He texted me that morning. I answered, and my message stayed blue without the little confirmation that it had been delivered. At first, I assumed his connection was bad. We had a date planned for Monday; an undelivered text didn’t seem like a reason to rethink it.
An hour later, the message still hadn’t gone through. I opened Hinge and looked for our conversation. He was gone. We had been talking for almost three weeks, and now I couldn’t find him among my matches.
Until then, it had all felt easy. We texted every day, had good conversations, and talked on FaceTime. There was enough back-and-forth for me to feel that we were both interested. I wasn’t trying to coax a response out of someone who barely answered. Or at least, that wasn’t how any of it had felt to me.
That’s the part I keep stumbling over: the morning message. He had contacted me himself. I had responded to him. The change wasn’t from a conversation slowly running out of steam to neither of us bothering anymore. From my side, we were still talking, still heading toward an actual date.
I’m 28, and he’s 31. Earlier this year, I got out of a two-year relationship, so dating apps are still new territory for me. I’d heard plenty about how rough dating could be, but those stories had stayed fairly abstract. It was different to open an app and find that my own conversation had disappeared.
I know three weeks of talking isn’t a relationship. We hadn’t even had the first date I was looking forward to. But I had enjoyed getting to know him, and Monday had become something I was genuinely excited about. I don’t think I needed to be planning a future with him for the abrupt ending to sting.
Now I’m caught wondering whether I said something wrong. I can’t point to a conversation that went badly or a moment when the tone changed. That doesn’t prove he felt everything I felt; it just leaves me without anything specific to understand. The unmatch is clear. The undelivered message makes me think he may have blocked me, too, but I don’t know that for certain, and I don’t know why he disappeared.
I’m trying not to take it personally. That’s difficult when the thing that vanished was a conversation I was part of, with a man I wanted to meet. I’m disappointed and still surprised by how quickly an ordinary exchange turned into this.
The last message I have from him is from that morning. My reply still doesn’t say delivered.
