again, and I really cared about him, so I'm tempted." I'd suggest she really cared about what she thought he was, but now that she knows what he really is, it might be best to pass.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at September 23, 2015 6:54 AM
LW, I can sum up the timeline of events like this:
1) He dated you
2) He found someone he liked better
3) He silently dumped you and started dating her
4) She eventually dumped his ass
5) He came back to you as a fallback position
The next step is:
6) Feel you out to see if you can be kept on the shelf the next time he decides to have a fling
Consider this and take appropriate action. Fool me once etc.
Cousin Dave at September 23, 2015 7:24 AM
Cousin Dave probably has it right.
Don't give the guy a second opportunity to do this again.
sofar at September 23, 2015 7:30 AM
She did sign her missive, 'Please talk me out of it'.
That suggests to me that on some level, she knew this guy was bad news. I'm pretty sure she took Ms Alkon's advice, and has packed away a good life lesson.
Railmeat at September 23, 2015 10:39 AM
Is he an engineer? I've known a number of engineers that date over the summer, but they can't do anything but school for the other 9 months. The polite thing would be to inform your partner beforehand.
But no matter what the reality is he poofed on you once, he may do so again. It is up to you if that is a risk you are willing to take.
Ben at September 23, 2015 6:35 PM
If she is contemplating getting back, she needs to plumb that whole 'too busy' thing.
And she needs to use Occam's Razor. Was he...designing cold fusion...or was he just blowing her off? I think we know the more likely scenario.
So why not challenge him? "Hey. After blowing me off without a text for X months, why should I take a chance on you?" Why not call people on their BS behavior? If he is put in a tough spot, maybe he will think twice before doing that again.
I think he is an immature D-bag myself, but hey, at 21, I made all kinds of stupid mistakes as well. HE needs to prove he is worthy of a date.
She should be wary.
FIDO at September 23, 2015 9:08 PM
I have two more examples of the "think pack" for you:
Everybody who says, "Jesus will save me", and, more specifically, the king of motorcycle road racing, Kenny Roberts, who advocated packet strategy for dealing with situations encountered on the track.
Of course, it is completely possible to build and deploy packets that are entirely wrong for the situation.
Radwaste at September 25, 2015 3:19 AM
I keep running into this predicament with online meetups-- people my age are increasingly forced to set aside our personal lives in order to care for elderly parents. Wondering when or if these ladies will reconnect with me makes me want to dump them all.
jefe at September 25, 2015 1:46 PM
I think the LW needs to tell him no and tell him why. It doesn't matter WHY he stopped seeing her. Cousin Dave might be right, or not, and speculating isn't going to be helpful. It's irrelevant what he was doing during that time. He might have met someone else, he might have been busy with school, he might have simply decided he wasn't interested. He could have been feeding the poor in a third world country and it still doesn't give him any excuse for ghosting on her.
You can stop dating someone for any reason you want - that's your right - but you don't do it by simply disappearing and not returning someone's calls, not after three months.
I used to run into this kind of jerk behavior when I was her age. She might have better luck dating older guys.
Pirate Jo at September 29, 2015 9:14 AM
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