I’d Rather Be Ghosted Than Be With A Serial Monogamist. Here’s Why.
Before I argue myself into a very hard corner, you should know that I hate ghosts just as much as you do. That’s, like, a lot.
Despite what every dating article tells you, ghosting isn’t the worst thing that you can do to somebody. If you really want to get yourself hurt, date a serial monogamist. I can tell you from experience that even though they seem like it on paper, in your text history, and in your debit card statements as you buy them tickets for that Swedish metal band you hate but they love, they’re not your Disney ending.
They’re not even your Friday night burnt salmon-dinner date.
Serial Monogamists Have The Emotional Durability Of A Nokia And I Stand By That
Let’s talk about serial monogamists. They’re your classic “can’t be alone” friend who hopscotches from one relationship to the next before the last one’s even cold. I would make a joke here, but everyone who’s been friends with a serial monogamist knows there’s nothing funny about being the frequent breakup-shoulder-to-cry-on. The amount of Ben & Jerrys you go through is alarming (and expensive).
I don’t know why someone would willingly be a part of this emotional musical chairs. Maybe they don’t know how to be alone, maybe it’s part of their cultural makeup, or maybe they’re just so used to rebounding that they’re camped out in front of the hoop. I don’t know. But what I do know is that the times I’ve been with one I’ve felt like a rug was ripped out from under me when it ended. I did laundry at their houses. I even used their fabric softener. How could I expect it to end?
I’ve Been With Many (And It Was Good Until It Really Wasn’t)
The times I was with a serial monogamist I was the person who straddled the in-between of relationships for them. I was never the “girlfriend” but I always came into their lives a few weeks after they lost one. We met through Bumble or Tinder or whatever weird catchy one-word app you scroll through at midnight. My presence in their bed and in their ears at the grocery store marked their tentative steps into what looked like the casual hookup culture – until they got another girlfriend.
Spoiler alert, it wasn’t me. I only lasted about three months as the casual non-monogamous “thing.”
Because monogamy is hard. It requires you to wholly open yourself, your Netflix password (please), and that little vulnerable part of your heart up that just wants to remain turned away from the world. So when a monogamous relationship ends it can feel like there’s an intimate part of you that’s been taken from you forever. And you can’t just bounce back from that.
But I don’t think serial monogamy lets you even start the healing process. You just keep hopscotching with a gaping hole inside of you and running into unsuspecting people like me all too eager to fall in.
All That’s Left Is The Big Ouch—And A Lot Of Fish
They said they’re “relationship people” so I expected that conversation to happen eventually. I allowed myself to see this easy fling as something that could persuade me to give the whole monogamous relationship thing another go. So when I found out through an Instagram post (two times actually, lightning does strike twice) that they were in a serious relationship, I felt raw.
The pain serial monogamy leaves behind isn’t your standard ghosting throb. Ghosting makes the person left behind feel like a day-old piece of salmon on the grocery store shelf when it closes. You’re not super smelly, your color still looks good, and most people with common sense and a budget would buy you. You haven’t known someone long enough to get hurt and hypothesize about why this person cradled you in their palm for two seconds before they grabbed the $6 trout fillet. You’re hurt, but you know you’re a beautiful antioxidant-rich salmon and you can write ghosts off as just having bad taste in fish.
But serial monogamists cruelly make you feel the spark of something real before blowing it out and when they leave you question your self-worth.
They make you question if you’re relationship material enough to stick around. And that stings.
No matter how many times I tell myself that my place in the lives of these men wasn’t a three-month placeholder in between serious girlfriends, I still feel that way. I don’t know how their previous serious girlfriends felt after hearing they moved on so quickly, and I don’t know the status of their relationships now. All I know is that there was a seed of doubt in myself planted in my just barely opening heart that makes me think twice before blindly falling for someone again.
So yeah, ghosts aren’t the worst—there are bigger fish for us to fry.
