Losing Recipes: Love in the Age of Ghosting

by Naiquan.

Last summer, a friend and I realized we hadn’t seen children playing in the fire hydrant. No elder on the block with a key to unlock the “Johnny Pump”. As a child of the Brooklyn Spike Lee portrayed in “Crooklyn,” I know first-hand the feelings of protection and support from my neighbor’s grandfather, Mr. Penny, when he fixed my bike for free.  Or, the immediate rush of excitement I got looking out the window to see my friend yelling for me to come outside. I remember seeing my mom give up her seat for elders or women with children. I was taught to do the same. Support from a grandfather, desire called from a window, generosity offered on a bus — all of it arrived before I ever knew what romance was.

Without one of the most sacred ingredients — community care, romantic interaction has become graceless, tasteless, and undercooked, respectfully. Because of the Digital Age we’ve lost the secret sauce for slow-cooked romantic love and connection. 

There’s no book on how to navigate human interaction, especially romance. We’re all on the planet for the very first time. And for Black queer people, it’s harder still. Our intersections are rarely held together long enough to become traditions. We haven’t passed down nearly enough of our notes on care and collaboration. Most of our elders aren’t here to teach us.

The majority of our Black queer elders aren’t with us any longer. Where would we have learned grace in romance? Mr Penny’s bike shop is closed and my little homey isn’t calling to my window asking me to come outside and play football. The practiced art of emotional call-and-response itself has ghosted us. While I don’t blame any specific group for this change, I do think there were signs when romantic culture and community care for Black people and all the intersections of Blackness, including Black queer people, started to decline.

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Picture it. The interwebs. 2016. Instagram introduced IG live; the algorithm changed. Users were now able to interact with their friends and followers in real-time. Instant external validation fed us. Gone were the days of sharing cool artsy images on IG and Tumblr just for sharing’s sake. The influx of curated social media accounts started to gnaw at our internal love organs, creating a very diluted way of interacting with each other. For Black culture, Ta-Nehisi Coates released a “Black Panther” comic, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History officially opened in Washington, D.C., Colin Kaepernick kneeled for our ancestors, and toward the end of the year, “Moonlight” premiered. On the surface, Blackness flourished, including “Black Girl Magic” taking over the Olympics. The more visible Black culture became, though, asking your neighbor for sugar as a way to build rapport vanished.

We could check our friend’s IG story versus just calling them to see how they were doing. Our feeds gave us all the info we needed to confirm they were indeed okay. No need to visit in real-time. No incentive to yell out the window.

I got ghosted via IG last year actually. I took a chance to do the reaching (Janet Jackson in “For Colored Girls…” voice). My initiative was received well. The person said they appreciated my approach. I can’t recall what I said verbatim. I have since deleted and blocked him. I most likely expressed that I enjoyed what I saw of him “doing the work” on Instagram. I offered a date and time to meet. After a few voice messages back and forth, I got no response. In the past, I’d write something like: “I’ve reached out in earnest and we seem to be misaligned so I’ll exit this connection gracefully.” This time, I said no such thing. I deleted my previous messages. I blocked him. I moved on.

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My inclination to offer grace even in low stakes interactions has continued to wane since 2016. Even after my active community care practice ramped up in 2020. I, too, have succumbed to the effects of one-on-one interaction being lost on and to me, specifically in the romance department. Not only have I been ghosted, I’ve ghosted men too. Upon reflection, I’ve acknowledged that when I have ghosted a potential partner it was pure avoidance. It was easier to disappear than to share hurt, disappointment, fear, or plain disinterest. The last time I shared disinterest required me to be honest about the fact that I used another man’s body to tease out hurt I had around my father. Rather than share the latter, I expressed a mild version of my disinterest and evaporated away into the abyss.

Fold back in “Moonlight,” I recall watching that film and taking a deep exhale when 16 year-old Kevin kissed 16-year old Chiron. The way Kevin’s hand landed on the back of Chiron’s neck; casually, without fear. The pause when they both realized what would come next. I saw the fear escaping all the nerve endings in their bodies. A kiss. Lustful and innocent. Bold and scary. I remember in 2016 being within hand’s grasp of friends and potential lovers, but not being present enough to be reached. My connection to lovers and myself was lost or non-existent. All forms of love suffered. I was about a year removed from breaking up with my first-ever boyfriend in 2016. When we dated I didn’t want to hold his hand in public. Like Chiron, I was scared that this Black queer body would get hurt, harmed, or clocked for doing what felt so natural to me. Unlike Kevin, we’ve lost the vulnerability of our youth needed to gain the connection we deeply desire. Our phone screens have replaced courage with curation and fear, providing a barricade to the courage we need to excel at romantic love, through community.

In All About Love, bell hooks writes: “There is no better place to learn the art of loving than in community.” Community is romantic love’s practice ground. The tender place where we can dance toward home in all manner of ways. The good, the bad, the ugly, and, hopefully, return to our sacred front door before our emotional curfews end. 

For as much trial, loss, and error I’ve had in the romance department, for the last 4-5 years, platonic romance has held my hard truths tenderly when romantic courtship wasn’t enuf. One night, I expressed to my best friend the experience of loving her. I recall the weight of fear dissipating as this Dear One really took in and heard what I said. I learned in that moment that hard truths weren’t things to avoid, but tools to lean into with integrity. Things that could be received with care. This moment injected optimism into my bones, safety into my veins; helping me know that if I could speak in this way with my best friend, I could practice the same shape of honesty with a romantic partner.

Naiquan. is a multi-medium storyteller, creative strategist, and mentor dedicated to building worlds where Black and queer communities can see, hear, and celebrate themselves.