SHAREEF
Partner: Shareef, 40
Location: New York, New York
Missing Partner: Pamela
Disappeared: February 2024
Relationship Length: 2013 to March 2024, approximately 10 years
Relationship Background
Shareef met Pamela in a creative writing class in New York in 2012, the two were exploring creative outlets and bonded during their class.
They started as platonic friends, writing together every week. After about a year of friendship, they began dating exclusively in 2013. Shareef contends that their relationship was stronger because it began with a foundation of friendship and full transparency. They openly discussed their grievances, past relationship issues, and what they wanted to avoid and do differently moving forward. Ironically, they both spoke about their abhorrence of “ghosting.”
In 2015, they moved in together. For the couple deeply in love, it felt like an easy and natural progression of their relationship.
They talked openly about being together forever. Marriage itself did not matter much to either of them, as they’re not particularly religious or traditional. However, they strongly believed in a monogamous, lifelong commitment to one another.
Life Leading Up to the Disappearance
In late 2023, Pamela, who worked as a nurse, was increasingly stressed and unhappy about work. She didn’t find nursing a career fit and was looking for a shift. She was applying for other jobs constantly, exploring creative paths, and interviewing frequently.
Her schedule was packed. At this point they were seeing less of each other because she was constantly moving between shifts and interviews but otherwise, everything appeared to be stable.
Disappearance
In February 2023, Shareef came home to their apartment and found that Pamela’s belongings were gone. It wasn’t just a few things, it was everything. He remembers that it was in the evening.
His immediate reaction was shock. His heart sank. He wondered if they had been robbe… but why would someone take only her things? But then it became clear. She had packed up and left and took her things.
When he called or texted her, it rang or went straight to voicemail. She blocked him on social media as well. No notes, and no explanation.
Shareef even went to her job at the hospital and learned she had not shown up for several shifts.
He contacted her friends. They had no answers. He even called her mother, but he never heard back from her.
At that point it was clear to him that she was alive, but had simply left town and didn’t tell anyone.
The Spiral of Questions
In the weeks and months that followed, Shareef ran through every possible explanation. Did she meet someone else? Was the stress about work actually stress about leaving? Had she been planning this for months? Was she unhappy and hiding it? He began asking himself a deeper question: Who was I with for nine years?
Shareef even contemplated a darker possibility: had their relationship been built on a foundation of lies? He began to question what was true and what wasn’t. Was Pamela really looking for other work all this time? Had she been having an affair?
She had confided in him that her father had died by suicide. As much as he hated to even think it, he wondered — had she lied about that too? Had her father abandoned her family in the same way she was now abandoning him?
Lastly, Shareef wondered: did Pamela plan her escape weeks in advance, perhaps with the help of her mother?
Immediate Fallout
Both of their names were on the lease. For several months in 2023, Shareef covered the rent alone before ultimately breaking the lease and paying a financial penalty.
He describes 2023 as one of the most traumatic years of his life. After nearly a decade together, Pamela was family. Her disappearance felt like a death without confirmation.
He still has one hand bag that she left behind, no other possessions.
Why He Needs to Find Her Now
Still reeling from the disappearance years later, Shareef has not been able to date. He wants to find his forever person, a true life partner, someone to build a home with, grow old beside, share holidays and ordinary Tuesdays with, and commit to fully and without hesitation. He still believes in monogamy, in choosing one person and building a life together. But he cannot bring himself to move forward until he gets closure from Pamela’s disappearance and he cannot do that until he tracks her down and makes contact.
Shareef does not want reconciliation. He wants acknowledgement. Because after a decade of commitment, believing she was his forever, he cannot move forward into another lifelong partnership without an apology or at the very least, an honest explanation.