~* THE MIND-BOGGLING/HEARTBREAKING MYSTERY OF THE DISAPPEARING MEN *~

ENCORE-- but minus me requesting for a repeat. That's how it freakin' is. You may even consider it a three-peat if you count it this way: (1) the unbelievable asswipe circa 2001, (2) the former TOWBMHTB circa 2003 and (3) the unbelievable asswipe returns circa 2004 as I stupidly risk trusting him again the SECOND time around *banging my head on the desk now!*; Thus, making him the new bearer of the title "TOWBMHTB". Okay, in fact, I even want to change it to The One Who Broke My Heart the Uber-Worst. Hindi naman daw sya gago but what he did just begs for him to be called exactly just that. What makes him far worse than Guy#2? Well, Guy#2 at least had the decency (albeit miniscule... just a speck of decency) to text me his lame-ass excuse/goodbye line some time way after. AND he said sorry. He said sorry many, many times. And being me, I forgave him (but I will NEVER EVER forget). The other reasons, I will say on my Tabulas...

I just got this book called "He's Just Not That Into You" by a writer (Liz Tuccillo) and a consultant (Greg Behrendt) of Sex and the City. I'm sure you remember Berger saying that to Miranda. Gee, I almost liked Berger for Carrie until he did that colossal asswipe move of his (a.k.a. the carnations-at-night-and-Post-It-in-the-morning move). So anyway, I went OMG when I saw this book on the shelf of Powerbooks. I check out the table of contents and lo & behold... page 108 is entitled "He's just not that into you if he's disappeared on you" with a subtitle "Sometimes you have to get closure all by yourself". Oh gee. Now THAT is SOOOOO ME, I thought to myself.

The chapter starts with:

He's gone. Poof. Vanished into thin air. Well there's no mixed message here. He's made it clear that he's so not into you that he couldn't even bother to leave you a Post-It... IT'S SO PAINFUL, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO BE HURT OR ANGRY. But because of that, you might be tempted to make some excuses for yourself. You have good reason to want to spend a lot of energy solving the Mystery of the Disappearing Man. But all those excuses, however valid they are, will not help you in the long run. Because the only part of that story that's important to remember is that he didn't want to be with you anymore. And HE DIDN'T HAVE THE GUTS TO TELL YOU THAT TO YOUR FACE. Case closed.

And the excuses were:

1. The "Maybe He's Dead" Excuse

There's nothing worse than having no answer... But the bad news is, NO ANSWER IS YOUR ANSWER.

2. The "But Can't I at Least Yell at Him?" Excuse

... In the long run, you will have wished that you had not given him that much credit for ruining your life... Let someone else expend that kind of energy with him. It may feel like you're letting him "get away with something." But trust me, NOTHING YOU SAY IS GOING TO BE NEWS TO HIM.

3. The "But I Just Want an Answer" Excuse

Sometimes a preson's behavior is so abhorrent that it leaves little doubt as to what to do. THE BIG MISTAKE YOU MADE WAS CHOOSING THAT PERSON TO BEGIN WITH. The quickest way to rectify that mistake is by learning from that, moving on, and choosing much more wisely in the future.

More excerpts:

• The reason it's so painful when someone disappears is you have to face the fact that the person you loved probably left you a long time before he grabbed his coat and scrammed. The hard part is realizing that he was lying to you, in some way, before the moment of vanishing.

• This one is impossible. He disappeared. He just stopped... out of the blue. You felt that whatever you had together warranted even the tiniest explanation... But instead, there's silence. No explanation, no goodbye. Just a vanishing. There's nothing worse... nothing worse than that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when it looks like the guy you were getting to know has decided to bail on you instead of talking to you about it. NOTHING WORSE.

• So first you feel hurt. But then you feel helpless, completely and totally helpless. HE JUST DISAPPEARED, MAKING YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE OR MEANING TO HIM WHATSOEVER. (Gee, thanks. There goes my sense of worth :P )

• ... to me, what's truly devastating is to feel like you weren't even worth a breakup.

• ... when a guy no longer wants to communicate with me, and doesn't have the manners or courage to tell me that to my face, he's given me all the information I need.

• He might be lying in the hospital with amnesia, but more likely he's just not that into you.

• There's no mystery-- he's gone and he wasn't good enough for you.
  

Now this is just appalling:

100% of men polled who had "disappeared" on a woman said that, at the time, they were completely aware of what a horrible thing they were doing, and no woman calling them up and talking to them would have changed that.

*aaaaarggghhh* Sabi na nga ba kasiiiii: "Never ASSUME. Never make an ASS of U and ME." *triple sigh* Once an asswipe, always an asswipe.