I’ve only ever deliberately ghosted someone once. It was a friend-of-a-friend who was gradually moving into the “friend” category. Then he got married. Exactly one year later (after attending their 1st anniversary party) I consciously decided to never contact either of them again. I felt a little weird about it, but I couldn’t come up with a polite way to say, “Your wife is an irredeemable asshole and rape apologist, and I never want to risk being in the same room as her again.”
Miller brings up an interesting question - what do you do if someone’s partner is intolerable (for whatever reason)?
Back to the original question, however, I’ve been ghosted by a once best friend, and I’ve ghosted a former friend.
I think in the realm of dating, ghosting is not the right thing to do but I have done that a long time ago, but with an actual girlfriend I did send a letter to her and did respond to a couple of phone calls.
But if you’re a guy and you’ve had it with a male friend, what’s the requirement?
I’m not buying this at all. If you have interacted enough times that someone expects you to respond, I believe you owe them a “this is over” explanation, if nothing else.
And so you are satisfied actually emotionally harming the other part? Maybe you should limit the number of interactions you begin in the first pace based on the number of rejections you think you have in you.
This is crazy. Of course it’s more hurtful just to disappear without an explanation. It’s open-ended. It’s disrespectful. It’s selfish.
It is absolutely acceptable to tell someone “this isn’t going to work out.” I’ve done it in my life and I’ve had it done to me.
… Wouldn’t that actually take far more effort than a simple, respectful “this isn’t going to work out”?
They will come back with some version of “What is over? Did you think I was interested in you? Gross. I just felt sorry for you because you seem lonely.”
At some point, there’s so little relationship that “ending” it requires you to have a discussion about whether or not it even existed in the first place. Which is awkward for both people. At some point it’s kinder to let both people pretend it was never much.
The thing that a lot of people in this thread don’t seem to get is that no one is obligated to interact with you. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, they can just… not talk. Calling it ‘ghosting’ when someone loses interest after a brief interaction and adding over-the top prejorative language like ‘chickenshit’ doesn’t change that no one owes you a conversation if they’re not interested in it. And that includes a conversation about how they’re not interested in you, or are bored with what’s been discussed, or if they’re just busy and don’t have time for chit-chat with strangers.
Sure, if you’re actually dating someone and then one day just up and vanish, that’s a dick move, and that’s always the image people whining about ‘ghosting’ want to conjure up. But the examples in this thread that people are claiming ‘emotionally’ harm people through ‘chickenshit’ action are things like ‘went on one date, decided not interested, stopped chatting’ or ‘talking online some, lost interest, didn’t give a formal goodbye’. The real problem is that some people want to treat very casual interaction as much more significant than it really is, not that some people decide they don’t want to keep text-chatting with you.
So you want people to outright lie? Because a lot of times it’s things like ‘Oh, I saw that you’re not a swell person but I have no desire to argue with you about it and so just cutting contact is easier.’ Like if you go out with someone and then see that they show up with a Confederate flag shirt, or mention that they think anyone into [thing you’re into] is just messed up, or something along those lines.
I also doubt getting an emoji that just says “I’m not interested” will satisfy someone who needs closure to move on from a brief message exchange or quick dinner. If people really did start using such an emoji, I would expect the same people who complain about ghosting now to complain either about getting emojiid, or how the other person refused to respond to their demands for an explanation of getting emojiid.
This is an absolutely insane standard, BTW. There are people that expect you to respond to an unsolicited message, that doesn’t mean that I owe them even an instant of my time. The idea that strangers get to arbitrarily put an open-ended time commitment onto someone else is pretty gross.
Sometimes it’s a choice between “being less hurtful” and “being in potential danger”. I’ve been there, and after experiencing someone banging on my door screaming and crying*, I know exactly what I’d choose this time around. Your fucking feelings aren’t worth my safety. I was goddamned lucky in that situation. I don’t want to hear about poor widdle you. Women have died because they were worried about “hurting someone’s feelings”. (No, I wasn’t in that nearly that kind of danger, thank god! But if I was, fuck someone psycho’s fee-fees)
*All because I told someone I couldn’t talk because I had to study for my finals.
I don’t agree that no explanation is more hurtful for any and everyone. And I don’t think an explanation is required for any and every situation.
Occasionally I’ll get an email from someone from my distant past looking to re-establish contact. There have been a few times when I haven’t responded back. Is this wrong? Well, what if I have come to the realization that the person is a douchebag? What if the person is perfectly okay, but I just don’t have the energy to rekindle things with them? IMHO, sending them a “Sorry, I don’t want to talk.” But have a nice life!" message would be both unnecessary and cruel. I’m curious how would you handle that kind of situation. To me, I see it as no different than not answering the phone when I see a certain person’s number on the caller ID or not answering the door when I see a certain person knocking on it.
Hell yes, it is selfish. I don’t enjoy unpleasant situations, and it is patently unpleasant telling someone you don’t want to talk to them. But you know what is also unpleasant? Being asked why. Having to listen to a sob story. Having someone accuse you of being mean and heartless for rejecting them. I’ll put up with these unpleasantries from someone that I have invested time and energy in. But if it is a pseudo-rando I only know based on the few electrons they’ve sent me? No.
I think this is the crux. To me, a couple of dates is not in “I deserve an ANSWER!” territory, while a marriage of 43 years is. Somewhere in between there is the turning point.
I also think that the people who say it’s better to say something have never been in those “But what did I do WRONG?” conversations.
If you need closure, think of what you would do if the person said “It’s not working. Have a nice life.” Got it? Now go do that.
There’s nothing crazy or unreasonable about what I’m saying. If you’ve been exchanging messages with enough frequency that the other person had become accustomed to a reasonably prompt reply, and absolutely positively if you’ve met in person, then simple human courtesy demands a “Look, I’m sorry but I’m not interested in pursuing this any further.” Period. Nothing I said even remotely implies any further obligation.
The other person deserves that one, clear, unambiguous, discrete point in time when there’s an actual communication in words from the other making clear that’s no question that there will be no further relationship. That’s it. That’s all. Just once. And that’s not too much to expect. That’s a bare minimum of decency in interacting with a human being.
All the other questions about “what if that person demands to know what he or she did wrong,” that’s unquestionably on the other side of this clear, bright line.
There is absolutely something crazy and unreasonable in the rule you created. First off, the rule you posted did not have anything about exchanging messages, you added that just now to soften the insanity. As I said and you ignored, some people expect prompt replies to unsolicited messages, with NO starting exchange.
But even going with your current rule, it’s absolutely completely unreasonable. You DO NOT GET to set up obligations in your head that other people have to follow. The fact that you want someone to reply, or expect it, or whatever else is in your head simply does not create any obligation on the part of the other person. Plus this is just a weird concept in general - I meet a lot of people in real life that I end up not talking to much, I don’t have some weird obligation to ‘break up’ with every single person that I end up not texting. (And both ignoring what people say and creating obligations on them are extremely off-putting to a lot of people, and very well might be prompting the ghosting you see)
No it doesn’t. Period. Talking to someone doesn’t magically make them obligated to continue engaging in conversation with you, or allow you to invent a set of rules and impose them on the person. And calling your irrational and unreasonable demands ‘courtesy’ doesn’t magically make courtesy, it just means that you’re misusing a word.
You aren’t entitled to other people’s time, and the fact that you’re this obnoxiously insistent that you get to dictate how they spend their time, attention, and energy is a gigantic red flag. That’s not hyperbole, a lot of people that I know will cut contact immediately if they go on a couple of dates and the date makes it clear that they feel those few dates entitles them to dictate terms. Trying to shame someone into doing what you want be declaring them to be indecent if they don’t dance to your tune is the only thing lacking decency here.
Well, I’ve done it. The thing was that I went out with this guy three or four times, and he already was getting just ultra controlling. So I told him I thought we ought to cool it, and he agreed.
By cooling it he seemed to think that meant he had to call me three or four times a day and explain why we didn’t really need to cool it.
That wasn’t what I meant. But every conversation with him led to why I was wrong for breaking up with him, because he would change. (Note: I did not care if he changed. I was just not that into him, at all. He’d ruined it; I was turned off.)
A person like that, you just have to cut off.
I’m pretty sure that in almost any instance where someone ghosts someone else, there is a reason for it. If there is not a reason for it then the ghosting person is a shitty person and the person being ghosted is better off without them anyway.
For instance, if you are living with someone, and that someone up and leaves and disappears from your life, you just need to tell yourself one of two things: “I did something to deserve this,” or “He is a shitty person.”
There is really no point in finding out what you did to offend someone who is through with you.
I think after the second date you owe it to the person to say you want to stop seeing them. Just a short text will do.
I’ll never understand ghosting beyond that point. It’s pure chickenshit, as someone else described it.
Nah, what’s chickenshit is whining that someone didn’t follow a rule that you made up in your head, and saying that they’re a bad person because they don’t accept your imagined authority to give them orders, and that they don’t jump through your completely arbitrary and personal hoops (breaking up via text is OK according to you, but according to other people it’s ‘chickenshit’ to break up via text, to highlight that).
If you really want people to follow a set of rules that you have carefully laid out, then present them with the rules when you first contact them (certainly before you expect them to give formal notice), and ask them whether they agree to your terms and conditions. Don’t be surprised if you get a lot of ghosting after you honestly present your requirements, though.
Also the whole behavior of declaring that someone who rejected you is bad for rejecting you, but hiding it behind ‘oh, they didn’t reject me in this very specific way that I made up and didn’t tell them about’ is high grade chickenshit.
i’ve had a “friend” ghost not just me, but like everyone in our social circle.
he deleted all of this pictures on instagram, changed his username to an odd combination of numbers and letters like “11122bb11” something like that … really strange, he deactivated his facebook and everything else. I still have him on snapchat, but he never opens any of the things I or any of our mutual friends send him. He just dissapeard. I think he lives in fort worth or austin now, we used to jam together all the time, but he just left without saying goodbye. What a jerk.
Leaving social media counts as ghosting now? When I shut down my Facebook account, did I unilaterally ghost 350 people?
For what it’s worth, one of the most unexpectedly humiliating things that ever happened to me what when someone sent me a text kinda like that when I was in NO WAY pursing a relationship. I was very married, and I thought he was just a guy I worked with that I would occasionally message about work related stuff–somewhere between networking and gossip. He apparently was concerned I was hitting on him and wanted to set me straight. This was years ago and it still makes me cringe that he thought that based on a really vague pattern of texts.
If you don’t want to text someone, quit responding. Directly commenting on it just turns what can be fizzled proto-friendship into an explicit rejection. How is that kind?
If the other person has been building castles in the air based on a series of casual texts, that’s all the more sign that they are a little too invested in the concept of a relationship and not in any particular person.
I/we hate the goodbye ritual when leaving a party. If you say goodbye to everyone you need to plan leaving an hour ahead of time. My routine is to drift toward an exit with an empty in my hand and ghost on outa there.
Yeah, different use of the word.
Note that Acsenray’s rules explicitly do that. According to him, you’re not allowed to even decide whether or not you’re in a relationship with someone, if you text them a bit and certainly if you see them in real life then it’s up to them whether you’re in a relationship or not. They weren’t obligated to tell you up front that you are now are committed to a relationship, but you do owe them formal communication breaking off the relationship that you may not even know exists.
you stole an idea and your completed result isnt yeilding anywhere near the popjularitry youd hoped… well at least there isnt an obligation to share your profit. maybe next time collaborate and copperate with the creative mind before you run a potantially piece of worth off the cliff of greed and envy…
teams are better than individual productions … historcially proven despite stories of inventors and such that obvioudly didnt do their work solely by one and only one minfd
It’s not a law Pantastic. You won’t be arrested for not following it. I’m merely asking people to have a little bit of empathy for the person on the other side of the screen, to try to put yourself in their place. Think how you would feel if you were the other person. Would you truly be ok with being on the wrong end of a “ghosting”?
I hope that this thread persuades some potential “ghosters” to change their behavior. I think a world in which fewer people did this would be a kinder, more compassionate world.