Ghosting is the reality of the modern dating world

[Tennis]

https://www.thestar.com/life/2016/10...ing-world.html

You may not believe in ghosts, but they assuredly walk among us.

The ghosts I’m talking about don’t trudge around the attic in heavy chains or send your grandmother’s fine bone china flying across the room, however. These ghosts are a little more ordinary. You’ve probably even encountered one. The dating world is full of ghosts.

Ghosting is the scarily common dating practice where the person you’re seeing disappears from your life without warning or explanation. They simply stop responding to your calls, texts and emails.

One day, you’re sharing a root beer float and petting cute dogs in the park. The next day, poof! They’re gone. Vanished, like a ghost.

A few months ago, social media expert Terra Loire, 26, met someone on dating app Tinder. Everything was great, at first.

“We went out a few times — just casual dates like brunch and drinks. (We talked) about life and bonded over our cats. He would text me all the time and was very thoughtful. He drove the emotional part of the relationship by being very forward with his feelings for me, which I appreciated.”

After a few weeks of schedules not aligning, they finally agreed on another date. He cancelled the day of, stating he was “tired.” He was genuinely apologetic and promised to set up a date for the following week. She never heard from him again.

“Ghosting is frustrating,” Loire says. “Especially when I work very hard to be honest and allow the other person opportunities to express their interest or disinterest in healthy ways. That should eliminate the need to ghost in the first place.”

Ghosting is a cowardly and disrespectful move, to be sure, but in a world where we’re accustomed to ending relationships with the literal push of a button (defriending, unfollowing, blocking), it makes sense. Ghosting is an easy and nonconfrontational way to get out of something that’s not working for you.

For the ghostee, it can be confusing, enraging and can even instill actual panic — did something happen to this person? Were they in an accident? Are they okay?

A friend recently asked me to check up on another friend of mine on social media to ensure he wasn’t dead. He had told her he would call her soon to plan another date and she never heard from him again. According to recent Facebook photos of him drinking with friends, he was alive and well. He had simply ghosted.

Playwright Graham Isador, 27, has been both ghoster and ghostee.

After meeting an interesting and beautiful woman in another city, they kept in touch. It became clear to Isador after a return visit that they had very different expectations of the relationship.

Back in Toronto, he took longer to respond to her texts and was always “busy” when the phone rang.

“I didn’t handle that thing well,” Isador admits. “I avoided conflict. I let things drift in that ‘what happened’ scenario that is intensely frustrating. When you don’t know what happened, it’s hard to get closure.

“I was trying to think of a comparison and the best thing I came up with is: pulling the band-aid off. Pulling it off quickly is going to hurt a bit. But if the alternative is leaving it on until the band-aid grows gross and dirty and eventually falls off on its own? It’s pretty clear what to choose. I owe that girl an apology, but I think it is too late to get in touch now.”

Isador likely won’t make the same mistake twice, considering what followed.

“The next girl I got involved with ended up ghosting on me. So, you know, enjoy the schadenfreude.”

I have mixed feelings on this.

At the end of the day they have a choice to settle down with a reliable, mature individual or continue to play the dating game and get burnt over and over.

[Independent voter]

Saying goodbye in person is stressful. I would never just dissappear but I can see how ghosting is popular.

[Belloc]

People have been ghosting each other for, presumably, centuries. It's nothing new.

[Tennis]

It's crazy that she thinks that because they went on a couple of dates and then he disappeared, it's considered to be cowardly and disrespectful. It's hardly a long term relationship.

[DisposableHero]

People do not enjoy negative interactions and will avoid them in whatever way they deem fit, and not in ways designed to be courteous or polite to people they do not have a long term history with. There is nothing new or more prevalent about this, other than the fact that social media has provided us with dozens of new and ever more intrusive ways to check up on the people who are ducking us.

[veehro]

This is not a new practice. We used to call it flaking. You would talk with a girl and set up a date in advanced. You would start saving money for said date (used to be in highschool), be excited that the moment is almost ariving then 30 minutes before the date she would call and cancel.
Sometimes she would not call at all and youd realize she is not coming.

Now a days guys simply have access to more girls with apps like tinder/social media etc. And yeah i admit I ghosted some girls as well.

It does feel allot better then having the conversation "yeah i know i set up a date on friday but i met this other girl in the mean time, she is allot more funny then you are and we have allot more in common, and since i only wanted to date i think well stop talking now"

[Azadina]

"social media expert"? What is that?

[Aoyi]

I love how they feel the need to come up with a new name for being a cowardly asshole. I'm sure this isn't new behavior. It might be more common today, but really, there's no excuse. Just make a call if you're too scared to say it to their face.

[Tennis]

People have been ghosting each other for, presumably, centuries. It's nothing new.

It's different now with online and distance relationships. The other person can just not answer calls or respond to whatsapp messages etc. Leaving the ghostee to wonder and worry.

[Atanox]

It's crazy that she thinks that because they went on a couple of dates and then he disappeared, it's considered to be cowardly and disrespectful. It's hardly a long term relationship.

I completely agree that it's not a long-term relationship if they've only gone on a few dates. However, it is extremely cowardly and disrespectful, regardless. I feel like even if you don't want to see the person anymore, they deserve to know why. They've spent time and effort trying to get to know you, and you, them. And essentially by just "ghosting" out of a dating situation like this you're saying that time and effort was meaningless. They have no idea WHY the person decided to just stop talking to them. Was it something they said? Did they forget deodorant one evening? Was there spinach in her teeth for an entire date? These are all, relatively, understandable reasons for not wanting to see someone again, but I also think it would be a commendable thing to at least say what happened to make them not want to go out again.

A moment of discomfort talking to a person about something like this will not only help the person doing the turning down grow emotionally but will also help the person being turned down learn from possible mistakes they made while dating. That, and closure in any situation, regardless of how long or short a time it's lasted, can be important for both parties involved.

[veehro]

It is cowardly and disrespectful. If you don't think so it's because you're a spineless pussy, and you're what's wrong with the world. Weak faggot.

you do realize this is usually a tactic done by women

If you REALLY wanna i could tell women that "yeah i just found some one better then you during the course of the last few days, she has biger tits she is smarter and she seems willing to put out sooner. She also claims she likes video games"

But then ill be called an asshole and be judged for the decision on how i want to spend my time. Something that can easily be avoided

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Ghosting is ethically wrong, but then again there's a lot of things to take in consideration. I ghosted - once - in the past, but it felt terrible. Eventually the other person came to me asking why I didn't answer, then told them that I didn't feel the same way he did and didn't want to hurt him more than necessary. Obviously that didn't go well.

[Selastan]

2spooky4me.

[Kagonos]

It's crazy that she thinks that because they went on a couple of dates and then he disappeared, it's considered to be cowardly and disrespectful. It's hardly a long term relationship.

Well, as a person who has ghosted before, I agree with her. I was being cowardly and it IS disrespectful. I'm not proud of how I handled it, I mean we went from talking daily, texting constantly to just "Poof!" I'm sure she was confused and hurt by it and she deserved an explanation, for sure. We met in game, and when I took a break from playing, my interest in her waned and so the texting and chatting became less frequent, then I just stopped. It's different than the examples above because we never met in person and that was how I justified it to myself, but it's a shitty way to end things. In the end, I understand WHY this happens, but it's fair to call those who do it cowards. I was avoiding an uncomfortable situation and that does make me a coward in this instance.

[Celista]

Ghosting is not acceptable. You don't need to go into detail regarding why you don't want to see x person anymore, just say that you met someone else, you don't think they're a good fit, etc.

The *real* reason ghosting is popular is because of two reasons: one, some people do it accidentally (get caught up in life, and are genuinely that bad at managing their time, forget about their date until a few weeks have gone by...also probably not that into you when that happens), and two (and probably more common) those that do it intentionally (met someone else, but want to keep the door open "just in case", try to sneak back into your life).

I have not been ghosted on but I'd be a little paranoid about it happening again if it had happened to me. I have had friends who ghosted (on others) with bullshit reasons and generally being spineless pussies seemed to be the reason why they did it.

I love how they feel the need to come up with a new name for being a cowardly asshole.

Ha, exactly.

[Deleted]

Ghosting is pretty cowardly and weird but to be fair, the modern dating environment has become ... cowardly and weird

Just the result of a bunch of factors that it would be politically incorrect to delve into

[Sci Fi Samurai]

I've had it happen to me a couple times.

Though I can proudly say I've turned down a girl the good old fashioned way and just told her I wasn't interested after a couple dates. Felt like shit, but I know the alternative is to just leave them hanging, which I think is genuinely mean.

[cubby]

It's a bit rude, but whatever. Nobody is obligated to have any kind of relationship with you or anyone else. Move on and dgaf.

Some people are self destructive by nature, and for whatever reason are unable to form a solid relationship. I'm not making fun of these people at all. They want a relationship, they just can't seem to take the right steps to solidify one. And the people they try to create relationships with suffer because of it - although it's really no ones fault.

We're all just a big bag of chemicals - it's a wonder any of us can have significant relationships.

[Felya]

You met on Tinder? Isn't that just a bang app or am I confusing it with something else?

[God Save The King]

I don't see much of an issue with the idea. Its a little rude, but beyond that there's no real harm. It's one thing to ghost out of a long term relationship, but a few dates in which you weren't even going steady? The "social media expert" is acting like this was some long term situation she invested a huge amount of time and energy into. Sounds to me more like a handful of casual dates and it not working out.

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You met on Tinder? Isn't that just a bang app or am I confusing it with something else?

Some people take Tinder literally and think it's a dating app. It's just a hookup app at the end of the day, but its sketchy to advertise it that way. Plus a lot of people don't want to admit to themselves that all they really want is casual sex, so they dress it up.