There’s something suspiciously enchanting about someone who isn’t around. When they’re not texting back, not showing up, or not in the room, they become saints, poets, and misunderstood geniuses in our minds. We replay their half-smiles like sacred relics. We assign meaning to silences. We say, “They must be thinking about me too.” (They’re not. They’re probably thinking about pizza. Or nothing. Or someone else.)
This is the trap of absence: it creates a vacuum, and like all well-meaning romantics, we fill it with fantasy.
The Psychology of the Vanishing Act
When someone is no longer around—physically or emotionally—they stop contradicting our ideal version of them. We don’t see the dishes they didn’t wash or hear the boring stories they repeat. We don’t feel the small daily rejections. In absence, their flaws are conveniently deleted from memory, like an embarrassing status update we deleted in 2009.
They become a highlight reel of best moments, backed by a soft indie soundtrack only you can hear. Meanwhile, their real, complicated, often mediocre self fades into the background.
You Fell in Love With a Ghost
Not the spooky kind. The kind who’s very much alive but emotionally unavailable, noncommittal, or just flat-out gone. You’re not in love with them, you’re in love with what their absence lets you imagine. You are the screenwriter, director, and star of your own psychological romcom—complete with longing stares at your phone and tragic sighs on public transport.
It’s not love. It’s projection with better lighting.
Why Do We Do This?
Because presence is messy. Real love shows up, argues, misunderstands, and occasionally farts under the covers. It requires patience, humility, and the willingness to see someone as they are, not as you wish they were. Absence doesn’t ask for any of that. It gives us full creative control over a fantasy that will never disappoint us—because it never has to do anything at all.
And let’s face it, disappointment is exhausting. Fantasies don’t disappoint us. People do.
Stop Writing Their Story
The next time you catch yourself saying, “Maybe they’ll come back,” or “They probably miss me too,” pause. Ask yourself:
Are you remembering a person, or are you remembering a possibility?
If they were so magical, where are they now? Why are you the one doing the emotional heavy lifting while they lounge around in your mind like a vacationing Greek god?
They’re not perfect. They’re just not here.
And in their absence, maybe it’s finally time to show up for yourself.
