Thoroughly Modern Dating: Women think silence shows indifference but is it allowing abuse?

The #MeToo movement and legislation against economic abuse have thrown a light on all types of abuse, but sometimes it starts before you’ve even gone on a date.

Dating during the days of yore was easy, you’d don your best bonnet, tighten your corset a couple more millimetres, and flutter your eyelashes at the eligible bachelor who’d just moved into the neighbourhood. In the post-war world, women could get jobs, go to clubs and enrol in a life drawing class. Relationships would develop the organic way and you could choose your partner based on your proclivities.

Today, you don’t even need to leave the house to find love; you can change your distance settings or slide into someone’s DMs if you like the cut of their digital jib.

Women went from dealing with a straightforward courtship, but mismatched marriages - as they had no other choice - to having the agency to go out, swap numbers and spend the next two weeks cradling the phone, opening up a new type of mind fuck. And therefore, abuse.

Dating has changed, but all the advice neglects to mention the mind games we play with each other from behind a screen.

We’re forever gaslighting each other through liking, blocking and seemingly innocuous status updates. It’s opened up new behaviours which drop mind bombs inside the heads of the recipient.

In the beginning, I used Twitter as a micro diary, forgetting that other people could read my deepest, inner thoughts. I unleashed my anger, bitterness and melancholy over a relationship that ended. Now, I’m very conscious that everything I like, share and say has an impact. And I’m not the only one.

I was in a relationship with a man I met on Tinder. He was amazing, he ticked every box and there was a connection; mentally, spiritually and physically. However, I always felt he was holding back. I soon discovered it was because he was planning on giving up an impressive career in London to move to Asia and work as an English teacher. This didn’t end our relationship, it became more intimate until he left.

We didn’t do the long distance thing, but we never lost touch. We still communicated via Facebook messenger, but he never accepted my friend request. We followed each other on Twitter, with every 'like' being a tap on the shoulder. But I was only privy to what he chose to tell me about his life. None of it was positive.

The doozy came when I discovered he opened an Instagram account and his profile featured a photo of him and a girl outside Big Ben. A blocking cold war ended with him once again sliding into my DMs. My questions about his life and girlfriend resulted in him sending me loaded apologies that were interpreted as him declaring he is now the man I deserve and that we had a good thing. But nothing actually changed between us.

In two years, his attentiveness, watching my Insta stories and posting out-of-character updates that looked like a response to my updates culminated in me holding onto this relationship. He intentionally said things to give me hope that he was returning to me, but he wasn’t committing to anything or admitted his feelings or plans.

I’m not the only one. Friends have been ghosted after a period of intense dating, become victims to submariners and exes popping up to say he misses her, only to go back to his surfer hut with his girlfriend.

These men (and I’m sure women do this too, but I’ve never been exposed to it) lead us on. They make promises without making promises. Their ambiguity aims to keep women hooked, stoking the flames of their narcissism while dropping mind bombs. The consequences of these actions result in women being hurt, feeling inadequate and possibly sabotaging their own lives or current relationships. Meanwhile, men have no knowledge that what they may perceive as insignificant has such crippling consequences.

Time and time again, me and my female friends just ignore these abuses. We don’t pick men up when they’ve ghosted us. We smile and accept their bullshit excuses. We allow them to mess with our heads with deep liking, messages and privacy settings. Our stoic attitudes from the years of social conditioning that stem from a fear of being branded a bunny boiler, not flattering a man’s ego or that age-old belief that acting indifferent will have the guy eating out of the palm of your hand.

While no one is entitled to be with someone or be in someone’s life, no matter how virtual, when you’re dating someone, you owe them a level of respect. Especially when we’ve never been so accessible and open.

My most recent relationship ended because he decided that he didn’t want to deal with my “nonsense”, that being gynaecological problems caused by contraception. He was quick to brand me “crazy” despite the fact the only thing he had to deal with was a five worded WhatsApp message after the event.

This was virtual negging. He was expecting me to beg for his approval. To apologise profusely for being such a burden to him. I had to admit that his problems were far more important to mine (despite me out earning and outranking him at work). I did nothing of the sort.

I laid out, step by step, what he said that meant he had blown it with me. Up until that point, he thought he was in the right. He’s not alone. Plenty of people behave in ways and don’t realise how it comes across. Apart from some do and use it play mind games.

Just like the kids who can’t escape their school bullies because of social media, women can’t escape the people that hold their hearts hostage. We can’t stop obsessively checking profiles for who’s liked what and examining what every nuance of their activity might mean because of the breadcrumbs that have been left for us. But in the spirit of #MeToo, we need to call out this bad behaviour when we experience it.

If an old-flame is messaging you behind his girlfriend’s back, tell the girlfriend. When a guy treats you badly, pick him up on it by outlining what he said and how it made you feel or how you interpreted it.

These days, we’re ruled by crippling fear. We’re never honest with each other because we don’t want to show our vulnerability or set ourselves up for rejection. But playing with people’s emotions, even if it’s just a blue ticked unanswered message, isn’t cool. We need to stop this culture of silence that damages our mental health and affects blossoming relationships. Nip abuse in the bud.