From Good Second Date to Ghost, Part Five

After a little while of laying there listening to the not-Bonecrusher music, we got a little less naked and moved on to aftercare mode. Being wrapped up in his strong arms was blissful and sweet, but soon he had to get going.

As we said goodbye with a few more kisses at my door, it seemed like we would see each other again. I woke up with a bad feeling, though, “knowing” he wouldn’t be back. I chalked up the feeling to being overwhelmed and relearning this particular kind of vulnerability. I remembered that thing I learned at a conference one time: Crushes make your serotonin drop even while your brain is boiling over all of the other feel-good neurotransmitters. (https://everydayfeminism.com/2012/12/the-neurobiology-behind-all-of-the-ridiculous-things-you-do-when-youre-in-love/) (That article says “in love” and that's not what this was but still.)

Nearby Guy had been a pretty reliable “good morning” sayer. Oh, good morning, how else would we know if someone’s still tuned in without having to ask…I love and hate the good mornings of dating textlife.

So no good morning the day after the snuggles. When I hadn’t heard from him by noon the day after that, I unmatched him on Hinge and blocked him in my contacts, just to leave behind the jangled feeling of waiting for that little red text number to pop up. I’ve loved/hated red numbers since they were on answering machines. They are the good mornings of numbers.

I wondered why he’d ghosted, wondered things I would never say to a friend going through the same thing: What if it’s because I did sex wrong? What if I’m too needy for saying the thing about not-casual? Does he think I’m a monster because that too-harsh song shuffled on? Probably not that last one—no one is as much of a dork about good makeout music as I am.

I didn’t expect the metamorphosis from quarantine-mode bodily privacy back to touch-world to be so profound, but it was. The ecstasy of being reintroduced to snuggling (And kissing! And spanking! Even just, hey! There’s a man in my apartment!) was so gorgeous and fragile that I felt like I might shatter with need after. I felt a well inside me, a toothache of the heart, but also a big, big cotton candy swirl of gratitude.

(I know being grateful is a stereotype both of fat women and of middle-aged women, but I think most exchanges of snuggles are acts of such wild generosity that I don’t care to tamp down my grateful awe.)

In the days after the ghosting, I felt sheepish that that one night of touch had meant so much (The same way those three glasses of wine with Poly Friends’ Partner meant so much!) but how could it not? The plague months, the good (BLM) uprising, the bad (Jan 6) insurrection, they all brought such trauma and pain and also such weedy emotional growth. I’ve been blanketed up in a protective-as-possible cocoon. I’ve thought so hard about distance and breath and interdependence.

Of COURSE it was powerful to let someone new get close!