Big Baby Ego Needs Validation

I have a confession to make. It just dawned on me that the story I’ve been relaying on these pages is one of perceived rejection, and not actual rejection.

I wasn’t really “ghosted”. I merely witnessed a disappearance.

I didn’t go on a “date”. I merely crossed paths with a stranger.

We borrow fantasies from cultural narratives and call it romance. The ego feeds off these. It is a monster that eats up stories like a glutton. It prefers those that reinforce its self-aggrandizing illusions. For example: I am lovable, likable, intelligent, desirable. Any other story that contradicts these is seen as a threat, a rejection, and triggers a panic mode. It requires excuses to justify its lack of validation: she is selfish, she is stupid, it’s her loss. But the truth is that everybody has their own reasons, and those reasons are personal, really inaccessible, and thus unknowable.

The ego is a big baby. It needs constant attention. When threatened, it is ready to strike back with a vengeance. That’s why narcissists are always at war. Look at her, she’s copying me, her boyfriend is ugly, she’s fat. Those are all attacks meant to boost the ego. But they are untrue.

I wasn’t rejected. Quite the opposite. I was saved. Or rather, I was spared. And even better: I was educated. This experience of perceived rejection clued me into my own unconscious process of ego boosting.

She had her reasons for ghosting me, I had mine for desiring her. An obvious mismatch. Therefore why feel sad…or hurt?