I’ve never been very confident with women, so at the age of 28 I lost my virginity to a sex worker. I continued to see other professionals since then as time and money allows. Then two years ago I met a sex worker who was exactly my type; she soon gave me her personal phone number, and we texted a lot about upcoming meetings and about other things. The last time we met in person she trusted me enough to let me take pictures of her (she advertised without showing her face), and invited me to karaoke with her. A few weeks later I texted again, and her sister replied to me, saying she was in hospital and wouldn’t be working. I wrote to her booker (who knew she liked me) and asked if she knew more, and she led me to believe that the problem was mental health related. Not knowing what else to do, I’d send a little “get well soon” text to her every few weeks. Eventually she responded, saying she was out of the hospital but unlikely to ever work again. She seemed to appreciate my messages, and we continued to text for most of last year. Eventually, I offered to take her out to a platonic dinner in August. She said yes, and I made arrangements. A couple of days before, she pulled out and begged forgiveness, saying she still didn’t feel physically up to anything. I took this well, and continued to text her every other week as I had been before, but she soon stopped replying. She’s been out of hospital for a year now, and I haven’t heard from her since summer. I’m wondering if there’s anything else I can do. I just don’t know how to deal with silence. If she told me to “please stop” I’d absolutely respect that, but I’m worried she may have had a relapse or something like that too.
Human beings are complicated creatures; not only is it possible for us to feel multiple conflicting emotions at the same time, but we do it with astonishing frequency. What this means in your case is that, though the lady does seem to have been genuinely interested in you, it’s also pretty clear that she doesn’t want you in her life any more. Why? There’s no way to know for sure, but I suspect it isn’t coincidental. If the reason she ended up in hospital was indeed mental health-related as you suspect, it could be tied in with burnout or with ambivalent feelings about her work, and if that’s the case it’s no surprise that she no longer wants to communicate with a client, even a cherished one…especially a cherished one, really. My guess is that she wants to break entirely with her old life, and that includes you. But since she really does like you, she doesn’t want to hurt you and is instead pulling a classic feminine move called the fadeaway. In a way, this breakup method is even more cruel because there’s no closure for the one rejected; however, it feels less cruel to the one doing the fadeaway, and in her mind that’s what counts. You don’t have much choice but to move on; at this point all you’re accomplishing is hurting both of you. Enjoy your memories of her, send her prayers or good wishes, and then close that chapter in your heart so you can be ready to love someone else. Because she did give you one priceless gift: your first love. And you may find that, painful as the experience was, it has prepared you for other intimate relationships, paid or otherwise.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
Maggie… that was just… nice. Kudos.
I’ve experienced the fadeaway. I have also done it – so much, in fact, that I think it could be my own personality flaw. I suspect a lot of men do the fadeaway, too, and prompted by this post, I have just started to reconsider the feminine classification. I mean, yeah, it feels like a feminine thing seemingly coming out of the blue, to this guy. But when I do it, I just feel guilty… like an asshole, a term I just cannot consider feminine no matter how I try.
At any rate, your analysis and advice seems spot on to me.
Silence…the cruelest answer of all…
Wait … it may not be “the fadeaway” …
Cuz it’s gone on a long time and it keeps going. Most women would give up by now and say … “You aren’t very smart on the uptake, are you? IT’S OVER!”
The fact that she hasn’t reached that point could mean that she WANTS to give him up – but doesn’t want to burn the bridge … in case she changes her mind.
???
I can see that another advantage of “the fadeaway” for some women could be that it avoids a confrontation.
If the woman cannot face a confrontation with the man from whom she is breaking away … then “the fadeaway” accomplishes her goal without risking that confrontation.
Does this make sense? or am I stupidly “man-‘splaining?”
I think that might be especially true between sex workers and client/friend. Some guys can get really infatuated and can’t tell the limits between the business and the friendship. You never know how someone is going to take rejection.
I’ve known women for whom that would be true, but it seems pretty cowardly. davidst is quite right that a man doing this would be seen as an asshole, and I don’t see why that judgment shouldn’t go the other way, too.
And yet in a world where one woman’s unsupported word can get you labeled guilty and punished for harassment, domestic violence, or even child molestation, I wouldn’t try to press such issues either. Feminism isn’t really about equality at all.
“Feminism isn’t really about equality at all.” — JDGALT
*BINGO!*
‘Course, if such “equality” ever was achieved by the radfems, you’d be among the first “volunteered” for their “reeducation camps”…
Garfunkel and Oates did a song about the Fadeaway.
I would put a link in here, but I can never seem to do it right.
Actually Maggie already put a link for that in her text.
Perhaps you have already seen this, if not…..
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-tragic-life-of-the-courtesan-in-japans-floating-world/?src=longreads&mc_cid=36f84f51c0&mc_eid=2e0f00f885
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
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Isn’t this the standard way of moving on from friendships? I’ve had plenty of friends in my life who I no longer talk to, and in only one or two of those cases has there been any kind of “Our lives are going in different directions” or “You’re not good for me” talk. We usually just text less and less, talk less and less, see each other less and less – get busy with the things and people who are just coming into our lives while the less important things and people just fade out.
Romantic relationships do not usually work like this, for a combination of reasons. And I am of the opinion that if someone asks you directly for closure you should do your best to give it to them. But I am also of the opinion that the Fadeaway is not always so much a cruel method of rejection by silence as it is an unhappy part of moving forward with our lives.
I hate the fadaway. Even being friendzoned is better. Even being abruptly dumped is better.
Yeah, I’ve been subjected to the fadaway. I don’t think I’ve ever done it to anybody I’ve been in a romantic or sexual relationship with. If I have then I’m terribly sorry because it shouldn’t be done to anyone.
Tracy and I broke up for a year. I didn’t fade, I dumped. Then a year later I ran into her mother and sister at the grocery store and we got back together with a new understanding of our relationship (friendzoned to hell and back). I don’t think we could have done that if I’d faded.
When I broke up with the blind girl I dated, it was hard on me and it was hard on her, but a fadeaway would have been worse. If I refer to her again I’ll call her Alicia, even though she isn’t a sculptor and (AFAIK) she’s never been in a relationship with a man who looks like he’s made of orange rocks.
Sometimes you can’t have it all, and I just couldn’t have Alicia and Laura too. Tracy and Laura I can have; in fact Tracy is going to Hawaii with me, but then, Tracy friendzoned me long ago. So yeah.
For the man who sent Maggie this letter: she knows how to get in touch with you if she wants to, right? Let her go, because that’s what she wants, and if it isn’t, she can let you know.