The Art of The Ghost👻

By: Jamarcus Howard

Contributing Writer

I was sitting in my office the other thinking about a woman I met a few weeks ago, I wasn’t thinking anything in particular about her, but rather thinking about what I did to her. See, I met her at a business event, she seemed really cool and was pretty, so I slithered over to her table and started a conversation. We got along fairly well, she complimented my suit, and I shot a compliment back her way about her perfume. Being the gentleman I am I walked her to her car and asked if we could exchange phone numbers if she were single. Now, I am not a “pickup artist”, but I gotta say that I can be smooth when I want to get a woman’s phone number. I called her that night to make sure she made it home safe and asked if she would like to go out to dinner sometime. We set up a day and time, I told her that I would meet her at whatever restaurant she chose, and I set up the reservation. I arrived early, and she did too, much to my surprise, we were able to be seated earlier than our reservation, and I ordered us drinks to start the night off. We had a good conversation, she was looking gorgeous, and I was feeling her vibe. By the end of the date, I asked if she wanted to hang out a bit longer, and she yes, so we took a walk around the Santa Monica Pier. It was getting late, so I walked her back to her car, we kissed, and that’s when I knew we were going to engage in some type of sexual fun.

Now, I was not looking to bed this woman, but I was thinking about it on the date, she asked me if I wanted to come over to her place, and I wasn’t going to say no. When we arrived I noticed pictures of kids, so I asked her who they were, and she told me they were hers. I was cool with that, even though I don’t have any kids. We started in the living room and finished in her bedroom.

I had to leave that night even though she said I could stay, but I had some early morning stuff to do, so I kissed her goodbye and left. This is where things got a bit much, the next day I received a good morning text from her, I had planned to answer it later in the day because I was busy doing things, but then I received another text asking me where I was and why I haven’t I responded to her previous text? Another text and then another, the final text sent was something out of the movie Fatal Attraction, it read: “I bet you f%cking another bitch, I hope she gives your ass a disease, and I knew you were a straight-up low life, f%ck you n*gga”. I hadn’t planned on ghosting her, but after being bombarded with text messages, especially after reading that last text. I mean damn, did she have to that mean in the text? This is what I thought, and so I decided that I needed to make a quick exit before things got even nastier between us. I think she wanted something I wasn’t ready to give and that “something” was a relationship. Now, I know some women will call me a misogynist, womanizer, or opportunist for sleeping with her on the first date and for not texting her right back.

Some may even call me a bastard for not telling her that I didn’t want a relationship while we were out on our date, so let me just put it out there that I didn’t just want to “hit it and quit it”, we were both horny, I didn’t initiate the question of would you like to come back over to my place, and we are consenting adults that jointly decided to embark on our sexual adventure. I wasn’t turned off by the fact that she has children, but I just felt like she was looking for more with me, and with kids involved, she may have been looking for a father figure. I could most definitely be wrong about that last part. I mean, after all, she didn’t ask me to meet her kids, and she didn’t even bring them up in our bedroom conversation afterward, but I didn’t want to give her any hope that I would be that for her and her kids.

The text messages stopped after a few days, and I went back to my day-to-day routines, but I couldn’t help but think about what I did to her. I did the usual if I could have, I would have, I should have, but didn’t. I told my homeboy, who told me to just forget, and that she’s probably moved on to the next guy. I can honestly say that I have never been ghosted by any woman, so I don’t know what that feels like when it happens, but I can only imagine that it must feel bad to the person it happened to. I have had a few breakups where I was told that they needed closure, and that closure comes in the form of telling that person what caused the breakup. I let my inner Ralph Tresvant do the talking by telling them I gotta do what I gotta do (song reference). But, when you are ghosted there is no closure, you start to question yourself and create scenarios about what went wrong, even to the extent of self-blaming. I know this comes off as self-centered and uncaring, but the only way I can explain it is by saying that I got mad, and decided that it was best for me not to respond to her text messages so as to spare her feelings. Right or wrong, I hope that she is doing well and that the next man she’s with is giving her what she needs and wants because I could not.

Jamarcus Howard

Contributing Writer

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