Kate Didd

(Day 86)

I found out recently that it’s “not normal” for every man you’ve ever dated to have you blocked.

Not one or two.
Not the dramatic ones.
All of them.

At first, it landed like a question mark sitting heavy in my chest. Like maybe there was something about me I hadn’t turned over yet. Something I hadn’t named.

And then someone said something to me, something spiritual, almost romantic in the way it was framed.

They told me that when a man blocks you like that, it’s because he can’t imagine a timeline where he doesn’t end up with you. That seeing you, knowing you’re out there, continuing life without him, is too painful. So he removes you completely. Out of sight. Out of mind. Self-preservation.

And I won’t lie… for a second, it felt beautiful.

Like grief disguised as devotion.
Like I had been loved so deeply it broke something in them.

But I don’t live in fantasy anymore, even when it’s flattering.

So I did something simple. I went through my phone and checked.

Name by name.

I don’t have any of them blocked.

Not one.

Which means at some point, without announcement, without conversation, without closure… they all made the same decision about me.

To disappear.

And the longer I sat with it, the more the truth started to shift shape.

Because my life… it hasn’t collapsed in their absence.

It’s expanded.

It’s gotten quieter in the ways that matter and louder in the ways that count.
It’s gotten softer, safer, more aligned.
It’s gotten better.

Not in spite of them leaving.

Just… without them.

And that’s when it hit me, the part no one romanticizes.

The dreams I’m living right now?

They look familiar.

Not because they belonged to someone else…

But because I tried to build them with every person I’ve ever loved.

The home.
The stability.
The growth.
The version of life that feels full instead of chaotic.

I thought those were “our” dreams.

They weren’t.

They were mine.

And I carried them into every relationship like a blueprint, hoping someone would help me build it. Hoping someone would meet me there.

But here’s the thing about building something real:

You can’t co-create a future with someone who isn’t capable of holding the same vision.

So what happens instead?

You outgrow them.

Not loudly. Not dramatically.

Just steadily.

And that kind of growth… it does something uncomfortable to people who aren’t growing with you.

Because you become a mirror.

Not of who they are.

But of who they could have been.

Of what they didn’t choose.
Of what they didn’t finish.
Of what they weren’t ready to become.

And not everyone can sit in front of that reflection and stay.

Some people don’t process.
They don’t communicate.
They don’t close doors with words.

They remove access.

Blocking isn’t always heartbreak.

Sometimes it’s avoidance.
Sometimes it’s emotional immaturity.
Sometimes it’s the easiest way to not feel confronted by a life they didn’t build.

And if I’m being honest?

I don’t think they blocked me because I was “too hard to lose.”

I think they blocked me because I was too hard to witness.

Because I didn’t stop.

Because I kept going.

Because the version of me they knew didn’t stay frozen in time to make them feel comfortable about where they ended.

And the quiet truth underneath all of it, the part that finally settled something in me is this:

I didn’t lose anything that was aligned with where I was going.

I just stopped trying to carry people who weren’t meant to walk it with me.

There’s no anger in that anymore.

No need to prove anything.

Just a very grounded understanding that I was never too much…

I was just moving forward.

And not everyone is built to come with you when you do.