Urban dictionary defines “ghosting” as “The act of suddenly ceasing all communication with someone the subject is dating, but no longer wishes to date.” This typically happens when the ghoster (individual who initiates the ghosting) decides that they do not want to date or hook-up with the ghostee (individual who gets ghosted) anymore. In many situations the ghoster is under the impression that ceasing conversation will end things easily and not hurt the ghostee’s feelings. However, more often than not the ghostee is left feeling confused and not knowing what happened to a seemingly happy relationship.
From a personal standpoint, I think ghosting is one of the worst ways to end a relationship or even a flirtationship. If the person you’re talking to for some reason falls off the face of the earth, then you’re going to wonder why they didn’t want to talk to you anymore. It doesn’t matter who is ghosting whom; the end result will be one person with many questions.
When I say ghosting, I don’t mean you’ve gone on one date with this person or hooked-up once and they don’t text you back. I mean you have been seeing this person for at least a matter of months and they have been encouraging about the relationship throughout the time you’ve been together and then suddenly stop answering your texts or avoiding you in the dining halls for no reason.
I don’t know about any of you readers, but I personally would rather have a guy tell me that it’s not working out for whatever reason and that he thinks we should go our separate ways. For example, when a guy you like stops responding for a while it could make you feel like you’ve done something wrong (which may or may not be the case, but you’ll never know because they’ve cut all communication).
Ghosting has become a “thing” in our generation mainly because of the frequent communication and all of the social media platforms we have at our fingertips. We are constantly waiting for that Instagram like, that Snapchat, or that text from a special someone. When that doesn’t happen we obsess over the other girls’ picture our special someone liked and being left on read. Ghosting is a product of the digital world we live in, but it is still not a legitimate way to end a relationship of any caliber.
I have vowed to never ghost someone because I’ve been in the shoes of the ghostee and I know how many questions I had when it happened. It sucks and I wouldn’t want to do that to someone else, but all in all it isn’t the end of the world. If whomever you were talking to can’t give you an explanation as to why they want to end things then they are not the right one for you anyway and as my field hockey coach always said “boys are like buses: if you miss the first one, the next one is right around the corner.”