In my last article, “Why You Shouldn’t End a Relationship by Ghosting,” I touched on ghosting, a dating trend where someone breaks up with their friend or partner by suddenly cutting off all communication with them. I believed that after being ghosted by someone your relationship with that person couldn’t get any worse. That was until I watched a segment from an episode of The Real aired last week.
One of the hosts, Jeannie Mai, kicked off the segment by explaining haunting. Haunting is a dating trend where the person who ghosted you keeps tabs on you via social media although you have no contact in real life. They pop up and spook you on your social media by sporadically liking your Instagram posts, watching your Snapchat stories, and maybe even commenting on posts (and possibly deleting the comment shortly after).
The hosts of The Real then talked about their own experiences with haunting and asked the audience if they’ve ever haunted someone before. Some audience members raised their hands, indicating that they had haunted someone before, but believed it was no different than ordinary Instagram stalking.
This segment left me with lots of questions. Why would anybody want to pay attention to the social media of someone they ghosted? I thought if you were ghosted, that meant the person you were in a relationship with wanted nothing to do with you anymore. To me, haunting just sends the person mixed signals and makes the situation more complicated.
Odds are, the person who ghosted you may want to see if you’ve moved on with someone new. Haunting could be their way of seeing if you’re available or not if they’re thinking about reaching out to you again. On the other hand, they might think you’re someone they see as a friend, but not someone they’d want as a partner.
Whatever the reason may be, don’t let this dating trend have any impact on your everyday life. If the person who ghosted you is now haunting you, you probably played your cards correctly if they can’t forget about you after your breakup.
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