I Won The Breakup Game of No Contact
So…now what?
Day 6 of No Contact with a handsome, charming, amazing man with the emotional intelligence of a gnat. After nine months of dating without any arguments, it ended because Jeremy thought he might want to see other people (his words). I told him to fuck off for telling me that thought the same night as a conversation about blending families. And for saying it with his hand up my shirt.
After a few brief texts after, I switch to No Contact mode. I know it’s the only way to rip the bandaid of grief, despite its brutal consequences.
I wasn’t doing well. Since my divorce, I’ve whored it up with dozens of men. I know the market and I know the rarity of finding someone that checks all the boxes. I’m approaching fifty which means I’m already expired in the eyes of men. My insecurities skyrocketed, making me think he was fucking loads of gorgeous, divorced soccer moms.
Without waiting a moment longer, I dived into the shallow dating pool. Within a week I now have a man who adores me. I stupidly had sex with him too soon; I felt so icky and gross that I bawled the rest of the night.
Today is Day 6 and after discovering Jeremy was back on Hinge (which meant he didn’t have a blond soccer mom replacing me and getting the Girlfriend title), my nerves eased.
It’s Day 6 and I’m not crying. Not today, Satan. When I feel tears well up, I take a deep breath and tell myself that we’re done crying over a man who wants his dick in other women compared to something meaningful with me.
Then my phone buzzes at 11:20 pm. It’s Jeremy. “Hi…you up for a phone call?”
The next 2.5 hours are unexpectedly out of left field.
I don’t know how to reply. I don’t want to seem eager so I make him wait a few minutes, knowing that he knows I respond almost immediately. I write back a wisecrack, which neither approves nor denies his request to talk. My phone rings.
“Okay, why are you being weird by calling me?” I jokingly say. I’m going to keep this call light if it kills me.
“I just wanted to check up on you and see how you’re doing,” he stumbles. He’s been drinking.
How do I reply? I don’t want to let on that I’ve been curled up on the floor sobbing hysterically. I also don’t want him to think that he’s already forgotten. I reply, “Things are great. They’re…good.” Pause. “I’m doing well. So seriously, why did you call?”
Jeremy gives some blurb about how he cares about me and wanted to make sure I was okay. “That’s nonsense. Tell me the real reason you called. Because I could get hit by a bus and you’d never know. Why did you call?” I press.
He tells me that he cares for me, deeply, and feels awful for what he did. “You should,” I reply. “I spent $135 on an STD test so that I can flash the results for future people.”
Jeremy half-laughs. “Wait, seriously? You need to send me that bill. I haven’t done anything. Your tests will come up negative.” During the call, I text him a picture of my arm, which looks like someone spilled a can of paint on it because I bruise easily. “Oh my God!” he yells when he sees the image. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you thought you needed to do that. You didn’t need to. I’m so sorry!”
The conversation goes all over the map for over two hours. These are the topics, in no particular order.
He tries telling me that he wants to be in my life. “If you need something fixed, I’m your man, okay?” he insists. “Uh, maybe to fix the washing machine but otherwise, no, I’m not calling you for that,” I reply. Jeremy tries pushing a friendship and in the same breath says that I have so many friends, I can’t possibly need more.
I tell him that there’s no planet where I want to see him date. “Do you want to see me dating? Do you want me to send you pictures of outfits and ask which one my date will like better?” I ask. Jeremy laughs and says he’d want the outfit pictures but no details about the dates.
We hash over the night it all ended. Throughout the entire call, Jeremy repeatedly apologizes for his stupid behavior.
“I’m not a placeholder,” I remind him. “You aren’t forced to be with me. But it could never go back to what it was. You opened a can of worms when we could have been status quo. So with me, it’s all or nothing now. And if you feel like you need to make a choice, then that’s your choice. Because I’m not a choice. I’m not a placeholder. I’m the one who shows up to remove the placeholder. Men wait for me.”
Jeremy agrees with everything I say. “I just don’t want to date for say, three years and if it doesn’t work out, then I’m an asshole who robbed you of the last three awesome years of your life.”
“You think I’ve only got three years left in me before I expire?” I yell. He laughs and corrects himself that he would feel bad wasting my time. I remind him that I’m an adult, I’m not looking for marriage, I’m not making babies, and all I wanted was practically an hour of committed effort.
I take a deep breath. “I don’t regret the last nine months. I loved every moment of it. I was in stupid, happy bliss. I can’t tell you how my norm was to loathe getting ready for dates or feeling relieved when a date with a guy was over.”
“But if you didn’t feel that way, that’s fine. But I won’t settle for someone who doesn’t feel that way.”
Half of the call is spent with Jeremy laying on the compliments. I’m sexy, I’m ultra-intelligent, sex with me is the absolute best, I’m funny…I’m all the things. “You need to believe that,” he tells me. I reply that it’s not that I don’t believe when others tell me that, I just don’t believe it from him because if they were enough, he wouldn’t have wanted to expend energy on strangers to find someone better.
Jeremy gives an explanation that during his divorce, he and his ex-wife still had sex. After that, he only briefly dated two other people. As someone who dated half of Southern California, I get what he’s saying. But my point still stands: I’m not waiting around and I’m not a placeholder.
At one point, he mentions the word “girlfriend”. I make him repeat that and ask him why he’d say that given how often I tried to define the relationship. “Well, that’s what you were,” he replies. “You were not a friend with benefits. You were more than that. I cared about you. I care about you.”
I spit out, “Then you shouldn’t have introduced me to people as your ‘friend’. You didn’t need to say ‘girlfriend’. You could have said I was your ‘date’ so I didn’t look like a whore in a slutty dress.”
I pepper the conversation with reminders of his alleged relationship blockers. “But yeah…tell me more how I don’t like doors staying open because bugs can get in when that gives you, the man, an opportunity to protect me by killing the brown widow spiders?” With each blocker that I reminded him he said, Jeremy replies, “You’re absolutely right. You’re right about all of it.”
Jeremy doesn’t need to tell me but I know what’s going on here. He briefly went back online and remembered what a shitty experience it is. He realized that at least from an online perspective, I trump them all. And as all men do, they eventually come back. He needed to check to see if I was still pining for him.
When it gets late and he’s barely forming sentences because it’s five hours past his bedtime, I wrap up the conversation.
“The ball is in your court. I didn’t need to choose because I knew what I wanted. If you think it’s a choice for you, then that’s already the choice. I’m not going to wait…I’m going to continue with my life. That’s the risk you took with all of this: you were afraid you were missing out by not dating others that you didn’t consider that you’d lose me to someone else.”
And with that, I wish Jeremy the best of luck with things and to sleep well.
There’s more to the call but that’s the general gist of it. I could barely sleep after the call. Why do men only show vulnerability when the relationship is over? It’s a common theme. Why don’t they express these thoughts in the moment, when it matters?
It’s the next morning as I write this. My brain is exhausted from two weeks of emotional rollercoasters. Shockingly, I’m not a sobbing mess. Instead, I’m relieved Jeremy didn’t have a replacement for me. I’m relieved he wasn’t fucking other women. I’m relieved that he broke No Contact within days of our last texts.
But I’m still hurt. And I’m angry. I’m back to No Contact but this time I’m not screaming into a pillow as I cry.
What I’m not feeling is hope. Jeremy still checks off all the boxes and in reality, I’d jump at the chance to be together (I’d play it cool though, and make him sweat a little). Eventually, he’ll jump back into dating full-force and I’ll be a blip on his mind.
I’m taking the win today. I wasn’t easily forgotten or replaced. I’m not the one confused about my next steps because there’s only one path for me: onward.