Dear Boy Who Stopped Calling

It’s happened to so, so many of us.  You meet a boy, he’s cute enough and kind of fun, and you decide you just might like him.  You go on some dates and you even get a little physical.  You text each other almost every day, and he even held your hand that one time.  This goes on for about a month or so, and then, on a Tuesday, you text him and you don’t get the usual quick response.  Maybe he’s just super busy at work, you think.  More hours pass, and maybe he left his phone at home, you reason.  A whole day passes, and it’s probably just that his phone is broken, you figure.  He’ll get back to you.  He always gets back to you.  I mean, you’re practically dating, right?  You text him again, just in case he missed it the first time.  Still, you get nothing.  Texting him three times would be kind of aggressive, you worry, but you do it anyway out of sheer desperation.  And then you’re hit when that harsh sinking feeling of reality.  He’s not going to get back to you.  His phone didn’t break, and he isn’t busy.  He saw your texts because this is 2014 and everyone sees every text every time.  He’s just done with you, and has decided that instead of telling you this, he is going to take the all too common cowardly way out and just never contact you again.  To all of you nasty boys out there who do this, and I know from personal and observed experience that there are far too many of you, it’s time someone speaks up.  For the sake of this letter, I’ll give you all one name.  I think I’ll call you Richard.  Alright, Richard—do you ever go by Dick?  This one’s for you.

Richard—

Let me start by saying that, no, I’m not obsessed with you.  I’m not a crazy girl who thought we were going to be in love and cried when I realized it wasn’t true.  In fact, when we first met, I wasn’t even that into you.  Sure, you’re cute enough and yes, you’re very funny, but the fact that you were interested in me so instantly kind of turned me.  But then I figured, hey, he’s a nice enough guy, might as well give it a shot.  And give it a shot we did.  I know we never discussed if we were exclusive, and for a while I didn’t really care.  It was fun to hang out with you and it was fun to fool around.  We had a good time together, didn’t we?  I mean, I know you did, because you told me.  You do remember telling me that, don’t you?

I’m not an insecure person, Richard.  In fact, I’m the most confident person I know.  I don’t date losers (except that one time we all try to forget) because I don’t think I have to, and I don’t chase after boys who don’t want me because I’m confident there are plenty of others out there who will.  So how did you, some tiny blip in the radar that is my life, some insignificant one month long endeavor, how did you of all people get me to sit around obsessing over what went wrong?  You, you son-of-a…Dick, you made me feel like a crazy person.  It’s not because you were overly spectacular, and it’s not because I was deeply or even mildly in love with you.  It’s because you took something that was a consistency every day for several weeks, and you put an abrupt end to it.  You put an end to it without warning me you were going to put an end to it.  And the natural human response to that sort of action is to wonder why.

Imagine you go to the same job every single day for a month, and every single day you sit in the same desk in the same office, surrounded by the same people.  And then one day you show up to work and everyone and everything, including your desk, is just gone.  You’d be kind of confused, wouldn’t you?  You may even feel a little angry.  That wouldn’t mean you were obsessed with that job, or that office, or even that desk, would it?  No, it would just mean that you were genuinely perplexed and felt you deserved some kind of explanation.  Do you get where I’m going with this?

I don’t know what happened between us, Richard.  One day everything was fine and dandy and you were texting me about how boring your job was, and the next day I’m cringing every time my phone vibrates and it isn’t you.  I’ve never replayed anything over in my head so many times.  Did I do something to piss you off?  Did someone in your family die?  Did you die?  I’m not kidding, I really want to know.  Because you left me with absolutely no explanation as to what happened or where you went.  That’s all I ever wanted, was a simple explanation.  Any explanation, even if it was a lie that you made up to make me feel better.  I know I’m using the world “explanation” a lot, but it’s because it doesn’t seem like you understand what it means and I’m trying to educate you.

It takes fifteen seconds to compose a text message.  For some people, probably less.  Fifteen seconds—that’s all it would have taken you to give me just a little heads up that, hey, I’m not going to be in your life anymore as of Tuesday, so be prepared.  Sure, I would prefer something a little less blunt and a little more sensitive, but at least that way I would have stopped thinking about you a long time ago.  Is that what this is all about?  Do you like knowing that girls are up wondering where you went and why?  Is it some kind of ego boost for you?  You twisted little man-child, you.

There’s a Taylor Swift song that’s very dear to my heart in which she sings, “So go and tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy, THAT’S FINE.”  As always, I completely understand how Taylor feels.  That’s fine, Richard, go ahead and think I’m crazy for texting you too many times over those few days when I still had hope you’d reappear.  Go ahead and tell everyone I’m obsessive for drunkenly texting you a couple weeks back asking why you evaporated into thin air.  Tell all your friends you just have the worst luck and attract only the crazy girls, because you know what they say;  Date one crazy girl, she’s probably crazy.  Date two crazy girls, she’s still probably crazy.  Date only crazy girls all your life, and you’re probably the one who needs a head check, you infuriating dipshit.