The art of being single

Don’t give up on finding your person

In the last issue of The Art of Being Single, I spoke about ghosting and how it sucks because it leaves you with many unanswered questions about the situation and yourself. It leaves you feeling defeated. But ghosting isn’t the only thing that can make you question yourself or someone’s behaviour towards you while building a relationship. You know what else sucks? Breadcrumbing and haunting.

If nothing else, I hope this column is at least teaching you some new things. According to Urban Dictionary, breadcrumbing is “when the ‘crush’ has no intentions of taking things further, but they like the attention.” So they’ll keep messaging you and being all flirty but things will go nowhere. Haunting, on the other hand, is a little like ghosting but the ghoster is keeping indirect contact, usually by liking your posts on Instagram or viewing your Snapchat stories, even though they have your number but never message you.

You know why these possibly suck even more than a simple ghost? It’s the fact that you’re constantly being reminded. You’re constantly being reminded that you never got any answers. You’re being reminded of the awful feeling of being ghosted in the first place. You’re constantly being bombarded with the idea that you’re flirt-worthy but not relationship-worthy. You’re being reminded of a failed relationship, the good moments (if any) you spent with the other person, the chemistry you thought was so intense a scientist somewhere in Antarctica could feel it amidst the blistering cold.

You begin to think it’s normal, that anything that doesn’t result in ghosting, breadcrumbing or haunting is a miracle. You might even begin to believe that love doesn’t—and can’t—exist, if this is what the dating scene is all about.

You know what sucks about it all? You begin to give up.

But don’t. No matter how hard it is to believe, there has to be something, someone out there for us that won’t leave us hanging. So no matter if you’ve been ghosted, haunted or breadcrumbed for the first, third, 64th time—don’t give up on finding love.

 

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