This is not a food story.

After my divorce, I met a ghost.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

This is not a food story. So if you’re here for that, don’t keep reading. This is a ghost story. And it’s not rated PG. Proceed with caution. 

Our story begins at the end. The end of my marriage. In June of 2021, after 13 good years, and two amazing children, we split up. I have a lot of feelings about this rupture, none of them simple, but this is not a divorce story. So for now I will just say what I have said before: there’s an unspeakable heartbreak that comes with the dissolution of a marriage, of a family, even if it’s the “best thing” or “really amicable” or “just a different kind of family,” or whatever other term we use to make ourselves feel better. There is grief even if there is also some form of understanding. But this is not a story about the end of my marriage; this is a ghost story.

I met the ghost a few months after I divorced, when I went on the apps. Allow me to pause here for a moment to discuss the apps: Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, oh my! How much I could write about the apps. The first chapter could be on the fish photos. Yes, endless photos of men holding up giant freshly dead fish. These could fill a coffee table book! Another could be filled with car selfies, taken with seatbelts (and often sunglasses) on; such responsible adults!! There are also headless gym selfies, and shirtless torso-only photos. But the most fascinating of all these was the unsolicited dick pic. How many can one woman receive? Turns out dozens! And at all times of the day—not just in the dark corners of the night. I was in broad daylight when I got one photo. I was with my kids, people!!!! 

Here’s the thing. And perhaps this will come as no surprise to anyone, but most men don’t seem to understand women. So let me take this opportunity to spell this out very slowly and clearly: women don’t want to see pictures of your dick. This is not a turn on, we are not that literal. What we want is low lighting in a lovely restaurant; the long luxury of flirting, of hands touching, wandering down the lower back, behind the neck, pulling us closer. We’d like you to listen to us. To ask questions. To be interesting and interested. To plan an evening from start to finish. That’s what turns us on. Not your dick pics. And definitely not your fish pics. Feel free to share this advice to those in need.

Another thing I learned on the apps—the acronyms: ENM (Ethically non-monogamous! who knew?!), DTF (Down to Fuck), GGG (Good, Generous, and Game in bed). Poly. Dom. Sub. Sheltered woman, I am. Or I was. Now I know.

And so I learned and swiped, mostly left. I went out with a 30-year old firefighter (so sweet), a 45-year old sommelier (who knew someone who liked wine so much could be so dull), a 55-year old polyamorous guy who owned a running shop (I still like his running shop, but not into dating him and his wife), an event planner who seemed to have forgotten how to bathe and groom, a renaissance man who drove down for a date from Beacon but was too psychologically damaged to date, a fun 53-year old sociologist who could not seem to be intimate or take the medications necessary to be intimate, and a jolly buddhist who had a belly the size of Santa’s that was somehow not pictured in his profile. 

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Then I matched with J. A 49-year old, divorced dad of three living in the East Village. He had salt and pepper hair, blue eyes, and a cute, devilish smile. He was a nerd—a PhD in math working in finance. I wasn’t happy about that finance bit, but the video of him playing his acoustic guitar made me forget he worked on Wall Street. 

He came to meet me in Brooklyn for a drink at Barely Disfigured, one of my favorite cocktails bars. He was sweet, a bit nervous, it seemed. He was funny. He asked questions. He was complimentary. He noticed things. He looked at me, and I felt seen. 

Our drinks were drained. He asked me if I wanted to get dinner. I did. At a table for four at Buttermilk Channel, he slid into the banquette to sit beside me, putting his hand on my knee. I liked it there. We shared a salad, some steak, and a couple glasses of wine. He kissed me after asking for the check. He kissed well. Soft and gentle, not like some aggressive eel performing an orifice exploration of my mouth. 

We went out again and again. It was somehow easy. Cue the movie montage scene: More dinners, more drinks. He brought me flowers. He wrote me songs on his guitar. We played piano together. A tour of a whiskey distillery. Brunch. A Broadway play. I was training for the marathon, and I’d run by his place in the city, and he’d come down and kiss me at mile 13. The night of his 50th birthday, on our way to dinner, my daughter ended up in the hospital. He took me to her and then fetched me in a cab at 1am and took me home when she had to stay overnight. 

And the sex. Oh the sex. The sex was very good. No offense to J (or my ex), but I don’t know that this was because of him necessarily; I think it was me. At 50, I finally had the confidence to say out loud what I needed and the empowerment to feel good about my body. Sure I had sags and bags, and bumps and lumps. But you know what, I had also birthed two people! I had run two marathons! Slowly, but I finished both! My body could do amazing things. I had finally gotten tired of feeling bad about myself. I found a confidence that I really never experienced before. And then the sex really changed. How ‘bout that? Aging has its benefits.

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November came, three months passed from when we met. He told me he wasn’t dating anyone else, and I was ready to say the same. I felt good about it. I deleted the apps. I ran the marathon, and he was there – waiting at all different checkpoints with dry clothes, a warm hat, kisses and cold electolytes.

In early December, we went away together for the weekend. I cooked, he made fires, we went for walks holding hands on the beach. Talked for hours. Ted Lasso on the couch in each other’s arms. It felt good. Was I in love? No, I don’t think so, but I cared about him. I felt connected to him. He said he felt the same. 

But then Sunday came, and something shifted. He got a call and left the house for over an hour to take it. When he returned, I felt him becoming anxious, skittish. He said his daughter had been calling and wanted to see him. On the ride home, he didn’t talk much, and he got edgy when I turned on the radio. When we stopped for dinner off the road at a little pizza place, he went to the bathroom several times and stayed in there for an unusually long while every time. I didn’t know what was going on. I asked if he was okay. He shrugged it off as tummy trouble. We got back to the city and he said he needed to stay at his place. Something was clearly off. I felt like he was running away from me. Turns out he was. 

Monday came and went with a quick text: “Hey! I am so busy, had a great weekend, more soon, see you tomorrow night.” The next day, a Tuesday, we had plans for dinner. I texted him to figure out our plans; did he want to come to my place, and I would cook us something, or we could go out after the meetings I had in the city. No reply. Tuesday evening came and went.

Days went by with no communication. I was hurt. I actually cried, sobbed.  (Who’s to say if I was crying for J or for everything else I had lost). How could he just disappear? I was furious. I was confused. I was baffled. I thought: maybe he got COVID? Maybe he died! Maybe he was trapped under something heavy or stuck on a super challenging Wordle! Maybe he had gotten into a car accident? Should I check the hospitals? How could he just disappear?

I texted with concern: “J what’s going on? Are you okay?” Nothing. More days passed. Then, after a week, I finally I texted saying I could not believe he was ghosting me after all we had been through. There might have been a curse word or two in that text. 

Five days later he texted me back. “I am so sorry Andrea, I am not ghosting you. I miss you and care about you. I just have been trying to figure out my feelings. I would like to talk to you.”  

Photo by Terry Tran on Unsplash

I texted back: “J, why could you not just tell me this in the first place – why ignore me for over a week when we just got back from a weekend together?” I was dumbfounded. He called me and apologized profusely for hurting me and explained that he was overwhelmed. Yes men, they get very overwhelmed. He has three kids, a high pressure job, he wasn't sure he could handle the responsibility and commitment of a serious relationship. “J,” I said. “I don't want to get remarried, I just got divorced. We are having a great time together. Don’t stress and be in your head and if you do freak out, talk to me.”

He asked if we could continue to see each other, he said he was feeling better about things. He said he missed me. I agreed. He came over and what followed was another night of great sex and talks, apologies and yes let’s start again. He promised to talk about how he was feeling, to share and not to disappear. He left the next day around 3pm. And then, yes, he disappeared again. 

That time, I was just mad. Not sad, just mad. Fucking hell. I kept thinking about that scene in Season 2 of Ted Lasso when Roy and Keely go out with Rebecca and her new boyfriend on a double date. Afterwards, Rebecca asks Roy what he thinks of her perfectly fine date, and he says something like: “Fucking hell Rebecca. You don’t deserve fine; you deserve fantastic.”

I do deserve fantastic, and you know what? So do you. We all do. And J was not fantastic. And maybe I would not find “fantastic,” but I didn’t deserve rude and infantile. I was done. I went for a long run and tried to sweat him out of my system. 

Soon I returned to the apps, to the dick pics, and the selfies with fish, to the acronyms and the sexting. To the first kisses and awkward hellos. To the sparks and the duds, the what do you do, what do you want, to the childhood stories, and divorce dramas. I returned to searching.

A year later, I am in an on-again-off-again relationship with the apps. There are times, like now, where I am no longer searching. I find it takes too much out of me. All the swiping and liking, often with so few “liking” me back. It does get to me. I know my self-esteem should not be tied to getting a “like” on an app. And yet it does have an impact. (Don’t worry I am in therapy. Hi, Fran!)

Look, I know I don’t really “need” a man. I am truly happy on my own. I have a full life, with two truly fantastic kids and an amazing group of friends. But I’d like to have my person. For now I don’t. But that’s fine. I do have me and I like me; most of the time I’m not so bad to hang out with.

But I was on Hinge a few months ago during an “on” phase with the apps. As I was swiping, J’s profile came up on my feed. My heart skipped a beat. There he was, smiling. He’d uploaded some photos I’d taken of him during our weekend away. Under the prompt “Hallmarks of a great relationship,” he wrote: “Honesty, integrity, communication, and desire.” 

I swiped left. Clearly there was a ghost in the machine.