Dating Rambo, Whatsapp and Being Ignored

This is an empathy blog post, I’ve heard this story many many times. I was having a conversation with Quest. She was telling me about a guy who’s just acting up for no reason, especially since no one asked him to act down in the first place.

 

If you’re a 20 something year old doing his/her own thing, this has probably happened to you before. I used to do this, but it got done to me, so I think it’s inhuman to do this to another mother’s child (yes, we must think of how people have mothers, and how they’d just bleed if they knew their children were being treated so badly). So I don’t do it anymore. Here’s the deal.

 

And so it starts. One of your friends has the best idea in the world. It usually starts like this: “I know this great guy’. You’re not particularly busy, so it’s chilled, you go along with it. It starts with whatsapp and if you’re lucky, or not, it’s followed by a date. The whatsapp conversations are nothing ground breaking, but you can survive them. You figure that you’re interesting and have things to tell someone, either then twitter and your friends. So you decide, fine, I’ll tell this here niglet things. Then you get comfortable, because somehow that’s just how it happens. Inside of you grows a comfortable excitement, still nothing to write home about, but you do happen to smile about it whenever.

 

A few days later, you go on a date. It’s a good laugh, it could easily be a scene from a B rate romcom. But you’re smart, so your expectations are again left unchanged. Then, this person wants to be dating Rambo at the end of the date. “This was great! I’m so glad that I finally met you. Wow! You’re so amazing! You’re like the best date I’ve been on in eons. We should totally do this again”. For a moment, your ego is on spinning rims. You tell a few friends, your voice goes up a few octaves. But again, you’re smart. You calm down. You get home and check whatsapp…no messages from Rambo…

 

You send a standard message, polite, breezy, chilled, informal and just generally oozing of etiquette, to comment on the date. Mind you, not because you’re ‘trying something’, because that’s what people do after a date. You go to sleep. And wake to “Yeah sure, it was great! Have a good day.”

 

You think to yourself: “Um…what is this now?”. But now there’s a script! So you follow it, “Will do you too.”

 

A day later, dating Rambo is quiet, and you have interesting things to say. You know it’s pretty much over, and he’s just not that into you, but he’s a human being right? So you say hello, and ramble on about something. There he goes, tweeting up a storm and 3 hours he replies. By now the fat lady has sung all the numbers in Mama Mia, she’s done! It’s over. Nothing is ever going to happen between you and dating Rambo. And you’re cool with it. BUT HE IS A HUMAN BEING. So than it starts.

 

You say hello, when whatsapp says he’s online. Literally, 2 seconds later, he’s “last seen”. “Is he putting his phone down because I said hello? What the hell is this bull now?”. 10 minutes later he’s back, not to reply to your hello mind you. So you think “Oh hell no! TF kinda goldfish memory does this one think I have? Does he think I forgot that I said hello to me?” Why is he doing this? You hold back all the crazy that’s brewing, until it all just goes away.

 

10 days later…you’re completely over it. But you have to holla at Obi…because you’re not too sure what happened. Obi’s response. “I have no fucking clue!!!”.

 

But I did learn a few weeks ago that there are studies that suggest that being ignored sends signals to your brain, that closely resemble physical pain. So people just want to hurt you sometimes. That’s the only logical explanation I have for why dating Rambo exists.