Off My Chest
RULES:
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I've been stood up or ghosted by enough potential dates that I've learned to expect people to not follow through. Even when someone says yes and they seem excited about it, I still proceed with the mentality that it's just going to fall through between now and the actual date. Before I gave up on dating entirely, I stopped even marking my calendar because it seemed like there was no point. I might as well double-book myself because something's gonna fall through anyway, if not both things. And it usually holds true.
At some point it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I stopped getting excited about dates. I started having the worst nerves on the morning of, because like "should I start getting ready or is she about to text me to cancel?" Sometimes I would feel relief when the text finally came, because at least then I could stop worrying about it.
At some point I started texting to confirm whether we were still on, but apparently that screams insecurity and they'd end up being like "You know what no, if you really feel the need to check in with me then we're not going to waste each other's time. I don't need to mommy you."
Even in the rare case when the date actually happened, I'd be nervous up until the moment we meet, when my relief usually was so palpable that they found it off-putting. Like "Why are you so surprised that I actually showed up?" Plus, I wouldn't be able to think about much other than self-doubt leading up to that moment, so it was hard to enter it with a good headspace. That usually set the tone for an underwhelming if not disastrous date.
And even if I tried to explain where I'm coming from, they'd just think I'm a misogynist because apparently learning from my experience and worrying about a repeating pattern is an affront to all womankind. I get it, women aren't a monolith. But also, I have trauma, and whenever anyone else's trauma informs their perceptions and defense mechanisms then it seems to be okay. Not me though, cause men aren't supposed to have feelings I guess. We're just supposed to take it on the chin without losing confidence.
Eventually I stopped planning anything or even trying to meet people, because loneliness and isolation aren't as painful and confusing as abandonment. I can handle rejection, I'm certainly used to it, but abandonment triggers deep insecurities from my childhood and can send me spiralling. It's not worth my inner peace.
Now it's just me and my cat, and I try not to think of my patheticness or my prospect of dying alone, which is all but guaranteed at this point. I just try to distract myself each day, enough to maintain a semblance of stability and peace. I'm doing a lot better mentally than I was before, when I still hadn't accepted my fate, and still strove to overcome it.
That really stinks that you have unfortunately found some of the most self-centered people in the world. I think it is a symptom of THEM not wanting to say "no thank you" and rationalizing that ghosting others as the easier thing to do for THEM if they really didn't want to get to know you. Screw those kinds of people! Please know that there are people in this world who find ghosting extremely off-putting. The only acceptable time to ghost someone is AFTER you have already ended the friendship/relationship and they continue to pester you since they have already been clearly informed that you are not interested.
As a person who is highly introverted, yet still desires contact with high-quality people, I do continue to put myself out there strike up new friendships with like-minded people. If you are relying on dating apps to get dates, I would say to remove those from you phone and just seek walking, running, hiking, table top gaming, etc. groups to meet people in a low pressure way. That is what I did and how I met a lot of people who I consider friends that let me know if they can't come to a gathering for whatever their reason. I joined lots of groups until I found my people in a city of about 120,000ish in the USA. It may take a long time to find your people, but when you do, you know.
Yeah, they justify it like that whole man vs. bear thing. Basically, "All men are potentially dangerous" loses nuance and becomes "All men are dangerous," and then they tell themselves that it would be unsafe to simply tell me "no," so they lead me on and then blame me when I don't catch the non-existent hints that they're actually not as into me as they're pretending to be.
And eventually they simply ghost or stand me up, leaving me some combination of worried, confused, embarrassed, despondent, and self-loathing. And to add insult to injury, they tell all their friends that I'm a creep, and then I become a social pariah and no one will even give me a chance to show them who I really am. All because they assumed something about me based on an overgeneralization about my immutable characteristics. But if I'm insulted that they would think I'm dangerous, then that makes me a misogynist, apparently...
And it's not just one or two people, it's definitely been a trend for several years. Like the man vs. bear thing. There's this perceived moral pedestal that women stand on when they tear a man's heart out, twist the knife in his deepest insecurities, and make him second-guess himself. "Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss" or whatever.
That's not real feminism though, as anyone who's actually read real feminist writers would know (as opposed to tiktok pseudofeminists who advocate for something more akin to women participating in patriarchal structures of oppression rather than dismantling them). It's literally just women promoting toxic masculinity along with this sense of exceptionalism, like anything is okay when a woman does it. Mixed messages and double standards does not provide a solid baseline for healthy communication, but they act like all the onus is on the man despite that.
I don't date or use the apps anymore, I don't put myself out there or go to groups or events either. It's partly because I'm too paranoid and sensitive, and partly because I know how slanderous and gossipy people are, and that without any friends to defend my character, people are more likely to believe whatever random rumors they hear about me. And those no doubt get embellished over time.
Like I know I've made mistakes and put my foot in my mouth before, especially when I was younger and still figuring things out, but nothing to the degree that I should be shunned for the rest of my life. Based on people's reactions to me though, back when I still used to go places, the rumors must really make me sound worse than hitler...
I agree that simply not telling someone "no" and leading you on is definitely the a-hole thing to do and that not all men are dangerous. As an outsider to your world, my question is, have you ever heard the saying "if everyone else is an a-hole, then look in the mirror?" I am not saying you are a bad person at all. What I am saying is that if everyone is ghosting you that you meet, there must be a reason that this is happening to you that you are unaware of. I think of my brother-in-law who is a large imposing scary looking dude that looks like he could beat the tar out of anyone. He perpetuates that appearance by how he chooses to wear his hair & beard and how he chooses to dress. However, once you get to know him, you realize he wouldn't harm anyone with the exception of self-defense. Other times, it is just a vibe that people give off that make them seem like a bad idea. I personally think about a guy that my partner was friends with. When I met him the first time, my creeper radar was going off, and I couldn't figure out why. I set that aside because he was my partner's friend. Down the road, we found out that he was extremely emotionally manipulative (probably a sociopath) and was dating young women 18-25 while he was 40. We saw that emotional manipulation based off of observation when he was around his partners and also when we learned some very personal and private things that he was doing with said partners and how it made them feel like they were the crazy one, being gaslit, etc. One of his partners was a newly licensed therapist, and she was unable to see the emotional manipulation until AFTER she got away from him. I am not saying this is what you do, since I do not know you. However, if you give off a creeper vibe (even if you are not a creeper), then that can cause large swaths of the population to ghost you. The entire thing just sucks, and I like to give people I meet a fair shake to show me who they really are because more often than not, you meet some seriously fun people to be around. Do note I am very much a nerd and enjoy table top games, video games, computers, and things of that nature therefore, I am used to interacting with people who are not consider conventionally beautiful/hansom always. The other things to consider is, are the people you approaching in the same league as you? Whether we like it or not, people will judge you based off of your appearance. If you try and get into a friend group or date someone much prettier than you, then that probably won't go well.
Sorry for the wall of text. I ran up against this problem when I was in middle and high school because I kept throwing myself at the pretty girls to be friends with and couldn't figure out why I had no friends. Then I got in with the theater and band nerds and found lots of friends. The same is true as I moved cities and instead of looking for the beautiful people, I looked for the gamers and found my people :) I do sincerely hope you find some peeps of your own. It has gotten much more difficult to that though in this day and age with people so tied into social media and not doing things in-person out in the world the way that we used to.