For the uninitiated: ghosting is when someone disappears without explanation. Ghostlighting is when they come back acting as if they never left, and you are made to feel unhinged for remembering that they did. It is gaslighting with worse texting and a better haircut.
What follows are genuine extracts from my diary. I keep a diary because a therapist once said journaling helps. It doesn’t. But it is admissible.
Day 1
Second date with R. Went well. Shared a dessert. R said, “We have to do this again,” with eye contact. I went home and told the plant. I haven’t been that excited about anything since my last pay rise, in 2017.
Day 3
Sent: “Had a great time, free next week?” Two ticks. Blue. Read at 21:14. Nothing. Possibly R is busy. Possibly R is drafting something thoughtful. Possibly R read it, put the phone face down and carried on with a life in which I am a footnote.
Day 9
R has posted a story of a sourdough loaf. R has time to feed a yeast culture every morning. R does not have time to type “sorry, swamped”. I am officially less important than bread. Not even good bread. The crumb was dense.
Day 16
Have accepted it. Deleted the chat. Did not delete the chat. Archived it, which is deleting with a pension plan. Reorganised my spice rack alphabetically, then by emotional significance, then by expiry date. Half of it expired in 2022. So did my standards.
Day 31
Have properly moved on. Bought a plant. Named it after nobody. It is thriving. Something in this flat should.
Day 47
21:40. Phone buzzes. It is R.
“heyyy stranger!! how’ve you been??”
Stranger. I am the stranger. R vanished for six and a half weeks, and I am the one who has apparently been wandering the moors in a cloak.
Note the three Ys. One Y is a greeting. Two Ys is flirting. Three Ys is an attempt to overwrite history with vowels, and it works, because history is written by whoever texts last.
Day 47, 21:52
Replied “Good thanks, you?” like a man reading a hostage statement. R replied instantly. The same R who could not locate their thumbs for 44 days is now typing like a court stenographer on commission.
R says: “omg we never did that thing we talked about!” We did not. Because you left. You leaving was the thing. You leaving was the whole plot, and I have rewatched it more than anything on streaming.
Day 48
R suggests drinks “like old times”. Our old times are two dinners and a dessert. That is not old times. That is a receipt, and I paid it.
I said I’d check my calendar. My calendar is a field. But I said it anyway, so R could briefly experience a blue tick that goes nowhere. Revenge is a dish best served cold. I served mine for about four minutes.
Three Ys is an attempt to overwrite history with vowels.
Day 49
Have not replied. Feel powerful. Feel sick. Watered the plant. The plant does not ghost. The plant simply droops when ignored, which is honest. The plant has better boundaries than me and no central nervous system.
Day 50
Replied. Of course I replied. Drinks on Thursday. I have already drafted Day 51, in which R says “you seem different”, I say “I’ve been here the whole time”, R laughs like it’s a joke, and I learn absolutely nothing.
Day 51 (Addendum)
R was twenty minutes late. R said, “Sorry, I’ve been so bad at replying lately.” Lately. As if it were weather. As if silence had simply drifted in from the coast.
Day 58
Nothing since Thursday. Two ticks. Blue. The plant has started to droop. I have started a new page.