I want to tell you a story of a girl I once dated that we will call Literary Darling.

I met Literary Darling on a dating app. She got my attention based on a simple number; 97%.

That was our compatibility score based on almost 200 questions that both of us had taken the time to answer about ourselves and what we want in a partner. We had 97% compatibility, the best I had ever seen on the site. Looking at her profile, I was 97% sure that I liked her. She was beautiful, a writer and a reader. We went to the same college and both majored in English. We liked the same movies, took the same classes, had the same hobbies, and seemed to have the same interests. We both lived close to each other. She worked at my local Starbucks. When I told one of my besties that, she immediately told me to “wife that bitch.” I did really, really like her. I was 97% sure of it. I was 97% sure I could fall in love with this girl. I was 97% sure I was going to message her. I was also 97% sure she was not going to message me back.

But, she did.

We even traded numbers, texted, and talked.

She asked me out on our first date.

She was gorgeous and wonderful in person. Her ponytail was sassy and as humorous as she was. She dressed trendy and seemed completely out of my league. But, we went to Panera. We ate salads together. I made her laugh about my job and my family. Her laugh was perky and contagious. Her eyes shined with life and compassion. I was definitely 97% sure she was out of my league, but I was also 97% sure I wanted to be.

We went to Barnes & Noble afterward. We bought books based on each other’s recommendations. Both of our receipt totals were high but normal for book-lovers. She also bought “Me Before You” in hopes of reading it before the movie came out. Literary Darling volunteered to let me borrow it when she was done. The offer made my heart skip. That is a sacred move among book-lovers. Loaning a book out was like letting someone borrow your child or pet. It was an act of trust and affection.

After many toils, we arranged a second date. We ate at a Mexican restaurant, where I fell in love with an appetizer that she recommended (that I even ordered to-go and ate for weeks after that date). I chugged down the sangria that she ordered for me to calm my nerves. When the waitress came to our table, she asked if we were going out. Literary Darling immediately answered that we were on a date. My heart fluttered as butterflies swarmed my stomach.

We walked to the movie theater after dinner to see “Me Before You.” We had both finished the book that week, so we were aware of what we were walking into. Yet, she was far more prepared than me, bringing a blanket and a box of tissues, and I admired her for it. We enjoyed the previews and even pointed at movies that we longed to see together like “The Girl On the Train” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” — after we both read the books, of course. I was 97% sure we played footsies beneath the blanket as the movie played on. We cried during the film. We loved it.

We were planning on having a third date the following day. We were going to go to Trader Joe’s together, a first time for both of us. Then, the day after for our fourth date, we were going to go on a picnic with food she made from scratch. I was looking forward to it. Mind you, I panicked over what to wear for hours, but I was so excited for it all because I was 97% sure that she was interested in me. It was the first time in a long time that anyone had been so eager to spend time with me for romantic reasons. It was new and beautiful and I loved every bit of it.

Then, Literary Darling fell off the face of the earth.

The day after our second date, she overslept and lost her phone. She didn’t contact me until the end of the following day, after I had given up on her and our date. I had said that I understood. It made sense to me, and it was perfectly acceptable. I asked her if she still wanted to go on the date we had planned for the next day or if she wanted to change things up.

Literary Darling didn’t communicate with me for two weeks.

When she finally did, she apologized for the silence. She said she was having trouble at work and with her family. I told her that I didn’t understand why that would keep her silent for two weeks without so much as a text to let me know that she was okay. I told her that I was here for her, to help her, and that maybe it was time to talk about where we should go next in our relationship.

She never replied to me.

This is my Second Date Curse. I call it Ghosting, when someone falls off the face of the planet and leaves me with nothing but silence, worry, and unanswered questions.

This has happened to me countless times before. The Second Date Curse has always kicked in somehow either by one of us breaking up with the other after the second date or by the other person disappearing without a word. The first few times this happened, I just shrugged it off like it was just a sign to move on. But, then when I noticed the pattern, I wondered what was wrong with me. I felt like an abandoned piece of meat, like I was irrelevant and unimportant. I felt like I was un-loveable, like a piece of trash. I was hurt and in tears because I wear my heart on my sleeve and I give everything, I do my all, and these people not only rejected it, but they didn’t even tell me that they just didn’t want me. They didn’t even give me that respect and common bit of decency.

Then, like the stages of grief, I learned to move on and get over it, to accept this as my cross to bear and my own curse. It still bummed me out. It came to the point where I became scared to talk to others out of fear of being hurt and broken again. Love scared me because love tended to cause me pain. I began to realize, however, that we love in order to feel loved and satisfy that hunger and the pain that can come with that proves that we are still alive.

Finally, I have learned and I continue to learn that it is all a stepping stone, a learning experience. I have discovered that those people just aren’t worth my time since they didn’t think I was worth being told that they were no longer interested in me. I have learned to just be like Beyoncé who says that "a winner doesn’t quit on oneself". Sorry, ain’t sorry.

There is someone out there who will not only love me for me, but who will be my best friend and fulfill my “sexpectations” as one of my besties calls it.

I have this curse, and I am learning to play with the cards I have been dealt. I am currently talking to people, and I aspire to be dating and eventually falling in love with someone.

But, the aftershock of the first date still scares me.

I am scared. Scared of what could happen. Scared of losing them. Scared of falling in love or out of love with them. Scared of being alone. Scared of being abandoned. Scared of having to do this all over again. Scared of being hurt once more. I’m scared.

And, I hate that I am. I hate that I can’t fully express my feelings and nerves to anyone. I hate that my experiences have to cloud my optimism about love.

Yet, I do remain optimistic about love. I am a hopeful romantic. I will never change that part of who I am.

For now, I will live in the moment and try not look to the next moment. I will wait to see what happens. I will hope for the best. But most importantly, I will always keep my laptop and library close to my heart. At the end of it all, I know that love will never leave me.

To the ones I have loved/liked and lost before, I do sincerely wish you the best. If you had told me how you felt, you would know that. No matter what just know that you have stepped into the life of a writer and us writers have a tendency not to let those we loved (or liked) die, even if we deeply wanted to. So, congratulations on your figurative immortality. I hope you use it to gain courage and a heart so you can have mercy on the hearts you leave behind in your warpath.

I love you all no matter what. But, I do love myself as well.