How did my memory get it wrong? Why did I edit the truth about her?

By David McElroy · January 14, 2019

I was absolutely certain that I remembered what happened. It was eight years ago, but it was important enough to me that I had a clear picture in my mind of what was said — and what wasn’t said.

But now I’m confused. My head is spinning just a bit, to be honest. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you the story.

Almost 16 years ago, I met a woman who I was crazy about, but nothing came of it at the time. About six years later, we reconnected on Facebook, but she was dating somebody else by then. It seemed serious, so I didn’t express any interest. Still, she took my breath away every time I paid attention to her. She was beautiful and smart and lots of other things that mattered to me.

Eventually, I noticed that her relationship with the other guy seemed to have ended. Every mention of him and every photo of him disappeared. But I hesitated. How in the world could I say, “I’m crazy about you; would you let me get to know you better?”

I finally found an excuse to send her a Facebook message. Here’s where it gets interesting. For eight years, I have believed with all my heart that her response didn’t give me any encouragement. For all this time, I have believed that I didn’t pursue it any further because I didn’t see any reason to think I should.

I have believed — with all my heart — that her reply was a quick thanks that offered no encouragement. And I’ve believed that’s why I never pursued her.

Tonight, I found out that my memory was completely wrong. I happened to be deep in old Facebook messages looking for the date something happened, and I ran across our conversation.

The narrative that was so clear in my mind was mistaken in every way. And I’m left sitting here on a cold winter night at 2 a.m. wondering how I could possibly have gotten something so wrong — about something which I wanted that much.

She didn’t brush me off. In fact, it was just the opposite.

She thanked me for what I had sent to her and she asked me some questions about myself. It was five days after Christmas and she asked me to send her some pictures from my Christmas. She asked me whether I spent time with my nieces. She asked me what I was doing for New Year’s Eve.

And she even said, “What else is new with you? I feel as though we haven’t spoken in a long time.”

Sitting here and staring at those words, I’m honestly confused. How could I have had this so wrong in my memory for so long? How could I have convinced myself that she brushed me off and didn’t encourage me to talk with her any further? And why in the world did I do this?

I know other people have had warped memories, too. I know it’s not just me. Psychology research is filled with evidence that people’s memories are wrong about a lot of things. I’m a big fan of work by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus which proves we fool ourselves quite often about what happened and that false memories are easy to plant.

So if I know all this, why in the world did I do this to myself?

First, let’s look at the evidence. When this woman asked me these questions about myself and invited me to tell her what’s new with me, how did I respond?

Looking at the log of the conversation tonight, I see that I never even responded to her. I simply ignored her questions. I ignored the chance to continue a conversation which she was inviting me to have.

I have a couple of thoughts about this, but I’d rather not tell you, because I don’t like what they have to say about my mental state at the time. But it’s the middle of the night and nobody is around but Lucy and the cats, so I’ll tell you anyway — since nobody is here to listen.

My gut feeling is that I simply got scared.

Just saying that makes me feel sick in the pit of my stomach. You see, I knew enough about this woman to know that she was my ideal. I had gotten accustomed to believing that nothing was going to work out with her. She hadn’t wanted to pursue anything when we had first met. I know that much is true, but I’m wondering now how much I might have been looking for an excuse even then.

Here’s what I’m going around the world to say. This woman seemed like my ideal woman. I had been very disappointed years before when she hadn’t wanted to pursue something romantic with me. (She thought we had too big an age gap at the time.)

So when she at least encouraged me to talk with her further — eight years ago — I didn’t hear what she really said. I heard the worst of my fears instead. I somehow interpreted what she said as a polite brush-off. And doing that gave me a rational reason to walk away instead of pursuing someone I wanted — because something in me was scared I might lose. I didn’t want to be hurt.

That’s the obvious answer, isn’t it?

I had felt rebuffed by this woman one time. When she encouraged me to talk with her again, I was remembering that. I was thinking, “Oh, she’ll still feel the same way, so there’s no use trying.” I was taking “no” for an answer to a question which I hadn’t even given her the chance to hear.

What if we had started talking eight years ago? What if we had gotten to know one another better? What if we had dated? I suspect we would have fallen in love. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll never know for sure.

What if you woke up one day and found out that your narrative about something major in your life that had happened close to a decade ago was completely wrong? Would you feel confused? Would you feel upset with yourself?

That’s the way I feel. I’m upset that I didn’t pursue the opening she gave me that day. I’m annoyed that I let my fear stop me from pursuing someone I was pretty sure I wanted. And I’m embarrassed that I didn’t let her make the choice for herself. It wasn’t fair to either one of us.

I know we get things wrong in our memory. I know we all mess up. I know that in theory. I didn’t believe I could have made this big a mistake in my narrative, not in real life. But I did.

And now — in the stillness of a cold winter night — I can’t help sitting here in the silence and wonder whether my life might have been very different if I had simply continued the conversation that my “dream girl” was offering to have that day eight years ago.

And there’s something else I feel. Even though I might be crazy — and I might be wrong — it makes me happy to believe she might have chosen me — if I’d just given her the chance.

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It’s something I wrote four and a half years ago — in the desperation of loneliness — and it’s become my most popular article. It’s not my best writing. It’s raw and unpolished. But it seems as though a lot of people can identify with it. It’s called Missing someone creates intense physical sensations in my heart. Just to give you an idea how many people still read it, I had 11,586 people visit the page last month — from 2,907 cities and towns around the world. London sent the most readers for it, followed by New York, Westminster, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto and almost 3,000 more. I’ve noticed something interesting. It always gets the most hits from an area of the world in the late hours, right after midnight, and that breaks my heart — because I understand why. All these people are so lonely and are missing someone so much that they turn to a search engine looking for answers, so they stumble upon this piece. I wrote this late at night on the day after Christmas because my heart was breaking. I needed to express how much I missed someone, and a lot of people seem to identify with it. If you’re one of those people, I have no way of knowing who you are, but I empathize with you. I know why you hurt. I wish I could do more to help. I hurt with you, because after all this time, I still feel the same way.

I just found out that a long-time Facebook friend died a few days ago. I never met Tom Ender, but reading his posts and interacting with him over the years made me feel as though I knew him. He was a kind and gentle man who was also a fierce and principled individualist. When his long-time wife, Julie, died several years ago, it broke his heart. About a year ago, he posted an old photo from their wedding long ago and wrote, “18 months ago, Julie passed from this world. I believe we will meet again, though I don’t know details of how.” As I mourn the death of this gentle and brilliant man, my fondest hope is that he and Julie are together again by now. Goodbye, Tom.

When Francesca Montanaro’s school shut down in March due to fears about the new new coronavirus, she had nowhere to go. Francesca’s mother is a nurse working long hours in New York City. The grandparents who would otherwise have provided child-care were old enough to be vulnerable to the bug, so they were out. That meant Francesca has spent the last few months with her dad at his pizza shop in the Bronx. In this six-minute piece from Radio Diaries and NPR, we take a look at what it’s been like to be a bright and typical 11-year-old thrust into a completely different world. She puts pizza boxes together and answers phones. She’s even learned to make perfect pizzas. I found the story touching. It reminds me of the degree to which children used to learn more about the real world than they do today. Even though she won’t follow in the pizza-making footsteps of her father, I’ll bet this will be one of the defining experiences of her childhood, one that she will treasure for years to come.

I noticed three instances over the weekend of people talking about Donald Trump’s “campaign of hate.” I wanted to correct them — because they misunderstand this narcissist — but I knew they wouldn’t get my point. It’s not that I’m defending him, because what he does is worse than hate. You simply have to understand the way narcissists think to understand him. Trump doesn’t hate. It’s worse than hate. He’s indifferent and angry with anyone who doesn’t obey him and worship him, those who don’t give him what’s called “narcissistic supply.” People believe that Trump hates blacks or Hispanics or foreigners or whatever group which he’s seen as hating. It’s true that he experiences rage at people who will not give him what he wants, but he’s not in touch enough with his real self to feel real hatred, much less to feel real love. He’s like a vampire who sucks all the available praise and adoration from any group of people — any way he can get it. He doesn’t love rural, blue-collar white folks, but their adoration gives him what he craves. He’s not emotionally mature enough even to hate. For a narcissist, people are simply objects to manipulate, depending on what he can get from them. Trump’s indifference is far worse than hatred. This isn’t ideological or political. It’s pathological. He’s not mature enough to hate.

The decline of modern culture can be seen clearly by looking at what passes for public discourse. There was a time when people who wanted their ideas accepted made rational arguments. It was assumed that most people were bright enough and rational enough to evaluate those arguments — and a surprising number of them really were. Today, the arguments are made in the form of irrational and simplistic graphics called “memes.” Because these graphics can’t convey complex or nuanced information, they present dumbed-down presentations of positions which are stunningly juvenile and seem designed to offend rather than to convince. We have regressed from books and dense pamphlets to a level more like that of angry kindergartners making crayon-scrawled hate notes to send to other children. Reason no longer plays a role in public discourse, and this signals the coming fall of this society.

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