I took a short break from online dating for a while. I needed a breather, truly. I’ve often wondered since starting this if my expectations were too high and I’ve second guessed myself and my worth more times than I can count. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, has ever made me feel lower than what happened to me in the past 48 hours.

I had never planned on writing a blog about this guy because there was never anything worth writing, but I’ll start with the basics. He lived in downtown Miami and his name was Jay. He was the biggest nerd of a programmer wrapped up in the body of a jock, and he loved to play music in his spare time. He had an amazing accent from his home country in South America and he was, for the most part, incredibly respectful and sweet. He and I Dated each other for a few months but it never really developed into anything on my end because the chemistry simply was not there. Jay never really did anything wrong, but he never did anything that swept me off my feet. The conversation was easy, but not that engaging. Simply put, he was just sort of…there. I didn’t have any better options on the table, so why not. After dating for three months, he told me his family was going to be visiting from South America and he asked if I wanted to meet them. I agreed that I would come down for a night and meet some of them, but when he canceled at the last minute and then disappeared from my life entirely I honestly wasn’t that hurt or surprised. And he ghosted like a pro. No texts or Phone calls at all. Again, if I gave two craps about this guy I would have dubbed his cowardly actions as the cruelest imaginable but it’s hard to get that hurt by someone you don’t love.

Fast forward to a week ago. I joined another site (different from the last one) and set up a new profile. I used the exact same description and photos as the last one and after setting up the account and scrolling through my new matches I noticed Jay was on the site, too. I abruptly swiped left on his profile but it got me thinking. Why didn’t I ever feel chemistry with him? He was attractive, smart, responsible, and did everything right (oh yeah, except for the whole ghosting thing) but there was a part of me that wondered if he did what he did because he knew my feelings for him had been so detached. Seeing his face suddenly made me feel incredibly guilty. I had never reached out to him again after our last conversation, and in fact, I had never made an effort with him at all. I never initiated a single text, phone call, or meeting with him once. And a small part of me knew that I had been less than engaged whenever he tried talking to me. I wouldn’t have ghosted me, but I would have been very hesitant to introduce a guy to my family if he seemed as bored with me as I seemed with Jay.

I thought about it for a day and Realized that while ghosting me wasn’t cool, he was probably not the only bad guy in our relationship and I chalking it up to bad timing and lack of chemistry. But suddenly, on Monday morning an email came through and I saw that Jay had sent me a message. It read: “Hey [insert my username], how is your week going?”

I paused for a moment at his use of my profile username instead of my real name. I’ve had ex-boyfriends email me on dating sites before and they’ve always referred to me by my first name. And it should be noted that my user name does not contain my real name in any way – it’s a series of letters and numbers – so Jay referring to me with it could only mean one thing: HE FORGOT MY REAL NAME.

I didn’t respond right away because I wasn’t sure if he was just being smart or if he genuinely didn’t remember my name. When I did answer, I simply said my week was fine and asked how he was doing. When he responded with, “Now that I’ve just met you I’m doing wonderful ;)” it became crystal clear. Dear God…he had no clue who I was.

My initial reaction was that I felt mildly sick. My self-worth has never taken a hit this hard, and having a man who dated me for months and was prepared to introduce me to his family forget about me entirely was the most anxiety-inducing feeling I’ve had in a long time. But once the anxiety wore off the anger set in. Regardless of how blasé I felt about this guy, I would never forget who he was after only a few months of no-contact. So what the hell was Jay’s problem? That’s when I decided that I wasn’t going to take this lying down, and it’s also when I realized that Jay wasn’t as sweet as I thought. This guy deserved a healthy dose of trolling for what he was doing, and I was fully prepared to deliver it.

I emailed back and forth with him throughout the day, playing along like I had no idea who he was at all. We exchanged a dozen emails and he finally asked for my phone number. I assumed it would give my identity away immediately when I gave it to him, but as it turns out he had deleted my number from his phone since we dated so there was nothing there to jog his memory. After sending a few texts back and forth, he asked me to send a selfie to him. I knew just the photo to send.

Have you ever pulled a prank on someone and witnessed that amazingly satisfying moment when you saw the look on their face as they realized they’d been punk’d to the extreme? It’s such a great feeling, which is why I was so disappointed I couldn’t witness it for myself when I finally revealed the truth to Jay. Scrolling through my phone, I found the perfect selfie to send to him. It was a selfie I had taken of Jay and I together at the beach a few months ago while we were still dating. I placed it in a text and sent a note along with it that said, “Here is a good picture of me, and sorry about the other guy in it – he’s just some guy I used to date.”

I can only gauge his reaction based off of the texts and voice mails that followed. But I can imagine the moment he realized who I truly was must have been as anxiety-inducing for him as it had been for me when I realized I’d been so easily deleted from his memory. I didn’t answer any of his subsequent phone calls and the apology texts continued unanswered well into the second day, but my anxiety and frustration never subsided. Were my expectations truly too high to believe that someone should at least remember me after a few months of dating? And more importantly, was Jay BLIND??!?!?!

There have been a few theories from my friends about how this happened. One of them believes he may have been on drugs while we dated (or he is now), but I don’t think that scenario is accurate. The other suggestion was that he was dating so many different women at the same time as me that he honestly lost track of me in the mix. That idea was somehow worse to me than the drug theory.

One thing is for sure, in the world of online dating, lowered expectations, and two men who have lost all recollection of my existence, I can now safely say that it’s time to scratch “remembers who I am” off of my list of things I expect from the men I date.