▸ Column · Modern Gotham City, contemporary comic-noir
CATWOMAN replies.
Replied to by Catwoman, with a rebuttal from The Penguin.
The letter
So I met this guy — Jack — at my cousin's cookout last month. We ended up getting tacos at this little spot near the Amusement Mile, stayed until they were literally stacking chairs around us, then walked along the waterfront until almost 1 in the morning. He texted me from the parking lot — before he'd even pulled out — that it was "the best night he'd had in years." He kissed me goodbye, said he'd get us tickets to the show we'd spent half of dinner talking about.
Then nothing. Three days turned into two weeks. My "hey, still on for Friday?" has been sitting on delivered since Thursday. Meanwhile his Instagram is just going about its business — gym selfies, dog videos, like everything's totally fine.
I've gone back over that whole night looking for the moment I scared him off and I genuinely can't find it. Maybe I said something weird about the band? (I don't know, I replay things.) Do I send one last message actually asking what happened? Or do I just accept that someone who seemed that into me can vanish for no reason, and move on?
— Ghosted at Amusement Mile
Catwoman replies
Stop. Stop replaying the tape.
You didn't do anything. I know you're convinced there's a crime somewhere between the guacamole and the waterfront — there isn't. Some men run hot off the feeling of a good night, then go cold the second the real thing starts to cost them something. That's not about you. It's about them not wanting to pay.
Now. The last text. I've sent that text. More than once, in better circumstances than these, to someone I thought had actually earned it. You know what I got back? A reply I didn't like, or nothing at all, and me a little smaller than when I started. Chasing a man who's already left is handing him the one thing he doesn't deserve — your wanting.
Don't do it. Not because you're too good for him, though you are. Because cats don't come when called. That's not a style choice, sugar, that's the whole point of cats. You walk out of this one the way you walked in — with your options open and nothing owed.
Jack told you exactly who he is. The man typed "best night in years" from a parking lot and then went home and became someone who ghosts. Both things are true. The only question left is whether you trust yourself enough to believe what you actually saw, instead of the version you've been editing in your head for two weeks.
— Catwoman
The Penguin weighs in
My dear, our feline friend has dressed up "give up gracefully" as empowerment, which is a trick she's been running since I had hair. Waugh. The real question isn't whether to send the text — it's why you're in mourning over a man whose finest asset is a taco stand and a borrowed dog. He has no money. No connections. Nothing worth extracting. A woman of your evident persistence deserves someone whose silence would at least be expensive to buy. Stop auditing the evening for your mistakes and start auditing your social calendar for better rooms. Find them. Enter them. Jack will be posting gym selfies until the city sinks. Better opportunities have an expiration date.
— The Penguin
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