Where she go?
Her Snapchat's got that active green light. Sitting there bold like it's paying rent. Yet she'll swear down she don't use it as much no more. That she keeps falling asleep throughout the day. That life's been mad busy, just never busy enough to explain with her own words what her silence already said loud and clear.
He reads it. Sits with it. Marinates in it like it's gonna taste different the longer he leaves it. It won't. But when you're into someone—properly into someone—you don't clock the signs. You clock the gaps between them and fill them in with hope like a man convincing himself that icks are just a phase.
She's not interested. It's written everywhere. On the walls, on the ceiling, in the green light that never goes off. But he's not reading the room.
Now here's the question. Would it really be that hard to just tell him? Two sentences. Maybe one. Bare minimum human decency. But she won't. And it ain't because she doesn't know how. Nah. Something tells me she just doesn't think he deserves that grace. That he's a man so he should just get it. Should just know. Should just take the hint and disappear quietly like he was never there.
Like men don't feel things. Like men don't sit with things.
She thinks she’s worth the chase. And maybe she is. But what exactly is he chasing? Because from where I’m standing, a woman too emotionally immature to give a man a straight answer ain't a prize, she's a finishing line that keeps moving. And he’s running in good shoes for nothing.
But maybe, just maybe, that's exactly what he needed. Not her. A moment of self-reflection that she accidentally gave him. The one where he looks himself dead in the face and goes nah. This ain't it. I'm better than this guessing game.
Flip the script for a second though.
If he was doing the slow fade, the leaving on read, the watching her stories and saying nothing, she’d have a whole council ready. Group chat live and active. Screenshots up. Jury deliberating. He ain’t shit. His money ain’t right. Bestie you were too good for him anyway. Verdict delivered before she even finished crying.
But him?
He can't pull up to the mandem with this one. He already knows the energy. They'll have him for dinner. Christmas dinner. All the trimmings. You got ghosted fam? By who? Send the picture. Nah send it properly. Dead laughter. Jokes on jokes. That's the only language available because nobody taught them the other one.
So he's got no one. No one to tell him it's a dead end. No one to sit across from him and go bruv, she's gone, let her go. He's just alone in his head. And his head keeps taking him back to the same night, same table, same moment he thought he had it all figured out.
He thought Nobu was actually gonna cut it.
The first date.
He did everything right. Everything he genuinely believed in. Fanciest place in the city, because he wanted her to feel it. Pulled out her chair. Pulled up in an Uber Lux. Gave her the full experience, conversation, attention, effort, the lot. She smiled. She laughed. He clocked it as a green light.
Turns out green lights can be a remix.
Now he's at home, phone face down, dick in his hand, trying to add up an equation that keeps coming back with minus signs. He went all in and the house still won. Doesn't make sense. Shouldn't make sense. But here we are.
“Where did it all go wrong?”
He keeps asking like the answer's buried somewhere in the evening if he just rewinds far enough. It's not. The answer is simple and brutal. You can do everything right and still lose. Not because you failed. Because you can't manufacture a feeling in someone who ain't got one to give you.
C’mon man, play the game.
He just hasn’t put the controller down yet. But he will. It’ll sting first, proper sting. He’ll probably check her score one last time before he locks in. But he’ll get there.
And when he does, he won’t need her to tell him what he’s worth. Because she already showed him, by saying nothing at all.
Only thing is, nothing at all still ain't the full picture.
While he’s at home rewinding the evening, she’s already home too. Just not alone. She never was. There’s a man on that sofa that she came back to after the Uber dropped her off. Same man that was there before she got dressed. Same man she texted in the restaurant bathroom while he was paying the bill.
She wasn’t feeling him out. She was eating out.
And her girls? They knew from the jump.
“You actually went?” “Babes yes he took me to Nobu lmaooo” “FREE FOOD SZNNNN 😭😭” “Did he try it though” “Obviously lol I just went quiet after” “Iconic. What did you have?”
And that was that. He wasn’t a situationship. He wasn’t even a talking stage. He was a Tuesday night reservation and a free prawn tempura starter. Case closed. Group chat archived.
He’s still got the calculator out trying to find where the numbers went wrong.
She’s already asleep.
HOOD AUTHOR’S NOTE
It’s very clear that apps like Tinder and Bumble have successfully manufactured a ghosting culture and nobody is being held accountable. Ghosting is a byproduct of digital life making connection easier and, paradoxically, making ending it feel consequence-free. We’ve mainstreamed the wrong thing.
Everyone is talking to everyone but no one is talking to anyone at all. Not really. Living in a blur is not living. And that’s exactly why this publication exists. To speak on the things we bury the deepest. Our stories dig it out, place it on the table, and ask you the very question you spent the longest time avoiding.
What are you going to do with it?
If this piece found you, it found you for a reason. These aren’t ordinary stories. This isn’t cinematic storytelling for the sake of it. This is excavation. Real feelings, real situations, real people who never got their version of events told properly. Until now.
Every Sunday, the doors to The World According to Mr.10 open for people serious about becoming their most intimate self. The one that understands love. The one that gives it properly and receives it without flinching. If you’re ready to go deeper, our premium space is where that happens. Join the community. Be part of the movement.
Become a 10.
Rich Regards,
— Mr.10
We’ve all been a Tempura Prawn starter. Good thing she didn’t order the lobster 🦞
Ghosting quietly denies the other person dig.