Ghostbusters: Berlin Dating Edition

In all the news that’s been going on in the world, there’s one item that slipped between the cracks and went unreported. Dating in Berlin just got listed as a crime against humanity.

In fact, it’s been reported that in order to get into character as the Joker, a manic depressive desperado who slides into insanity and goes on a killing spree, Joaquin Phoenix put up a dating profile in Berlin. The result: he took home best actor at the Oscars, Cannes, BAFTAs, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globes. When asked about his preparation for the role, Joaquin said he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet as his eye twitched uncontrollably. He then burst into tears and was led away by his people.

It’s not so much the 90% of app messages that go unanswered or getting stood up on the majority of the dates that you actually arrange. No, the worst is the ghosting.

For those not familiar with the term (by the way, congratulations on your long, happy and secure personal relationship) it’s basically when someone stops answering your texts and stops liking your posts. It’s when the disappearance of them is so sudden and unexplained that you check their insta feed to see if they’re dead. Or have simply been abducted by aliens.

Ghosting can, and often does, happen after the first time you meet in person. But it’s also happened to me after date number eight, after this person and I had been hanging out once a week for nearly three months. That one really bothered me. I found my mind returning to the last few texts and meetings looking for clues, the ‘Kopfkino’ or ‘head cinema’ as the Germans call it, playing in my head.

The problem with ghosting is that after a while you get so used to it, you’re immediately suspicious of anyone in Berlin who keeps their word, shows up on time and seems to actually give a shit about you. Because as nice as it may ever feel, they could end it in the time it takes to watch those two ticks by your last WhatsApp message turn blue… then die.

I was recently in London where I went out on a series of dates with several men. Due to Covid, WFH and me staying with friends, all parties knew before we met up that there would be no possibility of sex. In Berlin, this conversation would now be over.

Yet, I amazed my friends here with tales of meeting handsome, employed, interesting and interested men in London. Who I didn’t have to chase to make a date with. Who all turned up and on time. Who were all excellent company. I was taken out for lunches, walks, gallery visits. One of them even made me a playlist.

No, really. A fucking playlist. And it was really, really good.

In Berlin, if I sent someone a playlist, they would immediately assume I was a dangerously desperate stalker who they now must block on every single platform we’re connected on. Actually, Berliners will do that if you send them a kiss emoji too soon.

Now, pop on the kettle, make some tea and let’s get comfy. Because as part of writing this piece, I actually did some research on the history of ghosting.

There was a time in my life, way back through the mists, where it was considered incredibly bad form to break up over the phone and not in person. But technology has provided every catalyst moment for the evolution of ghosting. After the advent of answering machines, the dating world was rocked by a startling development: people started breaking up by leaving a voice message. This was shocking in its time. Nowadays, you’d congratulate them for being of outstanding character. For being brave.

In the mid 2000’s there was an episode of Sex and the City where Miranda was dumped via text message. This was considered so taboo back then, they made an entire episode about it. Imagine that. An entire episode’s budget for hair, makeup, wardrobe, locations, crew, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall’s off-screen fights to talk about text message breakups. 

Note: the guy in question still wrote a text to deliver the news. So technically, ghosting had not quite yet arrived. But we were getting warmer.

Then came the dating sites. Before they were apps, dating sites were web-based and desktop. And dial up. So you actually had to devote time to them, doing them from home. You made a conscious choice to spend a night seeing who was around and messaging away. And in the early days, the UX functioned so that you had to answer a message before the next would appear.

It was super bad business for the gay bars. They virtually emptied overnight. But more than that, it was bad business for human interaction. Small talk, flirting, and the invisible chemical connections that attract us, started to be bred out of us. 

Little did Steve Jobs know when he gave his January 2007 keynote to the world, that this handheld device called the iPhone would be dating’s death knell. How ironic that it was the biggest step forward in communications since the first mobile phone.

But the really bad shit started on March 25th 2009, which will go down in the history of dating as the Day The Ghosts Arrived. For it was on this day that The One App To Ruin Them All called ‘Grindr’ was launched by Joel Simkhai. 

Grindr billed itself as a gay geo-social app. In the first rush, it worked exactly as people hoped. You could connect with gays in your proximity and meet up. And people did. For drinks, for coffees, and of course for sex. For a moment, it felt like every connection was possible. Until it wasn’t. 

It didn’t take long for every queen to notice that conversations on Grindr suddenly stopped. Requests to meet again went unanswered. People screen grabbed message threads and texted them to friends for decoding. Ghosting had officially arrived. I will say this for Grindr though - at least all the profits from the death of civilized dating went to a gay guy. It’s important to support the community.

Then, like a virus, ghosting spread.

Grindr spawned a host of imitators like Scruff, Growlr, Romeo and other regional versions worldwide. Soon, tech bro developers saw how this could scale and unicorn straight versions popped up everywhere. OKCupid, Tinder, Bumble, Match.com, Plenty of Fish etc.

While gay men and lesbians were finally getting to see what married life was like, straight people finally got to see what gay dating was like. 

This dovetails with the advent of online shopping. Soon, our phones became places where we bought clothes, ordered takeaway, organized trips, had groceries delivered, hailed cars, and posted and curated visuals of our lives. Oh, and looked for human connection. Ignoring someone you were chatting to, or had even met a few times, was now as natural as abandoning items in a virtual cart. 

Ghosting is entitled consumerism in its highest form as we sit in front of our phones waiting to be served. People became things we flicked through on a rack, maybe tried on, maybe even wore a few times. But then Marie Kondo’ed with no more explanation than a t-shirt gets when it finds itself suddenly hanging in Humana.

Because there is no one busier on earth than someone who has lost interest in you. Which is doubly tragic as the one who is ghosted; a) the person you were talking to is now a ghost, and b) all your demons come out to haunt you again. Whoever designed the Snapchat logo knows exactly what I’m talking about.

So I had an idea. Ghostbusters. 

Picking up from my last post about sequels, we revive the franchise in real life and send them out after all the people who’ve ghosted you on dating apps.

The idea came to me as I passed a guy on the street a few days ago. He and I had actually met almost two years earlier. One late night booty call that went rather well, turned into a dinner invitation from him for the following week. That he never turned up for. He’d had a sudden business trip and forgot to tell me. On the upside, at least he was standing me up in Milan.

After profuse apologies, he promised to get in touch when he returned. I even stupidly texted him once after I knew he was back. The message was read, not replied to, and a few months later I took his number out of my phone.

Back on the street again in present day, our eyes met as we passed and I nodded hello. In return, his face screwed up in non-recognition and he continued on his way. Burning from not even being remembered, the idea struck me for Ghostbusters for dating and I started writing the entire script on my walk home.

In my scriptwriter mind’s eye, I arrive home and post on ebay-Kleinanzeigen that I’m looking for a team of gay men with certain skill sets to join this task force. I figured we’d need someone with a van and a driver’s licence, a programmer, and some muscle. 

After receiving a barrage of replies, and deleting the ones asking for dick pics, I found a group of twelve candidates that all seemed perfect for the different jobs. Including one called Robert who texted a ton of questions and said he might need a zoom call to be sure. Whittling it down to four or five would be easy. In Berlin when twelve people say they’re coming, expect less.

The equipment could be trickier; the proton packs and neutrona wand guns wouldn’t be something you could pick up at Saturn Electronics. But again, ebay-Kleinanzeigen saves the day. Nik, a total tech nerd and a massive fan of 20th century sci-fi, wrote to me to say he’d already developed fully working artful versions. “Artful,”… I just love the way Germans sometimes express themselves in English. Beautiful.

The next week, after a barrage of WhatsApp messages cancellations, five of us assembled for the first time in my apartment; Florian the guy with the van, Moritz the programmer, Ulf the muscle and Robert. Well, almost Robert. He kept texting that he was running late.

The tech guy, Nik, who’d made all our equipment was unboxing them, proudly explaining how he’d 3D printed all the components. He pulled out four proton guns and backpacks. They looked amazing, just like the real thing.

Nik shouldered a unit, powered the gun into life as we all watched in rapture. “Then,” he said, “you just squeeze the trigger.” Right at that moment, everything went into slow motion as I dove across the apartment at Nik, saying very slowly and two octaves lower than usual, “Neiiiiiiiiiiin…. meine Wohnungkaution!” 

Nik turned to me as he fired and the next thing we all knew, a massive cloud of glitter shot all over us.

There was a moments silence as we watched the golden flecks rain down, covering all my worldly possessions. It was Florian who finally broke the silence, “It’s ‘Wohnungskaution’. With an ‘s’. You said Wohnungkaution. That’s not correct.”

Ulf nodded, “Florian’s right. It’s with an ‘s’. It’s Genetiv case.” Taking my stunned look as confusion, Ulf continued, “Ausländers often think that the ‘s’ is plural. But it’s possessive, to denote that it’s the Kaution of the Wohnung. The deposit of the apartment.”

“Guys,” I said as I slowly got to my feet, “we just got shot with a glitter neutrona gun and the first thing you want to do is correct my German. I know what Genetiv case is.”

 “Well clearly you don’t, because you didn’t use it correctly,” stated Moritz before blowing the glitter off his laptop keyboard and getting back into the final stages of programming. Taking a deep breath, I turned to Nik. 

“Nik, I ordered neutrona wand guns and proton packs. These are glitter guns.”

“Actually,” Nik continued, “only this one shoots glitter. One shoots streamers, one shoots soap bubbles, and the other does rainbow lights.”

“Schön!” said Ulf, “I’m taking the rainbow light one to Schuwz for its re-opening!”

“Nik,” I said losing my temper, “they’re supposed to fire neutrona waves to capture the guy and put him in a box.” 

“Alte!” exclaimed Nik. “That’s sci-fi shit. I cannot make that. I said they were küntzliche.”

“Right,” I agreed, “Artful. Like, artfully made.”

“No,” corrected Nik with a world-weary exhale, “artificial. ‘Küntzliche’ means artificial. I thought these were costumes for your fetish.”

“Oh yeah, wasn’t there a sci-fi night at a sex club for a while?” asked Florian, “Not the Lab, but Insomnia, oder?”

“Ok,” I said, trying to find the bright side, “they look super authentic, so we’ll just intimidate him with them instead. What about the box to trap him in?”

“Danke,” responded Nik, “it is time that you complimented my workmanship.”

By now, the other guys had all picked up a gun each and a backpack. The conversation jumped into German as Nik went down the rabbit hole on specs, finally finding the appreciative audience he’d been expecting. I caught most of it. Then it turned to something about the look my face, then something about ray-guns. But when I heard someone mention, “Wohnungskaution,” again, I interrupted the group laughter.

“Nik, the box?” I asked. Nik pointed at the cardboard crate we’d just pulled all the equipment out of. 

“In answer to the question I know you will ask, no, I can’t make a shoebox sized device to hold an adult man.”

“But this is cardboard,” I protested.

“Very thick cardboard,” Nik corrected me, “The budget was spent on the equipment.”

Giving up, I turned to Moritz, “How’s the programming coming along?”

Moritz looked up, “I should have Scruff cracked soon so we can see his actual location, not just distance. What’s his profile name?”

“Berlintopbear,” I replied.

Moritz stopped, took off his vintage 80’s glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Why didn’t you say he is a bear? He’ll be on Growlr. I could have simply hacked that instead.”

“What difference does it make, Scruff or Growlr?” I asked.

Moritz put his hands in front of his lips in the prayer position, loudly inhaling and exhaling through his nose. I use the prayer memoji a lot when I text people, as a thank you. It had never occurred to me until this moment that it looks a lot like a gay man about to explain something simple, to someone stupid.

“Growlr’s interface was designed in 2009,” said Moritz calmly as his fingers returned to his keyboard, “and it’s as though it never had a software upgrade again. I sometimes break in late at night when I’m drunk, to show other programmers the coding, because they don’t believe me. Here’s his current location.” Moritz pinged us Berlintopbear’s address before quipping, “By the way, if he has ‘top’ in his profile name, you know he’s a bottom.”

I laughed hard at that, until I realized I was the only one laughing.

“I thought you were making a joke,” I said.

“No, I am stating a fact,” replied Moritz as everyone else nodded. Right then Robert texted. 

“Robert can’t make it, he’s not feeling well.”

“Wait,” said Ulf, “did he sign off with thermometer, green face, thumbs down emojis?”

“Uh, yes,” I said checking my phone.

The four of them laughed. 

“That bitch never shows,” Florian said.

“Should we bust him for ghosting instead?” asked Moritz.

“No, we go after Berlintopbear, because he stood me up and ghosted me. That’s the mission,” I insisted.

“Hang on,” said Nik, “you guys made a Ghostbuster unit to bust guys who ghost you on the apps?”

“Yes, brilliant right?” I said.

“That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard,” Nik replied, “Can I be allowed to film it?”

“Jawohl,” Moritz said, “we’ll need that for social.”

“Ok,” I said, pointing at the five jumpsuits folded on my table, “we have a spare uniform.”

Long story short, no one wore the uniforms. The four of them debated the merits of boiler suits being unisex, which was a plus. But that wearing a uniform was capitalism’s erasure of the self. Someone quoted Thomas Mann, and someone else quoted the book, ‘The Ethical Slut’ also known as the Berlin Handbook. It could have gone either way, but then Moritz pointed out that the boiler suits were beige. Not black. And that was the end of that.

I did note that all of them were wearing black head to toe, and that that is called ‘The Berlin Uniform’ for a reason. Ulf then stated, “The term is ironic. Because this is a choice.” And then I realized I was wearing all black as well. I don’t know when that started happening. But everyone carried off their boiler suits with them in one of my vast collection of recycled-cotton Bio-Markt tote bags, in case they needed them for the next Christopher Street Day Parade.

Four guns, four backpacks, and no one wearing uniforms later, all five of us were in Nik’s van. Not Florian’s. Because Florian’s roommate’s girlfriend had to move that day, so he’d lent them his. Natürlich. 

Speeding through the streets of Berlin, under the watchful eye of the TV Tower, Moritz had cleverly mapped a route to Neukölln that went by the huge anti-masking rally. The one where far right extremists march with Witch Covens from Düsseldorf and are watched by only four and a half policemen. The other route would have taken us by fifteen hundred cops, evicting forty squatters from where they’d lived for the last thirty years. In the middle of winter.

After stopping only once to get cigarettes, paprika chips and a crate of Radlers from the Späti with the best prices in Berlin apparently, (“Guys? Really? Now?”) we found a parking spot only three blocks from Berlintopbear’s house.

Arriving at the building’s front door, the guys all turned to me. Which is when I realized that I didn’t remember the guy’s name. This revealed three salient points. 1. My memory is awful, 2. This was so long ago, it shouldn’t really matter anymore, and 3. Addresses for apartments in Berlin are a joke.

Here’s the thing about Berlin apartment blocks, there are no apartment numbers, just names on the buzzers. So when someone comes to your home, they press your name button, then you have to give them a complex set of instructions about which floor and which door as you buzz them in. 

Because delivery people then don’t know where anyone lives, if you aren’t home your neighbors end up having to take your packages for you. Germans on the whole are a very honest bunch when it comes to these things. Which is commendable to them as a nation. But you hear stories every now and again. In some suburbs, it’s better if you don’t live on the same floor as people who have the same clothing size as you. Now, if you are expecting an urgent delivery you are basically on lockdown. Because if you leave your house for ten minutes, that’s when DHL will ring your bell, wait 15 seconds, then try your neighbor if you’re lucky. Otherwise there’s a slip sticky-taped to the front door of the building telling you that it’s now at a package depot two kilometers from your house.

“So, you don’t even know this guy’s actual, real name?” Ulf asked.

“No,” I confessed, “I mean I did, but I forgot.”

“I don’t see Mr. Berlintopbear anywhere here,” said Moritz.

The four other guys laughed. “That time I was making a joke, not stating a fact,” said Moritz, smiling for the first time.

“This seems a little petty,” said Nik, phone stretched out in front of him.

“You don’t need to film this part,” I said.

“My art, my choices,” Nik quipped back.

Florian pushed his way to the name buzzers and started pushing them all.

A chorus of, “Hallos,” boomed forth from the voice box as Florian said in German, “Zalando, I have a package for you!” 

Seventeen people buzzed us in and so our mission was one step closer to victory.

“OK Moritz,” I said, “Which apartment is his?”

Moritz consulted his laptop and led the charge through the front house, into the Hof, pivoting here and there, till finally we ended up at a ground floor apartment in the rear building.

“Ready everyone?” I said as I rang the bell. We all waited quietly as footsteps approached, then the door opened. Standing in front of us was a woman in her sixties. She looked like she was from the former East, probably had raised children, and had very little time for the kids in front of her right now. Maybe he lived with his mother, which would explain why he wanted to come to my place two years before.

“Was ist das? Was macht ihr?“ she asked testily.

“Ist Berlintopbear hier?“ I asked as politely as I could.

“Wer?”

“Berlintopbear,” I repeated. 

„Was will dieser Ausländer?” she asked the rest of the gang, „Gehen Sie alle Weg!“

She slammed the door in our faces. This was not going very well. I turned to Moritz.

“Ah, I see the problem. It only maps in 2D,” he said.

“Which means what?”

“That he lives above her.”

“On the first floor?”

“Or higher.”

“So he could be in any of the apartments above her in this six storey walkup?”

Moritz nodded.

After buzzing four apartments on the way up and meeting a lovely family from Spain, a very sweet Turkish man, a millennial couple who took selfies with us, and someone non-gender specific called Star who had a really nice house outfit on, we finally arrived at the last possible door on the top floor.

“OK guys, this is it.” With all our guns at the ready, I pushed the buzzer. Footsteps came to the front door. The handle turned. Then the door slowly swung open to reveal Berlintopbear standing there shirtless, tight tracksuit pants, with a come hither look on his face. We were clearly not who he was expecting.

“What’s up fucker? It’s tea time!” I said bursting into his apartment, realizing that I just used Andrew J Duffer’s Instagram video intro line. Oh my God, I’m the writer who didn’t even write his own opening. I’ll get better at this. 

“Who are you? And why are you all covered in glitter?” Berlintopbear demanded.

“We’re Ghostbusters. You’re the ghost and you are busted!” I said, thinking this is much better opening line.

I then squeezed the trigger on gun. And nothing happened. 

“The glitter neutrona gun only has one shot, then you have to refill it,” said Nik.

“Nik?” asked Berlintopbear.

Nik poked his head over the rest of us, “Oh, Andreas. Wie geht’s?”

That’s right, his name is Andreas.

“Gut, na,” said Andreas, “but what are you guys doing?“

“Andreas!” said Florian, “Florian. Stefan’s friend.”

“Oh hi,” said Andreas, “good to see you. Moritz, that’s you right? New glasses, they look good.”

“Hey man,” said Moritz, “I thought it was you. Been a while, we should get together again.”

“That’d be great,” said Andreas, “but seriously though guys, what are you doing here? I’m not having a party.”

I took a step in Andreas’ direction.

“We’re here, Andreas, because you ghosted me and we’re going to bust you for it,” I said, full of righteousness, “We’re going to put you in a box, wait, where’s the box?”

“It’s in the van still, no one wanted to carry it up five flights of stairs,” said Florian.

“OK,” I said, changing tack, “we’re going to take you downstairs and put you in a box in the back of a van and then, um…” I suddenly realized that I hadn’t thought this part out very well. 

“You’re kidnapping me?” asked Andreas in disbelief.

“No, we’re Ghostbusting you,” I said, not even convincing myself.

“Andreas, Ulf. From the gym,” said Ulf as he and Andreas nodded to each other in recognition. Ulf then turned to me, “Karl, this is really starting to feel like a kidnapping.”

Everyone else agreed. And I had to say, I did too. What the fuck was I thinking? To his credit, Andreas invited us all in. Which was really nice of him considering that we had come over with the intent of putting him on trial. Florian went back down to get some Radlers and the paprika chips, and soon everyone was on his couch with a drink, listening to his vinyl collection. 

In the kitchen, Andreas plated the chips as I stood there next to him.

“So when did we meet?” asked Andreas, “I don’t even remember you.”

“I know. You passed me on the street and didn’t even recognize me.”

Andreas shrugged an apology.

“We met about two years ago, six months after I arrived in Berlin,” I said.

“Oh right!” he said in recognition, “The Australian guy. Oh, I stood you up at the restaurant.”

“Yes!” I said emphatically. 

“Yeah. That was a bad time. My business was going under, I flew to Milan to make a last ditch attempt to save it. Didn’t work.”

“Oh shit, I’m sorry.” 

“And my parents are old. I had to go home for a while not long after. Actually, I found your number about a year ago and texted you.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, did you change numbers?”

“No. I probably deleted and blocked yours when I was pissed off one day.”

“Fair enough,” said Andreas, throwing out the chip bag, “ I do that too.”

We looked at each other for a moment.

“You seem cool. I thought you were going to be a dick,” I confessed to Andreas.

“You seem OK too. But I think you’re a little crazy.”

“Maybe,” I agreed.

“Berlin will do that to you. It is the singles’ capital of Europe. You know we have a saying in Germany. When you meet someone you think is nuts, you say, ‘You’re crazy, you should move to Berlin.’”

We laughed together, knowingly.

Then there was a commotion in the loungeroom. Andreas and I looked at each other, then went to see what was going on. Everyone was sitting around Moritz’s laptop. They all looked up from the screen and at me.

“We’re trending,” announced Moritz. “We’re what?” I asked.

“I made a beta version of the Ghostbusting app and put it in a Dropbox link. Then I pasted it to the YouTube video of us that Nik just edited.”

“Shot and cut on my iPhone 12, bitches. Das ist der Hammer!”

“Anyway,” Moritz continued, “The app’s been downloaded hundreds of times.”

“Oh shit, that’s great!” I exclaimed.

“Yes and no,” Florian said, “Five people have asked to have you Ghostbusted.”

“Me!?”, I exclaimed back not understanding.

“Here, look,” said Moritz, spinning his laptop around. Five profile pics stared back at me.

“OK, that guy and that guy are straight up stalkers,” I said, pointing at two of them. “I mean, messaging me on every platform they could find me on. Even LinkedIn. Several times a day.”

“Yeah, Karl’s right, I know those guys,” said Andreas backing me up.

“And these other three?” asked Ulf. I suddenly realized how strong Ulf looked. Definitely stronger and faster than me.

“Oh yeah. Him. I had to go back to Australia suddenly. I never got back to him. I forgot.”

I looked over at Andreas. He shrugged, smiling in commiseration.

“Then this guy here, I thought he’d ghosted me. Damn. I liked him. What happened?”

“And this last one?” asked Florian.

“That guy was boring. And I didn’t know how to tell him. I didn’t want to make anything up. So I didn’t text him back. That was a full on, conscious ghosting on my part. Guilty.”

“I’ve ghosted guys too. We all have, right?” asked Ulf as everyone else nodded.

“And we all get ghosted. It’s just a shitty part of dating. Like cleaning up your bathroom when someone’s coming over,” said Florian. I made a mental note to never go to Florian’s house.

“It’s 2020,” said Moritz, “phones aren’t going anywhere. Lower your expectations. And don’t take it so personally.”

Andreas’ phone pinged. He looked at the screen, “Ok guys, I have to kick you out. I have someone coming over.”

Everyone helped carry things to the kitchen. Then we all picked up our gear and headed for the door. Everyone said their goodbyes, Andreas and Moritz made a tentative plan to get together. Then finally it was just me and Andreas.

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s ok,” said Andreas, “it was good to see everyone.” Part of me bristled at no apology coming from him. But then for what? He was a decent human who I’d met during a rough patch in his life. And I was the guy that had organized a team of people to kidnap him.

On the way down the stairs we all passed Robert, heading up. 

“Thought you were sick, Robert,” I said.

“I was, but then I felt better. And then I…”

“Andreas is on the top floor, last door on the left.”

“Who?” asked Robert.

“Berlintopbear.”

“Oh! Thanks!”

Robert scurried up the stairs as we all ended up on the street outside. The guys all climbed into the van. I loaded up my gear in the back but then hovered outside the van door.

“Moritz, Florian, Nik, Ulf, thanks for tonight,” I said, “it’s been really interesting. But I think I’m done with this whole venture.”

“Are you sure?” asked Moritz, “we’ve had many more downloads, I think your idea is catching.”

“Lots of angry, rejected people out there. And those people pay good money,” noted Florian.

“My present to you,” I said, “Have fun with it. I’m going to walk home. I’ll see you guys later.”

With that, I turned and walked away under the streetlights of Neukölln. The End.

Cut back to me in real life, half an hour after Berlintopbear had blanked me for real on the street.

I’d been writing this script all the way home in my head. And while the reality of Berlin had scuppered the first part, the reality of being a human with a phone in 2020 had shipwrecked the second half.

Or had it? Everyone loves the idea of revenge. But the reality is something else completely. No one likes to be forgotten or ignored. So much so, that I’ve been angry when I’ve been ghosted by people I didn’t even like that much. I should have been happy to have one less problem. But that they ghosted me first, rubbed me the wrong way. Which says a lot about my ego.

I guess the biggest question is, why do we care so much about what other people think? There’s some total dicks out there who are energy vampires. All they are interested in, is if you are interested in them. But then you have to ask, what awful thing happened to them to make them that way?  

Most people are generally OK though. Not malicious. Just trying to get through a day juggling a job, family, friends, angst, existential dread, loneliness and still trying to be healthy and functioning. And we all have good days and bad days.

Then I started to wonder, is ghosting really that bad? I mean, if people took the time to be truly honest and write back to you about why they aren’t interested, would you really want to know? That they thought you were boring. Or that they don’t find you funny. Or don’t like your style. Or smell. Our friends all think the opposite if us. Or they find so much value in us, these other things aren’t important.

In the elevator ride to my front door, I pulled out my phone and looked at the gay apps. When I thought about how much time I’d spent on them vs how many people I’d met that I actually had a good time with, it really ranks as one of the worst unpaid part time jobs on the planet. Inside my apartment, I deleted all of them before I even got my coat and shoes off. If I’m going to meet guys, I want to do it in real life again. Not on a phone where everyone, including myself, is at their lowest ebb.

Weirdly my phone felt lighter. Then the reality of 2020 kicked in. And 2021. Maybe that’s my dating life done till they find a vaccine. Oh well. At least now I’d have a lot more time to learn German. And write.

But after making a cup of coffee, I thought back to the guy that I’d seen for nearly three months who’d disappeared. Maybe life had just got in the way. Me being me, I’d already deleted his number. But I still had his email.

So I sat down and wrote to him. That I wasn’t angry. Just confused. Because I’d thought we were having fun. So I asked simply, what happened? And if he would help me out by just telling me the truth, not something he thought I wanted to hear. If maybe I’d broken some unwritten cultural rule. Or if he just got bored. Because I wanted to live a long and happy life in Berlin. London made sense to me. But I don’t live in London. So, I asked him instead to help me understand what happened with us, or maybe just how people date here.

To my great surprise, I pressed send. 

And the next day, to my even greater surprise, he replied.