I chatted with someone a few years ago. We clicked immediately in a way that just really felt like kismet, that I've only once ever clicked with someone before (my best friend of 20 years). It was as if it was "supposed" to happen or some woo-woo like that. Hell, when I met my best friend back then we hated each other for the first few years despite having the same group of friends. But something in me told me to keep going. Even though we started off horribly, that turned around one day a few years in. We're still best friends all this time later. Point is, experience tells me that when my intuition draws me that hard to someone, I keep tabs on them even if doing so makes no sense at the time.
He wanted to move to my neck of the woods sometime around 2023 as a long-term plan he made before we'd even met. He ghosted chatting with me after a while for no clear reason; we hadn't argued or anything, and the last I heard from him was something like "hey sorry I missed you online, hope your day goes well and talk later!". Ever since then, he hasn't contacted me at all. I wasn't blocked or unfriended or anything like that, he just stopped replying after that. I checked on his very scantily updated social media every few months or so, figured being friends with someone online barely matters in the long run anyway and maybe we could bump into one another later on down the line and have lunch or something.
I had a weird feeling telling me to check on him today. Nuked everything from orbit literally yesterday. Nothing left of his online presence, no information about anything that happened, no trace left on any of his profiles except the one that had our last open chat, and his "last seen" date there is quite old. Any avenue of communication gone.
I realize this DFE has nothing to do with me. We haven't talked in a long time, so as far as I'm concerned I'm exactly where I was yesterday, or last week, or a year ago.
I'm not an idiot. My logical brain has known this entire time that ghosting while still being online means just that- he has zero interest in talking to me, no matter how much it seemed like we were clicking. His move here could still happen. Maybe not. And either way, any decision still has nothing to do with me. I even know on a sensible level that nothing has changed for me here. My life has continued without him. I've made new friends, changed jobs, dated, taken vacations, and gone on living since then, and of course he has too. My feelings are obnoxiously complex. I don't know what I expected? I'm sad that this feels like more of an ending than the ghosting did. I hate that the nagging feeling that we'll still run into each other someday is even now not entirely silent. For fuck's sake it's been years now. I've been ghosted both before and since, and I'm experienced enough with it that I'm over being upset by it within days. But not this one. This one has been occasionally coming back to tap on my shoulder for no clear reason. The guy hasn't given me any indication that he has any interest in ever seeing or speaking to me. I'm disappointed with myself that seeing "deleted user" bothered me so much, even after all this time.