Ghosted on Repeat

Tommy The Hamburger is in The Loop. This is the part where the trap already knows your fucking name. The hour, the smell, the excuse, the reach for the same poison. The same shit, the same job, the same fight, the same goddamn turn back into the motherfucking grinder. Listen closely while I crack open the cycle, show you where it hooks right the fuck in, what it takes, and why people keep feeding the system, even when they know exactly how it ends. Dating apps turned my phone into a haunted mansion. Every notification buzz is another maybe with its teeth out. The icons are bright and flirty, sunset gradients, bubbly fonts, smiling faces, but behind the pastel U I is a graveyard crowded with matches who materialize for a week, suck up attention, then dissolve into silence. I keep swiping because hope is a cheap drug. The dealer lives in my pocket, always open and half assed, whispering that the next swipe could be the one. My thumb has muscle memory at this point. The bios blur into a collage of wanderlust quotes, dog photos, and declarations about loving tacos more than anything. Every so often there is some manifesto about emotional availability. I tailor my profile quarterly like it's a marketing campaign. New photos taken by friends in strategically candid poses. A bio that straddles sarcastic and sincere. One prompt says "I'll roast your Spotify Wrapped." Another says "Teach me a recipe from your childhood." The metrics tell me I'm doing fine, hundreds of matches over the years, enough to keep dopamine flowing, but the retention rate is garbage. Every conversation is a startup with great launch energy and no product market fit. The cycles are fucking predictable. A match lands while I'm waiting in line for coffee or zoning out between work calls. I throw out some tailored opener about their urban garden or their weird obsession with vintage sneakers. They answer. The chat gets warm fast. I trade stories, jokes, those carefully measured trauma glimpses that make you seem open without bleeding all over the screen. "I should grab a drink," they say. Then comes the date, usually at some bar with Edison bulbs and exposed brick, where I sip overpriced cocktails and pretend to be effortlessly charming. Afterward comes the text. "Had a great time, let's do it again." Then the fade starts chewing through everything. Response time stretches. Tone cools. Soon I'm haunting the thread, rereading the banter and trying to smell the exact moment I lost them. Then it starts over. This is the ghosted loop, and I'm its favorite chew toy. Take Alex. She was a tattoo artist with a laugh that sounded like someone shaking a box of marbles. I matched on a Tuesday. The conversation hit fast and hot. I traded playlists within hours. By Friday I was sharing tacos under a flickering neon sign, knees nearly touching in the cramped booth. She told me she loved haunted houses, I confessed I was just a slut for good lighting. I walked for an hour after dinner, boots scraping the pavement, breath fogging the air. She touched my arm and said she'd text me when she got home. She did. "Made it. Smile still stuck on my face," I replied with a dumb pun about being bewitched. Next morning she heart reacted. Then a day of silence. I sent a "Hope you're having a decent Monday." Read. Nothing. Two days later, I broke rule number one of modern dating and chased again. "Would love to see you." No reply. Alex became another ghost, her laugh now a poltergeist that rattles around in my skull when I pass the taco place. Or Sam, the software engineer with a plant collection damn lush it looked like he lived inside a greenhouse. I spent a Sunday afternoon wandering a farmers' market, tasting honey samples and overlapping stories about immigrant parents who never understood my career choices. He squeezed my hand at the crosswalk, said he hadn't felt that comfortable in ages. That night he sent photos of his monstera, asked which Spotify playlist fit the mood. I penciled in another date. The morning it was supposed to happen, I woke to a "Hey, work emergency, can I rain check?" I said sure. Later my texts started sitting there, blue bubbles floating unanswered. I watched the app show him "Active now" while my message stayed unread. Sam went full Casper, but the plants stayed thriving on his Instagram, mocking me with their commitment to growth. I wish it was just app strangers, but even mutual friend setups follow the loop. My buddy Dave once introduced me to his coworker, Lila. "She's cool, she's single, she likes weird art films," he said, as if he was ordering me a bespoke partner. Lila and I grabbed coffee. I bonded over shared hatred of open offices and my love of diner pancakes. I went out twice more. On the third date, she leaned over the table at a Thai restaurant and told me she'd never felt damn seen. I kissed in the rain like I was auditioning for a movie. I went home buzzing. Three days later she texted, "I think you're great, but I need to focus on myself," I replied, "Cool, hope you find what you need." She didn't respond. Two weeks later Dave mentioned she was posting selfies with a DJ from Brooklyn. Focus on herself indeed. Another haunting logged. Every ghost leaves evidence. Screenshots clutter my camera roll like paranormal activity reports. "Look how into me they were!" I message my group chat friends, as if Exhibit A will prove I'm not losing my mind. They send sympathy emojis, offer pep talks, suggest I take a break. I do take breaks. I delete the apps, bury my social media, focus on work, dive into cooking complicated recipes just to occupy my hands. But loneliness is tenacious. The quiet evenings stretch, my bed feels too big, Netflix keeps asking "Are you still watching?" like it's concerned for my welfare. Eventually the itch returns. I redownload the app, update my bio to show I'm "back by messy demand," and dive in again. The cycle loops, unstoppable as tides. Ghosting saturates the city. You hear it in coffee shops. "Yeah, I was texting and then he just disappeared." On subway platforms you catch somebody rereading a message and biting their lip like they might text again even though they know better. At parties you see a face clock another face across the room and duck behind a plant like they're dodging a sniper. The urban sprawl is haunted by half formed connections, their echoes lingering in the architecture. Dating apps turned romance into a numbers game, and I'm standing in the casino watching chips vanish while the house laughs. Sometimes I wonder if the ghosts are punishment for my own sins. I haven't always been the hero in these stories. There was the time I ended things via text because I got spooked by how fast someone wanted to move. Another time I promised to call and then lost nerve. The karma ledger isn't clean. Maybe this is payback, the universe forcing me to feel the sting I inflicted. That thought keeps me up nights. I replay my own cowardice to fuel some kind of growth, swear I'll be braver next time. But guilt doesn't fill the bed. It only adds extra weight to the emptiness. The self doubt is a drill, burrowing deeper with each unanswered message. I stare in the bathroom mirror, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, inventorying flaws in fluorescent lighting. Maybe I'm too blunt. Maybe I overshare. Maybe the jokes land wrong. Then the ugly thoughts come in heavier. The photos lie. I disappoint in person. Fuck it, maybe I'm just fucked. The mind spirals. Every "seen three hours ago" becomes a referendum on my worth. I scroll back through conversations like a detective, analyzing tone shifts, searching for clues in emoji usage. It's exhausting, humiliating, addictive. My therapist says ghosting is often about the other person's fear or incapacity, not my deficiency. That's a nice theory until it's one thirteen AM and I'm staring at the ceiling, wondering why someone who seemed fucking enthusiastic could pretend I never existed. I try to reframe the silence as closure. If they wanted me, they'd be here. The lack of effort is its own answer. But my brain loves a good mystery. It starts inventing excuses for them. Maybe they got sick. Maybe an ex came back. Maybe they dropped their phone in a river. The fantasies keep hope alive, which is the exact opposite of closure. I've developed rituals to cope. When a ghosting becomes undeniable, I light a candle on my coffee table and cue up a mournful playlist. Then I give the connection a mock eulogy. "Here lies my week long fling with Sam, who loved ferns and couldn't commit." I pour a shot of tequila, knock it back, then delete the thread. The ceremony is ridiculous, but it gives me a sense of agency. Otherwise the silence devours me. Some ghosts get entire playlists. Other times I doodle them into my notebook. Sometimes they get a blurted curse shouted in the privacy of my car. "Fuck you, ghost!" I yell at traffic lights. Drivers glance over, see a man yelling at a steering wheel, decide I'm unstable. Friends tell me to try different approaches. Dave says go analog, so I drag myself to trivia nights and gallery openings and pop up markets trying to spark something offline. I collect numbers scribbled on napkins, but the follow up texts still vanish into the ether. Jamie says join a hobby group. I sign up for a cooking class and leave with a singed apron plus an unread message from the person who laughed at my knife skills. Mom says maybe I need to stop trying so hard, because mothers are contractually obligated to imply the business is my effort level. I smile, nod, return to my haunted apps because at least there I can control the pace of rejection. Every so often, a ghost returns. Weeks or months later, a ping appears from a familiar name. "Hey stranger, how've you been?" They reappear like nothing happened, expecting me to be grateful for the haunting. Sometimes they offer flimsy excuses, "Work got crazy." "My mental health nosedived." Or "I wasn't ready." Sometimes they just resume the conversation mid sentence, as if the silence was a software glitch. I've learned to protect myself. I respond with politeness but a steel spine. "Glad you're alive. I'm not interested anymore." It feels powerful to slam the door. Then I realize I'm replaying the ghosting loop from the other side. The cycle is viral. I send them back into the ether, wonder if they'll haunt someone else, wonder if I've become a phantom too. Why keep trying? Isolation is its own horror story, and once in a while the gloom gets punctured by one good night that makes the future feel possible. It hasn't lasted yet, but the glimpses keep me hooked. I know people who met partners on these same apps. They swear it takes patience. They show me wedding photos and chubby babies. I smile, pretend I'm not counting how many ghosts I met in the stretch between their first message and their ceremony. The loop is relentless. I come back, get hooked, get dropped, and crawl back in after the wound scabs over. Easier said than done when your sleep is wrecked by the ping of someone else's disinterest. Tonight, I sit on my couch under a dim lamp, the city's winter wind whistling through the window frame. My phone lies face down on the coffee table atop a stack of old zines. Candles flicker, scenting the room with cedar smoke. A glass of whiskey sweats onto a coaster. I pick up the phone, open the app, stare at the list of ongoing chats. One still shows promise, a librarian who likes stargazing and sends me photos of annotated book margins. Another already feels wobbly, the responses getting shorter and colder. I can feel the trap in my hands. I want to check if they've been active or send one more funny thing, anything that lets me pretend I am above caring while caring so hard it makes my jaw ache. Fuck me sideways, that is always how it starts again. I swear I'll stay chill and not build some dumb future in my head before they have earned it. Then the phone lights up, the hope crawls back in, and I open the damn door for one more ghost. That's the Loop. You don't beat it by naming it once. You beat it by catching the click before the next turn, but most poor motherfuckers never do. The trigger is already warming up.