If you’ve ever had to go through the painful experience of the “talking stage” before dating, you might be aware of an even more painful experience called “ghosting”. Ghosting is when after talking to someone for some time, they decide to completely stop responding. Whether they stop responding to texts, Facetime calls, Snapchats or dating app messages, ghosting is when someone acts like they don’t exist anymore in order to refrain from talking to you. If you’ve ever been ghosted, you might recall the uncomfortable, confusing feeling of “Did they forget to answer me?,” “Are they okay?” and “What did I do wrong?”. These are reasonable questions to have after being ghosted by someone who you talked to for what you would consider to be a long time.
Some people ghost, while others do the ghosting. If, as mentioned previously, you were ghosted by someone, you may wonder why someone would ever choose to ghost.
Some would argue it’s the easiest way to get out of a situation or prevent a relationship from progressing without hurting the other person’s feelings. Others would argue that ghosting does exactly the opposite and actually ends up hurting people’s feelings more because they’re left without any sort of explanation.
I feel as though most people would argue that ghosting is wrong because it leaves the other person with lots of potential questions and confusions, but I would argue that in certain situations it is acceptable to ghost someone.
Now, before you click out of this article with concern for my character, think about this perspective: if you’ve ever been in a situation where you feel like you NEED to respond to someone because you’re afraid of what would happen if you didn’t, I think that’s a fair reason to ghost someone.
I had an experience in the past where there was an older guy continuing to Snapchat and text me. Even though I was never physically with him, I felt pressured to respond because he was older. In this situation, I ended up ghosting him. I didn’t feel comfortable explaining to him that his age made me feel uncomfortable and concerned about the things he was saying to me and insinuating, so I ended up not answering him.
After I decided not to answer, he continued to text me, Facetime me and Snapchat me even though I had stopped answering. This made me feel unsettled and I ended up blocking him on all platforms. While this may seem extreme, I felt that it was necessary for my privacy, safety and mental health.
In that specific situation and ones that align closely with it, I think ghosting and blocking him was the right thing to do. I kept seeing his name pop up on my Instagram when he liked my photos and viewed my stories, and I decided I didn’t want him “orbiting” (a term that defines the period after ghosting where you can still see the person liking, viewing or commenting on your social media posts). Again, this situation is specific, but I think it’s worth explaining that in certain situations, you’re not the bad guy for leaving someone on read.
However, I don’t think ghosting someone in a regular situation is okay. If someone just isn’t your vibe, you don’t feel as though you see a future with them or there’s something in your personal life that came up, I think being honest and upfront is the best way to go about it. I think communication should be valued in any sort of situation, no matter how long or how little you talked to someone.
All in all, the consequences for the person being ghosted are high, while the effort it takes to ghost is low. Put the effort in to provide some sort of explanation. It’ll help people move onto their next talking stage with much more confidence than they would if they weren’t provided an explanation.