No Explanation is No Way to Go
By: Karina Rose
Tags: Dating, Responsibility, Social Responsibility, Love And Sex, Ghosting

Why how we feel isn’t ONLY our responsibility, even with acquaintances.

How many times have you heard someone tell you, “You aren’t responsible for their feelings,” or “THEY aren’t responsible for your feelings” when it came to disappointment in a relationship? Especially early in an undefined romantic context?

Well, I’ve heard it a LOT. And while I think it’s true we need to be responsible for how we respond to life, and learn through what it throws at us, I also believe that hookup, throwaway, and individualist culture lend themselves to a whole lot more heartbreak and disappointment than necessary. An attitude of negligence makes it harder to get over situations that could just be assuaged through an earnest attempt at understanding and acknowledging. The latter provides faster, more complete healing and resolution that might otherwise cause unnecessarily drawn-out personal processes for both parties.

I have a few relevant examples that come to mind.

One involves a typical story of getting ghosted. After two weeks of pursuing me, and then one week of mind-blowing sex and great conversation with a guy who behaved more intimately physically than he felt emotionally, I was left absolutely confused and distraught. He even introduced me to family friends and indirectly referred to me as a “special girl” — yes, I know now, red-flag galore!

I was confused because of his actions. I was distraught because of my own history. Can you guess which thing is which person’s responsibility?

What made things worse was that we had shared our personal lives and insecurities about relationships with one another. We’d both grown up separated from our same-sex parent, and lived with a lot of confusion about attachment. He expressed that he wasn’t sure he could make any kind of commitment, and that he wanted to keep the conversation open and keep seeing each other.

The funny part is that I didn’t want commitment, I simply wanted respect and honesty.

This is where people are responsible for themselves. It wasn’t this guy’s fault that I had a laundry list of missed connections and failed relationships trailing behind me. That was for me to learn from. It wasn’t his fault I didn’t know how to express my needs, since I’d never had anyone ask what they might be, and had never really asked myself what I thought I deserved in a “beginning stage” relationship, (or non-relationship, for that matter). That was for me to learn — and I did, greatly, however long after that experience. It wasn’t his job to do any of those things. It was however, on him to make good on his promise to call and process this whole mess we’d just walked into. It would have been a bonus if he took the personal experiences I’d divulged to him into consideration while doing so.

Well, he never did.

If he’d just called and said, “Hey, things are really crazy in my life right now, and I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, but I honestly just can’t give any more attention or energy to anything but my personal issues at the moment,” I would have stood a whole lot more empowered, and less reactionary.

“Working on yourself and needing space” is no excuse not to let someone know just that. The two are not mutually exclusive. It’s totally disrespectful and irresponsible to leave someone wondering where they stand with you, and it doesn’t give the person on either end a whole lot of opportunity to self-reflect; it just leaves an open wound, a whole lot of self-questioning, and potential rumination about “What the hell happened back there?!”

It doesn’t take much to just let them know, and get on with your life.

Why we should respect the feelings of acquaintances.

The story that most exemplifies my point is the one that was also the least clear. I was working with a guy who came to my workplace for a little under a week, to work on a project. The moment he saw me, a shit-eating grin spread across his face. He immediately started paying me more attention than anyone else. He pinched my arm as he walked by, made a point to work near me when he had the opportunity, caught my gaze multiple times throughout the day — especially when our coworkers made jokes and everyone was laughing.

He asked me simple things like, “What’s your sign?” “Where is your favorite place you’ve traveled to?” And then random things that seemed strange but harmless, “Do you eat cheese?” (No, we weren’t sharing a meal, and no I don’t do dairy), “Where are you going?” “What are you doing next?”. And then the things that sent me over the edge into the realm of confusion: “Do you want to have kids?” (That one he asked more than once), “Will you show me pictures of your family and your childhood?”

In response I asked him similar questions, if only to see where the conversation would go. He told me about his own family, his upbringing, and then his relationship experiences — failures, and all. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy.

He gave me a small gift, constantly wondered aloud if I was participating in after work activities and gatherings, told me I was always welcome to stay with him if I came to the town where he lived, and mentioned a few times that we should do something outside of work.

We had a lot in common. Culturally — about 10 genres and sub-genres of world music and underground scenes. He had particularly good taste in dark psychedelic trance and Mexican folk music. That won major points on my end. We both loved to live naturally, spend time outside, and travel. It seemed like a pretty good match.

I’d started the week totally disinterested and indifferent to the guy, but the more he insisted on developing an acquaintance, the more I thought he could be a potential love interest. Or was it misguided of me to think that what I experienced were signs of interest?

Regardless of the intention behind asking questions of such intensifying intimacy in a 5-day period, I was left confused when he didn’t follow through on his initial investment of time and energy. We sent Facebook messages back and forth a few times over the next couple of weeks. Each time, he’d start his response to my outreach with my name, followed by at least four exclamation marks.

Well cool, he was still excited about me. Or was he? And then he stopped responding, and I knew that he wasn’t just being shy by not initiating any discussion.

Perhaps the tables simply turned, and I came to like him a lot more than he’d initially thought he’d like me. Perhaps there was more at play, which he wasn’t sharing with me, because of timing, and maybe he thought it would be presumptuous to explain why he hadn’t asked me out.

Perhaps he was just distracted and didn’t take it to be his responsibility to explain the inconsistencies of his behavior.

Regardless of the reasoning, I was once again left confused and distraught at my apparent inability to even hook a guy for a first date, who I had not slept with. How exactly was this supposed to go?

How to respect the feelings of our acquaintances.

The truth about acquaintances is that we tend to idealize and assume a lot about a person until we’ve really gotten to know them. Why do we do this? Well, because of our conditioning. It’s a lot easier to create a story or a reality about a person that fits our internal schemas and past experiences, than to imagine, or take the time to find out, how they will feel, react, and respond to our actions. That doesn’t mean that we owe them less respect.

No, “treat others as you’d like to be treated” is not exactly accurate. In a delicate or ambiguous situation, some people prefer not to “make a fuss,” and in so doing neglect their responsibilities to themselves and others; they assume the cause at hand doesn’t warrant much attention. But care and attention does not have to be a fuss or an upheaval.

It’s not really that hard to find out how others want to be treated, or at least acknowledge them, though. If there’s a question of what should come next, or how to close an encounter, let the person know you’re not sure what they need, that you don’t mean any harm, and then simply share where you’re coming from. People are social beings, and they can’t read minds. It’s hard enough to understand what our loved ones and familiar friends are thinking and feeling, especially when we are mostly connected over text messaging or the internet. It’s a world of a lot harder to guess what someone you hardly know is feeling about your actions, but it’s likely they feel something.

That doesn’t mean we have to walk on eggshells, ask a million questions, or coddle our acquaintances. It means we should acknowledge that, as long as we are not ascended masters capable of total non-attachment — or sociopaths — we can be expected to have some regard for how what we do, promise, and even imply, may impact others. It’s not on them to figure out what our behavior means, it’s on us to clear about what we want, what we are insinuating, and to be honest about our intentions.

So, next time someone is doing something that results in your discomfort, or you realize someone is still invested in ways that you are not, consider that you both have power, you both have a personal history and preferences, and those are all things worthy of observation, conversation, and compassion. And, it doesn’t have to drag on.