I don’t think this is a good way of establishing proper etiquette. Personally, when it comes to the termination of a non-confirmed relationship, I would rather be ghosted than hear “I don’t want to talk to you anymore, kbye.” Apparently a number of posters in this thread feel the same way.
I would not expect some sort of formalized break up notice after two dates. I simply wouldn’t. So if you want me to put myself in someone else’s shoes, that will still not give you the result you want.
Again, if I don’t consider that a real relationship that includes obligations, no amount of scolding is actually going to make it into one.
I feel like people are talking about a couple of different things here. My understanding of “ghosting” is that you are in an actual relationship and suddenly the person just drops off the face of the Earth like they entered the Witness Protection Program.
Not responding to someone who cyber stalks you is not Ghosting.
Drifting apart from friends naturally is not Ghosting.
Even friends just acting flakey isn’t “ghosting”.
IMHO it’s the difference between not having HR respond to a resume you submitted vs showing up to work and finding the office moved without anything telling you.
I didn’t say it was, Blalron. Incidentally, that sort of behavior is something that tends to prompt a ‘ghosting’ in online conversation - communications that boil down to “It’s not a thing you never said and clearly don’t think it is, Pantastic, a dramatically overwrought thing that you never indicated you thought wouldn’t happen isn’t going to happen” are just not conducive to good conversation. Either you’re just trying to score points, or you’re trying to manipulate me by misrepresenting what I said, and neither one is a good look.
I don’t have to imagine, there are a lot of people that I’ve seen a few times IRL or messaged back and forth with, and then one or both of us ended up ‘ghosting’ (in many cases, I’ve done significantly more than hang out). It’s really no big deal, people lose interest in you or in people in general or get busy with work or find someone they click with and start dating or find a new game and ignore the real world. “Would you truly be OK” is a really weird way to ask about something completely ordinary that commonly happens. I really think the problem is people (primarily lonely dudes) that attach way too much importance to a casual contact, then try to invent rules so that they don’t have to admit the contact was really pretty minor. While I have empathy for lonely people, my empathy only lasts if they’re going to work on fixing their unhealthy attachment issues and strive to treat people decently. If they’re going to treat stuff that’s only in their head as fact and harass other people, I don’t feel empathetic at all.
I think a world in which fewer people decided that going on two dates means they are in a relationship that imposes obligations on the other person would be a kinder, more compassionate world. Trying to shame people into dating you is not kind or compassionate.
In the case of online dating, I found it was best to meet someone ASAP. If you don’t, there is messaging back and forth, phone calls… and when you meet and you’re not attracted, it gets very awkward. To end things at that point, to me, indicates a complete lack of physical attraction. What’s your suggestion in this case? Outright say it? “I’m not attracted to you” seems pretty harsh. “I don’t think this is going to work out” is an implication of the previous and seems less kind.
Between this and that some guys refuse to take no for an answer, I can understand ghosting when it’s after the first and only date.
I’m still wondering how ghosting after initial contact hurts someone more than telling them “This isn’t going to work out.”
I get that sensitive souls will worry that the other person has fallen down a well or something. But I hope we can all agree that’s an unrealistic fear that shouldn’t be indulged. (Besides, if they’re really fallen down a well, how is you knowing about it going to help them feel better?)
So the only benefit I can imagine from a non-ghosting approach is that it gives the rejectee an opportunity to defend themselves or ask for feedback. Neither which are beneficial to the rejector.
Instead of scolding ghosters for being so heartless and cruel, I think ghosting opponents need to direct their sanctimonious energy on those pathetic individuals who elicit ghosting behaviors.
It makes me think that some people want to set up strict rules so that people find it harder to leave. But making it higher stakes, making something casual harder to abandon, would likely just mean that those casual things are less common.
Just wondering leads to a mental irritation that may never be resolved.
I thought I was being ghosted this week after a great date and I didn’t understand why and it was bothering me especially because she asked me out again at the end before communication stopped. She had a cold that was getting worse as well. I sent three messages before I gave up. It turns out that her grandfather died (not unexpectedly), her phone broke and she had to fly to Florida for the funeral so she wasn’t able to contact me back. She finally got her phone fixed and did contact me with the explanation. We are going to go out again when she gets back.
I really did care about her wellbeing and it was the wondering part that was hard. It would have been fine if she told me that she didn’t want to go out with me again. I was just really concerned that something bad happened (and it did in this case). Other people have simply disappeared and I think it is rude although I have done it too mainly because of laziness, mediocre interest or conflicting priorities. That doesn’t make it right on my part however.
I was ghosted once, a very long time ago, before cell phones and texting and social media. I guy I’d been spending a lot of time with, that I thought was my boyfriend, just up and vanished. I was confused, and a bit concerned about him, but eventually I guess I just moved on. I do remember shredding the clothes he’d left behind in my apartment, so I guess I was a little angry, too.
What was worse, though, was the guy who, after a few dates, decided that it wasn’t going to work out between us and sent me an email saying as much. I replied, something short, like “ok, it’s been fun”, and he then replied with a long email detailing why I wasn’t right for him and what I’d done that made him think there was no future, blah, blah, blah… I would have preferred a ghosting.
Here in the digital age, do people expect instantaneous replies to everything? Aren’t people allowed to have lives away from their apps? As mentioned upthread, are people still able to deal with family emergencies and the intrusions of real life, or are we now expected to drop everything and immediately answer the demands of somebody we met maybe twice and aren’t even sure about yet?
Get a clue, people. Maybe… they’re just not that into you.
I have done it a couple of times. I decided it was the only thing I could do to keep me from going crazy, so I stopped all contact. I don’t like it, and it’s not a light decision to take. But I think it was the right decision, for me. Sometimes things comes to a point where there isn’t any point anymore.
I went on a solo Southern Caribbean cruise. The first evening at sea I met a woman who was also cruising solo. She was hitting the martinis pretty hard. I joined her and attempted to catch up. We fell in like. When she was ready to stop drinking, she suggested we go to my room and I agreed. She kissed me hard, then went to use the ladies room while I finished my drink.
So, she never returned. I figured she rethought the situation and was too embarrassed to come back and tell me she had changed her mind. I ordered one last drink, then headed to my room to sleep.
The next day there was a ship-wide announcement that a passenger had to be removed from the ship via helicopter. Everyone assumed a heart-attack, and some of the cruise veterans told tales of previous similar situations.
That evening over dinner I heard the details. A woman had too much to drink and passed out in one of the ship’s bathrooms, hitting her head. She was found, taken to the ship’s medical bay, but had complications from her concussion that led to her life-flight.
So, I wasn’t ghosted after all.
Oh, thank god you were alright. You had me worried there for a minute.
Your understanding is wrong, but people are deliberately trying to give you that misunderstanding. “Ghosting”, as people are using it in this thread, explicitly includes ‘relationships’ that consist only of “exchanged a few messages over a week” or “met in person two times” as ones that qualify for the label. People who refer to these as ghosting want to pretend that some chick losing interest in a chat and doing other stuff is on par with waking up to find your partner has moved out in the night without a word, but they’re just not.
Also, none of them were willing to take my suggestion of explicitly laying out the terms and conditions, even though their complaint is that the other person isn’t being explicit in their communications. If you actually said while setting up a date “Now since this is the second time we’re meeting in person, it will mark us being in a relationship, and if you decide you don’t want to see me after this then you owe me a definite break-up text” then it might be reasonable to complain that the other person didn’t follow-through, but we all know that if you state something like that out loud you’re not going to get that second in-person meeting.
Then you should talk to a therapist about managing your anxiety. It’s not the job of random strangers to fix mental problems you refuse to manage yourself. This is especially relevant since there is a strong but destructive societal expectation that women are obliged to act as therapists for random men that they encounter.
I think that much of this “ghosting” complaint has mostly to do with the dopamine rush people are so used to getting from their devices. Investment in a text or PM has become synonymous with an actual live P2P conversation. But there isn’t the nuance or body language of the latter. So a failure to receive a reply feels so much worse than a P2P lukewarm response that you can interpret as lack of interest and thus modulate your expectations accordingly.
I ignored it because it’s plainly irrelevant to anything I said. Pretty much every word of your post is an absurd exaggeration of anything I said, so I’m just going to leave the subject there.
You waited five days to come back and say that you’re just going to leave the subject there? And it’s completely relevant to your claim that if you’re exchanging messages with someone, whether you’re obligated to give them a break-up text depends entirely on whether they feel accustomed to a reply, nothing objective or dependent on your own feelings, or on anything they have communicated. And no, that’s not an exaggeration, that was your exact claim (quoted above), same as the claim that you’re also obligated to send a break up text if you’ve met someone in person and later lose interest in replying to them.
You made the claim that extremely casual connections, like responding to messages a few times or meeting in person a single time, obligates someone to either keep responding to your messages continually or send a formal breakup text, neither of which is actually reasonable.
I think it’s mostly a question of respect. At least if the would-be “ghoster” tells them outright, then the other person knows where they stand and can begin to move on, immediately.
Has anyone ever been ghosted right in the middle of an ongoing text conversation? I have. And I really don’t know what I said to turn the other person off, or if that’s even what happened. FWIW this was in regard to a platonic friendship.
Not necessarily, because you always can block them on your social media, put their phone number on silent ringtone, etc.
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It has happened to me. I thought an accident or illness suddenly occurred. I was worried for days. I was afraid to keep asking why. I didn’t want to annoy if they were really busy. And was really second guessing every nuance in our last messages. And maybe a bit scared something was seriously wrong. About a week later I got a text asking why I was avoiding them. I was crazed. I vowed never ever to be that invested again. Of course my vows be damned, jumped right back in. This person has now done this to me several times. I don’t worry about it any more though.