After some friendly text exchanges through a dating app over a couple of days, I asked her if she’d like to chat by phone.
“Sure”, she replied, “but let me call you.”
No problem. I gave her my number and we set up a time to talk.
That time came and went with no call.
No text either.
In fact, no word from her at all that day.
I texted her the next day – “Everything ok?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I wound up having to take my mom to urgent care. She’s fine now. When’s a good time for you to talk?”
We set up another time.
Nothing.
If I didn’t know better, I would think she was playing some kind of game.
But she was probably just not interested and could not tell me.
When in doubt in these situations, the simplest explanation is usually the most accurate.
She just wasn’t into me.
And that’s fine.
I didn’t like being jerked around but in the relative scheme of things, the whole thing didn’t cost me much time and I barely knew her.
What bothered me most was the lack of respect.
This is not the way to treat someone, even if you’re not interested in them.
But then I realized, this comes with the territory.
When you interact with so many strangers on a dating app, a certain percentage are not going to do the right thing.
And just because I treat everyone with respect, doesn’t mean I should expect it return.
That part I can’t control.
What I CAN control is my reaction to it.
And up to that point, I wasn’t reacting well.
Until I caught myself.
Instead of thinking “I deserve more respect”.
I changed my thinking to “I can’t control how she treats people”.
And almost instantly, I felt better. I felt relief, which allowed me to move on to other things, which ultimately freed me up to just let her float away.
