Years ago, when I first began my Kink’s Korner on Kink~E Magazine, I would include articles on relationships, mostly on the vanilla side of dating.
The topics fell out of the realm of the magazine I created, which focused more on specific alternative lifestyles, since I didn’t have another place really home in on what people were going through in the dating realm outside of alternative living.
On one of those Kink’s Korner’s, I wrote about dating and the “fadeaways”.
I remember this article specifically, since at the time, it was during the blissful days of Myspace. There was a guy who reached out and we started talking online. He was smart, sexy, flirtatious and extremely charming. And then one day, he…
Just
Stopped
Talking.
I couldn’t understand… what just happened???
I replayed conversations we had in my head, trying to figure out, was it something I said? I went back and checked emails to see if I had written something offensive and he never bothered to mention it, but I found nothing.
During the Myspace days, probably the best times in social media history, before fakebook took over and made everyone left, right and just outright angry, resentful and presumptuous, even when I would encounter someone strange, it wasn’t like that person would continue to linger around or say hateful things about you, or even create fake accounts for that matter. Somehow in the earlier days, if you made a fake account or had multiple accounts of the same, there was a good possibility you would just get banned from the site, even before someone had the opportunity to report you.
I never really had a multitude of bad experiences with people, with the exception of one person, for the most part, there wasn’t anything I worried about. Before the anger, there was a lot of love, a lot of laughing and a lot of parties.
Myspace had this great feature where you can see when the last time someone was online or even if they were “online now”, which was cool, so you can interact with that person live.
It was the year 2005 and we had been talking for a few months, beginning in the later part of 2004 when we connected on Myspace. He lived in Pennsylvania, and I didn’t know anything about getting there at the time, but everything was new, and I didn’t want to start making commitments to travel if it was just purely about sex and nothing more. Considering the way our conversations directed, he didn’t seem to come from a place where he was just looking for sex, especially since he was living a bit of a distance.
In the art of dating, I learned early on, it wasn’t a good idea to invest weeks into just conversations before meeting, due to investing my emotions and then meeting the person in real life and having no physical attraction. Then there were the guys who were just looking to have sex and pretending they wanted something more instead of just being honest from the beginning. I don’t begrudge anyone who’s just looking to have a good time, just admit you are, and that person can make a choice on whether or not they want to engage in just pure sex and not expect anything more.
He shared with me about a personal situation he was dealing with. He had children with a woman who apparently was struggling with addiction, and he was seeking to take full custody of them, who were extremely young at the time.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t have genuine concerns if the relationship got deeper. The thoughts of this relationship taking a turn to the serious route, would mean, I was considering becoming a stepmother to his children, in addition to uprooting my own life to be with him.
Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was prepared for that. Granted, he wasn’t on the other end of the phone claiming he was looking for a mommy replacement and the pressure was on, however, it would have been clear, if we kept talking and our emotions grew further, the next phase would be to have conversations relating to on how to move forward to build a healthy relationship with him and his children and that would basically mean, visiting and getting to know them and of course him.
For the record, for anyone who’s dating someone with young children and a parent is out of the picture, having knowledge of what you’re getting into, be prepared to become a parent in addition to building your relationship with your partner.
There are no exceptions.
Even having this knowledge, I was taking everything a day at a time. There weren’t any promises made on both of our parts, but there was an unspoken vibe of ‘what if’ this does get more serious.
This was one of those rare instances where I was open to the possibilities of this turning into a serious relationship. I was single, enjoyed meeting new people and I had a great job. I had moved out of a ghetto area in the Bronx and moved closer to my family in a much better area. Suffice to say, I was very content with where my life stood, especially after my horrible breakup five years earlier.
Now going back to the beginning, when we connected on Myspace, it was truly an instant connection, and we didn’t miss a day of talking to each other, eventually moving our conversations to our personal emails and talking on the phone. He was even playing a game of who would email the first good morning. It was a big deal back then, when you got someone’s email, as oppose to a phone number.
Throughout the day we would email each other and the evening time, we would talk on the phone. We talked about his case, the things he was doing to show the judge he was capable of taking care of his children. I knew this was important to him and let him know he had my full support.
The day before court, we spoke on the phone extensively about the case, what he had planned on doing to ensure he would protect his children, providing them a good home, and show he can financially take care of them without any assistance. We said our goodnights and he let me know he will reach out tomorrow and update me on how everything went.
That morning, I sent him an email letting him know I’m thinking about him and wishing him luck on his case.
As soon as I got to work, I checked my emails and I didn’t receive anything. I figured it was still early, and perhaps I will hear something by the afternoon. The afternoon rolled in and no email responses from him. I checked Myspace and it showed the last time he was online was the night before, so I figured, okay, something must be wrong and he’s not ready to discuss.
That night I went onto Myspace again to check and see if he had logged on and sure enough there was activity noted he logged on at some point but was not currently online.
Hmmm, I thought to myself, “he had time to log in to Myspace but not reply to my email?”
I thought, “well maybe something went wrong, and he wasn’t ready to talk about it.” and since I’m not the type of person to be aggressive to a point to make someone irritated with me, I figured, perhaps he needed some space.
Also, considering the situation of what he was dealing with, perhaps an overnight distance from conversation would probably be best. But it still bothered me he couldn’t talk about it with me.
Needless to say, after a week of radio silence, noticing he was active on Myspace, I decided to write one more email but this would be the final email I would send and it read something along the lines of this (this is the actual email from 2005 0 his name has been redacted):
“I'm not one to send relentless emails (which I feel I have already done) droning on asking "what's wrong", "why so distance", "are you busy", blah blah blah. I just hate wasting time with people that don't have interest in me and instead of just saying they're not interested they just rather ignore you until you go away. So this is my last email to you. If I don't hear from you - then, have a great life, I wish you well with your children and your new place and I truly hope you find what you are looking for. I hate to be so crass as I know you are just as busy as I am but this is the way I am... I'm not into playing any games whatsoever. My life is too short for this.”
Sadly, I never heard from him again.
Eventually I stopped looking at his profile on Myspace, checking his activity, thinking maybe I can gauge through his online activity to see what happened. Of course, I didn’t find any answers and eventually, after a week of no response to my final email, I gave up.
Initially, I was extremely hurt. This was someone I was talking to for a few months and I really liked him.
Rejection wasn’t a good feeling at all.
The more I thought about the idea of us having a relationship, the more I asked myself, why would I want to be with a person who wasn’t adult enough to communicate how he was feeling.
And thus, the article, “the fadeaways” was born. Sadly, I cannot find the original article, but I did do a follow up on my wordpress back in 2017 (https://marabelleblue.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/the-new-fade-a-way-when-your-friends-choose-their-man-over-you/)
When I shared with one of my friends, who was also dating at the time, about what transpired, she said the same thing happened to her. It seemed there was a new “trend” of communicating, if someone became disinterested in the person they are dating, just one day, randomly disappear. In their minds, at some point, the person will just figure it out.
What a stupid concept.
I began doing some research, for my first ‘Fadeaway’ article. I spoke with people who shared some of the worse nightmare stories. Some women I spoke to had been dating the person for a few months who were not only invested emotionally, but going out on dates, some were intimate and actually spending nights with them, conversations on the phone every night.
There were even others who met family members.
In their minds, even though some didn’t have any conversations about where their relationship was going, they were still left with a feeling of anticipation the relationship was moving towards a serious direction, never getting any inclination the person was disinterested with them.
Imagine the shock they felt, where one day you’re falling in love and the next minute, the rug is just pulled from under you.
I empathized tremendously with that pain of rejection. There aren’t any words you can say to a person to help their heart to understand the deception, the immaturity and in essence they were a jerk who couldn’t just communicate that maybe it was all a game to them or it just got too serious and they didn’t feel ready.
In a world where you’re dating and hoping to meet someone to share your life with, the last thing anyone wants is for a person to randomly stop speaking to you, hope you will not call or email them and you will eventually go away.
Thinking about that experience in 2005 in my present day, for whatever reason he felt the need to stop talking to me, I think his decision was, in part, to gain full custody of his children. Maybe he felt I wasn’t ready to be a mom, or something took place in court where the judge said something that day, which made a decision for him.
Would it have been nice for him to communicate this with me? Yes. It would have been, at least, the respectful thing to do.
This also taught me a lesson about communicating rejection while dating. Most times, after one date, I pretty much established if I wanted to see the person again and if I didn’t, as uncomfortable as it was, I made it pretty clear that there wasn’t a connection.
Most guys took it in stride. No one made a commitment on the first date, but rejection still sucks, regardless. I was never in a mindset to play emotional head games on guys I knew I had no physical attraction to.
But the ones where I couldn’t say anything in that moment, there was always a conversation of, “do I owe them a call or an email” just letting them know, we had a great time but there isn’t a connection for me and almost always, I would follow up with an email later in the evening letting them know it just wasn’t going to work out.
Consideration is a ‘art’ form of behavior, it doesn’t mean others will possess the same talents.
I’ve heard stories where guys were afraid to communicate rejection to someone out of fear the person would become stalkerish and while that may be true, that doesn’t make it okay to hurt another person out of your own fears.
Then there’s the other part, the part where someone is brutally and unnecessarily honest. I grew up in a time where my mom said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
It is a very far cry from the world we live in today. Social media “dictates” we can say whatever we are thinking regardless how it will hurt the other person, and the backwards thinking, like racial incantations can’t be said without any ramifications. The fact is, when we say things to harm another person, we aren’t thinking about how those words will make them feel or how you can lose a business or a job because those consequences just “doesn’t apply to you”.
It’s not good when one person is thinking of themselves and how they feel about a situation and misdirect their anger or annoyance at someone else.
Without diverting away from the topic of relationships, using this example, “well if you behave the way I wanted you to behave, I wouldn’t speak to you that way” or “I don’t think you’re a well balance person and that will ruin ‘my’ sense of peace I have built over the years in my life”.
For someone to consistently blame others for feeling uncomfortable is unacceptable on any level. In other words, no one has to correct their behavior in order for you to feel comfortable unless their behavior is just nonsensical. Dating is a challenge all by itself, it doesn’t need the help by being cruel.
On the other hand, let’s take a look at the second example that says, “I don’t think you’re a well balance person…”
True, someone can be experiencing a moment in their life where they are not well balanced. If a person is dating and they find the person they were interested is just going through too much in the current moment, is there a reason to be cruel and negative? It sort of defeats the purpose.
If the person is not currently in a good state of mind, who are you to “help” in making it worse. Keep in mind, there are people who deserve a chance to improve and telling anyone they are not balanced or annoying or they need to lose weight if you want to continue dating them - it isn’t your place to tell someone that.
It’s rude and it’s disgusting.
Even if you’re not interested in someone, to continue in pursuing a relationship with them, is leading them to believe you have a vested interest in the relationship when you don’t and when something better comes along, you’re just going to walk away in the sunset.
No one has permission to direct their negative behavior towards another person you are dating because someone did it to you. We will all experience disappointment, rejection, hurt and deception. We will either learn from that experience or you can put on those invisible ball and chains around your ankles, posting negative gifs about how terrible the opposite sex is.
In closing, I want to mention this important note. I see a lot of things on social media that leave me wondering where is all the anger stemming from? You have someone like the incel (involuntary celibate), Andrew Tate, who has brainwashed countless of young guys into thinking the man is the hierarchy in a relationship and they are denied sexual pleasures because they aren’t good enough or too much of a “nice guy”, basically passing the blame of their problems to someone else.
Rhetoric like that, especially in people who are impressionable, is creating more damage than good. Andrew Tate is not a good person or a power of example, considering the charges against him.
All in all, keep in mind you have the power to make decisions when it comes to your dating life.
You have the power to end conversations which may make you feel uncomfortable. You have the power to not leave your emotions in a tailspin with endless texts and conversations on the phone without initiation of meeting and possibly dating.
We can still be valid in how we feel, with the exception, of course, of being an outright, racist asshole and misogynistic jerk.
Until then. Take care of you.
