How “The Ones That Got Away” Taught Me That I’m Enough
I have a weird pattern with guys.
One of my biggest pop culture pet peeves is the trope of the “Woman Who Just Doesn’t Get It.” You know the one. Woman longs for Man who holds her at arm’s length, and then once her character arc plays out and she “grows” into a more (ostensibly) mature, or less (ostensibly) shallow, or less (ostensibly) masochistic version of herself, she finally sees that her love interest is a jerk, or that she’s been deluded about imagining she had a chance… and falls instead for some dude she had only lackluster feelings for at the beginning. [*Cue audience swoon.*] That’s how things “should” happen, shouldn’t they? Because aren’t women just flighty, illogical creatures who can’t discern between love and lust, interest and indifference, a real connection and a pipe dream?
Well, in my very real world — turns out — sometimes you can be 100% sure that the guy you love feels something rare and compelling for you… and then he can vanish… but he can also come back after 10+ years to admit how very much the same he always felt. Or you can see it in a man’s eyes the moment he falls for you… and then, just as suddenly as he falls, he ghosts you… but he can still confess, years later, that he often wished you could be together again. Or you can have a gut feeling that the guy you’re dating wants to be something more… until he makes it clear that you’re not a priority, so you cut him loose… but he can return, too, long afterwards, to say that he looks back and wonders “what if?”
That’s been my life’s running trope, apparently: “Female Emotional Sage,” who reads hearts like a book, isn’t clueless or delusional in her assessments — and sure enough, all (or nearly all) her love interests do come back to let her know she was correct. And that she’s special.
“It’s not you, it’s me” sounds like a cop-out. But when you hear it years later in the too-late past tense, it sounds sincere. I know. Because I’ve heard it. A lot.
I spent much of my 20s as a woman that men were inclined to ghost. While my early relationship history was horrible — 7 years with abusive boyfriends, starting at age 15 — I wised up shortly after college and stopped finding red flags attractive. That’s when the mystery began: I’d finally…
