I don’t understand it. I really don’t. You sleep with a man, it’s good, sometimes it’s even great (Rare as Duck Cake), and then he just… vanishes. Not even a slow fade. Just gone. Like he woke up the next morning, looked at you sleeping next to him, and immediately started calculating how fast he could get out of the country without leaving a trace. No text. No call. No lazy “last night was fun” message. Nothing. Just complete radio silence, as if you’re going to turn up at his flat with a megaphone and a PowerPoint presentation titled “So About Last Night.
It’s actually mental when you think about it. We’re grown adults. We both knew exactly what we were doing when we took our clothes off. There was consent, there was chemistry, there was even some half-decent conversation beforehand. And yet the second it’s over, some men act like they’ve just committed a federal offence and need to enter witness protection. It’s not like we didn’t know where this was heading. We were both there. We both participated. So why do so many of them disappear like they’ve done something deeply shameful?
I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened to me or my friends. You have a genuinely good night, maybe even a really good night, and then… crickets. You’re left staring at your phone like a sad Victorian orphan, wondering if you imagined the whole thing. Did he die? Did his phone get stolen by raccoons? Did he suddenly remember he had a wife, two kids, and a timeshare in Spain that he forgot to mention? Or did he just wake up and decide that acknowledging what happened would somehow make it too real and therefore terrifying?
The weirdest part is how obvious it is when they’re doing it. You can almost feel the energy shift the second it’s over. Some of them go from being all over you to suddenly very interested in their phone, or needing to “get an early start in the morning,” or remembering they have to feed their neighbour’s cat that they definitely don’t have. It’s so transparent it’s almost impressive. We’re not stupid. We know what you’re doing. You’re not being mysterious or cool. You’re just making everything painfully awkward for everyone involved.
And look, I get that not every sexual encounter needs to turn into a relationship or even a second date. I’m not saying every man has to text the next day declaring his undying love and asking what our kids would look like. But is a simple, normal message really that hard? Is basic human decency after you’ve been inside someone really that much to ask? Apparently it is. Because a shocking number of men would rather ghost than send one single, slightly awkward but perfectly normal text.
What makes it even funnier is how many of them were the ones pushing for it in the first place. They were the ones texting all day, building it up, making it very clear they wanted to see you. Then the second they get what they want, they act like you forced them into it at knifepoint. Like you held them hostage and made them have sex with you against their will. It’s ridiculous. You were both adults making a choice. Own it. Or at the very least, don’t act like the victim of your own decisions.
I’ve had men disappear on me after genuinely good sex. Not even bad sex. Not awkward, disappointing, “well that was a waste of a good shave” sex. Proper, sweaty, fun, connected sex. And still, nothing. Not even a “hope you got home safe” or a lazy thumbs up emoji. It’s like the second they finish, their brain completely rewires itself and decides that any further interaction with you is now dangerous and must be avoided at all costs. What are they so afraid of? That we’re going to catch feelings? That we’re going to expect a relationship? That we’re going to tell our friends they were mid? Because I promise you, most of us are not that pressed. We’ve got lives. We’ve got jobs. We’ve got other people to mildly disappoint.
The irony is that disappearing actually makes everything worse. If they just sent a normal message, even a slightly clumsy one, it would be fine. We’d move on with our lives and probably never think about them again. But when they vanish into thin air, it leaves this weird, lingering awkwardness that nobody asked for. It makes you question what happened. It makes you wonder if you did something wrong. It turns what should have been a straightforward, adult interaction into something that feels shady and slightly unhinged. And for what? To avoid a mildly uncomfortable thirty-second text exchange? Make it make sense.
I think a lot of men do this because they’re terrified of coming across too keen. They think if they message too soon, they’ll look like they’re catching feelings and that’s somehow embarrassing. So instead they do the complete opposite and disappear entirely, which somehow feels less humiliating to them. It’s such backwards logic. Ghosting doesn’t make you look cool or emotionally detached. It makes you look like someone who can’t handle basic communication after getting his dick wet. Congratulations, you played yourself.
And don’t even get me started on the ones who disappear and then reappear weeks later like nothing happened. The classic “hey stranger” text at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, as if we’ve all forgotten what they did. As if we’re just sitting around waiting for them to remember we exist. It’s exhausting. Either be in or be out. Don’t treat people like a takeaway you ordered when you were drunk and now can’t decide if you actually want.
I’ve started noticing that the men who disappear are often the same ones who were overly keen beforehand. They love the chase. They love the build-up. They love the validation of getting you into bed. But the second it’s done, the thrill is gone and so are they. It’s not even about you as a person. It’s about the ego boost they got from the pursuit. Once that’s over, they move on to the next target like some kind of emotionally stunted Pokémon collector. It’s pathetic, really.
What’s even more frustrating is how some of them act genuinely confused when you call them out on it. Like you’re the one being unreasonable for expecting basic manners. I’ve had men get defensive when I’ve asked why they disappeared, as if I’m the problem for wanting an explanation. One guy actually said, “I just didn’t know what to say.” Mate. It’s not that deep. You could have said anything. “Hey” would have been enough. “Last night was fun” would have been more than enough. But no, complete silence was apparently the easier and more mature option.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of men still see sex as something they do to a woman rather than with her. So once it’s done, they feel like they’ve completed the task and can now move on with their day like nothing happened. There’s no sense of it being a shared experience that deserves some kind of basic acknowledgement afterwards. It’s transactional in the worst, most boring way possible. They got what they wanted, so why bother with anything else? It’s giving “I came, I saw, I left without saying goodbye.”
It’s exhausting. It makes dating feel like a game where you constantly have to protect yourself from being treated like you’re disposable the second the fun part is over. And the worst part is how normalised it’s become. Women are just expected to shrug it off and move on, like it’s some inevitable part of modern dating. We’re told not to take it personally, not to overthink it, not to expect too much. But why should we accept being treated like an inconvenience the second the sex is over? Why is basic decency considered “expecting too much”?
I’m not saying every man has to marry you after one night or even text you the next morning with heart emojis. I’m just saying have some basic respect. If you slept with someone, at least have the decency to acknowledge it afterwards. It’s not hard. It takes thirty seconds. And it saves everyone a lot of unnecessary confusion and hurt feelings that nobody asked for.
The truth is, disappearing after sex says a lot more about the man than it does about the woman. It shows a lack of emotional maturity. It shows an inability to handle even the smallest amount of intimacy or accountability. And it shows that they see the women they sleep with as temporary entertainment rather than actual human beings with feelings and phones that work perfectly fine.
So no, we don’t need you to fall in love with us. We don’t need a relationship or even a second date. We just need you to not act like being near us after sex is some kind of crime you need to run from like you’re in a bad crime drama. We know where you live. We have your number. We’re not going to hunt you down with a pitchfork. Just send the bloody text and move on like an adult. It’s really not that complicated.