I’ve discussed before, the everyday occurrence many people experience in this day and age commonly referred to as “The Fade Away” in my article “Haven’t Got the Balls to Dump You”.
Everywhere you look, there’s a reasonable chance that someone you know, or even someone you don’t, has initiated, been in receipt of, or has been the friend of a friend of someone who has been left behind callously without closure- that is, they have essentially been dumped without being given an explanation, a clue or a hint.
They literally just wake up one day and POOF, the other person disappears like the work on a hard drive that’s taken a crap overnight and is void of any backup files.
There may be a dozen or so “valid” reasons (in the dumper’s mind anyway) why someone would go to such measures to avoid being confronted with breaking up- such as falling out of love, going back to an ex, getting pregnant by or marrying someone else, ditching town, or merely going out on a couple of dates and not liking the person enough to justify ditching them with the uniform gratuitous extension of closure.
There are dozens if not HUNDREDS of ways to dump people. However, doing it without actually doing it is without a doubt, the lowest way to do it.
It’s as though you’re basically telling the other person they aren’t worth diddly squat and there is no other appropriate way to dump them than to ensure you never have to see, look at or hear from them again.
Sad to admit it but I myself, have been this low down dirty coward. I can admit I lied unknowingly in saying that I never faded away on anyone back when I wrote “Haven’t Got the Balls to Dump You“. It’s true that it didn’t even occur to me to recall this one man, rather one boy, of whom I briefly and unfortunately encountered because it was very much a situation I didn’t want to remember and therefore, I can honestly say that I didn’t.
I was 18 and my best friend wanted to set me up with her boyfriend’s friend. I don’t even remember his name which is a very good indicator as to how little I felt about him. I was going through a rough time in my life when we met online, yet I somehow decided going on a date with this guy would be harmless enough. Indeed it was relatively harmless (to me), but it would soon prove to be a situation I could’ve easily done just fine without.
We went on one date and long before the date even ended I knew I never wanted to see him again. And I took the easy way out and initiated the fadeaway.
From what I barely remember of him and the situation, it unfolded with him picking me up at my house in the evening and we went out. He was 17 I believe, very immature and couldn’t hold a conversation on a single thing meaningful. I don’t even remember where we went or what we did but I’m certain it involved having food somewhere and although I wanted to call it a night early on, he still wanted to hang around and “talk”.
I didn’t know what to do except all I wanted was to say goodbye and get rid of him. And unfortunately this was during my “being too nice” faze- the one in which I hadn’t yet acquired the balls I needed to get me to open my mouth and get things done long before they ever started to bother me. Instead, I caved a bit and agreed to spend a little more time with him talking.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to invite him in the house so I asked him if he wanted to sit with me in my car for a bit in the driveway because it was too cold to stand around outside. I definitely didn’t want to get back in his truck with him for I feared that he might start the ignition, take off somewhere and I might never been able to escape.
There we sat in my car and moments before, I started up the engine, let it run idle and got the heater going. Next thing you know, this stench of which I guessed must have been him finishing up processing his dinner filled up the entire inside of my car, and I immediately felt the kick start of my gag reflex hammering me in the back of my throat.
Yes, he farted. And I was mortified. I was now turned off even more so than before and was now also totally embarrassed. Embarrassed for him and embarrassed for me having been there. While he wanted to sit and marinate in the stench, hold hands and pretend like nothing smelled or even happened, I opened the window, cranked up the air, and covered my nose with the sleeve of my sweater. AND HE STILL DIDN’T GET THE EFFING HINT.
This was the highlight of the entire date, that is, about the only thing I even remotely remember about him was that he farted and stunk up the inside of my car from what seemed to emanate from the sheer ends of the earth to hell and back and beyond.
My best friend calls me the next day and tells me he’s dying to see me again, that he really likes me and that he had a great time. Her boyfriend was starting in on me as well, telling me everything she’d been telling me- “I’ve never seen him go after a girl like this/he wants to go out again/he can’t stop talking about you, etc.”
I simply didn’t have the heart to tell either of them what transpired, with his immaturity, me not feeling him in the slightest, and his deathly ill-fated funk-stained fart that made me want to cringe, ball over, and gasp for fresh clean air every time I thought about it.
Then he began calling and I began screening. He began leaving messages that I began deleting. This went on for about a week or so before my best friend calls me and tells me that he’s been calling her and her boyfriend all hours of the night wanting to know why I wasn’t answering the phone or returning his calls.
He was calling her so much that she became angry at me and demanded that I grow a pair and tell him I didn’t want to see him again. Even at her insistence, I still didn’t have the guts to tell him because the whole situation was so uncomfortable and unbearable that I was paralyzed and simply couldn’t do anything but refuse to have anything more to do with him. I just figured “this guy’s bound to get it sooner or later so I’m just going to continue on my current path of least resistance“. And it worked. He got the hint, I got on with my life and he got on with his. Or so I thought.
Then I kid you not, a year and a half later I ran into this guy at a driving range with my best friend and her new boyfriend (not the same boyfriend she was with who set me up with him) and the guy was still butt hurt and aching from inside his ilium to the depths of his smelly sphincter from hell.
My best friend’s guy asks me if I know that guy standing over there, pointing in his direction when I reluctantly said “yeah“.
He said, “Well, he was just up at the snack bar trash talking you saying you’re a slut and a bitch and that he was glad that he dumped you.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even look at him a second time, completely ignored him, and we paid for our game and left.
Just goes to show how damaging a fadeaway can be on both ends, whether it’s after one date or after a year’s worth of commitment. When you don’t get or give closure and you leave people dangling, swaying back and forth and guessing with a dozen million undotted question marks, people don’t simply get over it. THEY REMAIN JUST AS PISSED AS THEY WERE BEFORE, IF NOT MORE SO.
So the lesson here, whether your date farts and smells bad or not, or whether you simply can’t stand them or not, just give ‘em the benefit of the doubt and politely end it. That way you can ensure they might hopefully understand and hopefully won’t get nasty and spiteful somewhere down the line in the future. Otherwise, prepare for the repercussions and the karma- the bitch who always comes back to bite you in the ass, sooner or later.
