You just had the best first date. It’s the beginning of something great. There was absolute connection and immediate intimacy. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do believe in the certainty of an intense connection. I believe you can have a first experience with a person that’s so powerful it encourages you to imagine a future full of possibilities. What happens when he says he’ll call the next day and he doesn’t? When he hasn’t returned your texts?
You wait for a day: every minute is grueling, anxiety riddled, and all-consuming. The increasing tension as the day drags on and still no contact is so uncomfortable, confusing, and deflating. You are left with a cross between hopefullness and disappointment, because the day isn’t over yet. But now a day has dragged into a week, and you start to realize that what you thought would be the start of something great is over before it had a chance to be as amazing as you know it could have been.
What happens when you’re left blindsided by this rejection you never saw coming after an amazing first date, or third date or even tenth date?
It sounds like a relatively small loss—after all, you only just met this person, how hard can losing him really be? But in addition to losing the possibility of something good, something hopeful, being left hanging after a great date can also make you feel like it was your fault. What did you do to drive this amazing person away?
Your friends tell you there must have been some hint that you must have overlooked that no matter how strongly you felt—it wasn’t as reciprocal as you thought, and therefore it wasn’t meant to be. If it had been really great, he would have called you back, or at least texted. But then again, he might have lost his phone, right? Sometimes it really does happen.
Either way, the first step is to trust in your understanding of the experience. There really was an amazing mutual connection. If you felt it, and he affirmed it in his own way, it was there. If you felt his intensity meeting yours, it was. And yet he has blown you off. How many times, when you’re trying to make sense of what happened do you want to blurt out to your well meaning friends: “But you weren’t there, you can’t understand what happened between us.” Even though you want to believe your friends are right and the connection wasn’t there in the way you believed it was, you still know that you and your date connected in a way that was validating, exciting, and gave you hope. And you can’t help but hold onto the lingering feeling that it was a huge opportunity and now a huge waste, and it takes up a lot of space in your head and sends you reeling.
The second step is to work toward understanding that the outcome is not your fault. As much as you replay the time you spent together and obsessively analyze it to make sense of what happened, and what you missed, and what you might have done wrong, you keep looping back to your certainty that the date was spectacular—you felt good about yourself and the experience. So what happened? For these few hours it felt like everything was just right. And it was. But, that doesn’t mean he is emotionally equipped to go where you could go in the relationship. He felt the connection, yes, but he couldn’t sustain it.
No matter how intense the connection, you have no control over how the other person is going to receive it and process it in the light of day. He may be scared, or not ready, or in some way feel undeserving, or avoidant for reasons he doesn’t understand or may not even be aware of. Or maybe he can’t sustain attention on any one person past the time he was with you. For reasons you may never know and that likely have little or nothing to do with you, it seems as if he just couldn’t maintain that level of intensity or even consistency. He just doesn’t have it in him. Trust in the authenticity and specialness of the connection you shared, but also start to wrap your head around the idea that your brief but meaningful impression of this person is still just one tiny facet of him. Even if he told you his life story. You still know virtually nothing, because only with substantive time and sustained connection, can you “know” someone.
It is also possible that there is emotional damage in this person’s life, because at the very least, a gracious text telling you he can’t pursue the relationship would ease some of the tension, and it is thoughtless, inconsiderate maybe even mean not to honor what you did share with honesty. That’s a basic human consideration. But it contributes to understanding why he couldn’t sustain it. He may have a hard time seeing past himself to believe you are that into him, because he has become so distracted. There may be circumstances in his life which make it difficult to follow through, allow challenging feelings, or connect beyond the surface, because inside he is too raw, too avoidant, too scared, too distrustful, too undeserving. You can’t make it better for him because he will not give you the chance. These struggles are up to him to contend with, or continue to avoid – it’s not your call—but either way, it looks like you won’t be a part of that journey.You’ve been spared the incredible angst and perpetual dissapointment and rejection that would have gone with it.
Certainly, it’s disappointing and extremely invalidating to be rejected. But, important self-discoveries can be made as well. For starters, we learned that you have an open capacity to invite and experience connection. In this cold world, that is an important trait to have. Trust your feelings and know that the outcome wasn’t your fault. And after a great beginning and then the radio silence that followed, it’s important to work on accepting the outcome. He doesn’t want you to fight for him, because he is not making room for you to be there for him. As painful as it is, it really is over before it began. Validating your own experience, understanding it’s not a matter of fault, and recognizing that he likely had limitations that prevented him from going furtherwill help you begin to let go of the awful trap of self blame, and begin to move out of that space of feeling rejected into working on re-opening yourself to new possibilities.
