Ghosted

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said, it sounds like you’ve been ghosted.’

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting on a bench with Cricket in Holland Park, enjoying the warm weather and admiring the flowerbeds, and telling her all about how I haven’t heard from Johnny in over a week and how it’s really weird.

‘Ghosted?’ I turn to look at her.

‘Yes, it’s when someone you’re dating just disappears without any explanation or contact.’

‘Yes, I know what it is.’ I don’t know whether to be more shocked that Cricket knows the term, or that it’s only just dawned on me that Johnny’s done exactly that.

‘They were talking about it on some chat show the other day.’

‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Well, I don’t usually watch TV in the day – Monty would be appalled if he knew – but sometimes I just like a bit of background noise—’

‘No, not that. About Johnny ghosting me.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean that he had, just that it sounded like that . . .’ Cricket looks worried that she’s spoken out of turn and upset me.

‘No, you’re right.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes,’ I nod, my mind scrambling backwards over the past week and realizing that this isn’t about him being too busy with coaching to arrange another date, and it’s not weird or odd that he’s been reading my texts but hasn’t got in touch; it’s deliberate. I suddenly feel like a total fool.

‘Well, what a complete shit!’ Cricket explodes.

I snap back to the present.

‘I’m sorry, excuse my language, but he is.’

Feelings of shock, hurt, disappointment and rejection are coming at me from all angles. My eyes prickle. I can’t believe it. I’m such an idiot. Anger flares, but I still want to cry.

‘You’re right, he is,’ I nod, finally.

Then I laugh – not just because it’s my default setting in times of crisis or because I still can’t quite believe it, but because in life there are a few, rare people who can always make you laugh, even when it feels like you’ve got absolutely nothing to laugh about, and I’m lucky to be sitting right next to one of them.

And I really don’t want to cry.

I’m grateful for:

1. An eighty-something widow who swears like a trooper and never fails to surprise me.
2. Johnny’s profile, which I never bothered to look at until now, where he says he’s only looking to date women up to thirty-five. Thirty-five! He’s five years older than me! No wonder he never came up in my search or as any of my matches. I feel annoyed and indignant and like a bit of an idiot, until I see his moody black-and-white headshot, which was taken about twenty years ago, look through his embarrassing bathroom-mirror selfies, and read the rest of his misspelled profile, which includes ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’ and ‘there’ instead of ‘their’, and realize that actually, if anyone’s the idiot, it’s him.
3. It not being awkward between Cricket and me about the letter, which she didn’t mention and so neither did I, as she obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.
4. My stash of pre-mixed gin and tonics (probably easier if I have this on my gratitude list as a default setting).
5. Still having fourteen podcast listeners, plus now there’s another four! I can’t believe it’s gone up to eighteen!