I was in the car on a family road trip to North Carolina when I realized what was happening. Scrolling through my conversations, I ignored a certain text that had gone unanswered and instead wrote a text to my friend, Nevin.
“I think I’m being ghosted.”
Halloween may have come and gone, but ghosting in the dating world goes on year-round. Nora Crotty defined ghosting in “Generation Ghost: The Facts Behind the Slow Fade” in Elle as “the ending of a relationship by one party who gradually removes him or herself from the other person’s life—via canceled plans and decreased communication—until eventually, all communication ceases.”
In a generation like ours, ghosting only makes sense. We hook up to avoid commitment and would rather risk having someone we’re dating see someone else than have a conversation about being exclusive. When acronyms like “DTR” (define the relationship) are part of our everyday vocabulary, it’s only to be expected that ghosting is a part of the dating process as well.
This summer, I was “talking” to a boy. This is yet another one of the many ambiguous terms that we use today to describe relationships. Basically, we were texting every single day. There was no actual commitment, per say, but it felt like it when my phone was constantly blowing up with text messages from him.
Yet, something was off. After so many weeks of texting back and forth, I began to hint at hanging out. Each hint was met with a vague agreement that amounted to barely anything. This was the beginning of the ghosting. Slowly, but surely, the texts trickled off. Soon, they stopped coming everyday, and the conversations became shorter and shorter. I would get a text from him and respond, only to hear nothing back. The “relationship” was evaporating before my very eyes.
Eventually, I out-ghosted the ghoster. He tried to reappear after a few weeks, but I disappeared on him (rightly so). But was I really the victim? We never defined anything. But is ghosting ever really acceptable?
I say no. The truth is, we all know what’s going on in our love lives. Behind the over interpretation of text messages and wondering why he never called, we can all tell if a guy’s into us or not. And it’s the same thing on their end. A guy knows what kind of message he’s sending to a girl by texting her every single day (even when the conversation continually goes nowhere).
So let’s buck up. Be real with a person. Don’t send them the wrong signals. If you know it’s not going anywhere, say something. And if you want it to go somewhere, say something about that too. Let’s face it; I was just as responsible by not confronting this guy about what he was really looking for in talking. But we waste so much of our love lives dodging what we really want: not defining the relationship and getting screwed, settling for a hookup over a date because it’s convenient. It’s time to insert a little honesty and assertiveness into our dating lives. Let’s put an end to ghosting once and for all.
Read Nora Crotty’s story on ghosting here: http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/girls-ghosting-relations…