THE GHOSTING CULTURE

The total way of life of a coward

Have you ever ghosted someone or have you ever been ghosted on?

How did it feel like to abruptly leave someone?

How did you feel after been left alone with no closure whatsoever?

I have been in both situations, to be honest, and I can say being ghosted has to be one of the worst feelings ever.

Imagine walking down a strange road with someone, and all of a sudden they disappear. You are left there, you can’t go further neither is turning back a good enough option.

I am not completely sure if the ghosting culture is only a millennial norm but I will solely focus on relationships because it exists even in our day-to-day lives.

Business owners would be able to relate to this the most because customers are like “I will get back to you” and they never do. I’m equally a guilty customer though.

Anything apart from the fact that ghosting is a cowardly strategy will not convince me.

What is the ghosting culture???

It is disappearing when you are scared to face a difficult conversation. Ghosting includes having the strong desire to avoid the discomfort of communicating honestly when the subject matter is not in your favor or rosy as we deem fit.

I met someone once, we got talking, flirty texts, late-night conversation, we were all cozy, vibes were high and feels were full. The romance was set in and suddenly silence. 

Stand still quietness in DMs and they were no longer within reach.

Until someday, he posted on his Instagram and I saw him replying comments on his page. Then I was sure, I have just been ghosted.

Getting rejected is a tough one but silence without any explanation is worst. You will be left bewildered and confused as to what has gone wrong or what is going wrong but the only thing you will be sure of is that you have been ghosted.

I can’t pretend it doesn’t suck to be ghosted. I know I’m not the first or last to experience the phenomenon but it still felt a bit like someone had punched me in the face when it happened. The disregard is insulting. The lack of closure is maddening. You move on, but not before your self-esteem takes a hit. The only thing worse than being broken up with is realizing that someone didn’t even consider you worth breaking up with.

When do you know you have been or you’re being ghosted?

It’s 3 am and you are awake, waiting for a call or a text since you haven’t heard from that person all day. You cry and even fall asleep waiting.

Two weeks later and not a single reply to your texts or a call back after severally trying to reach out to them.

At this point either they call back later or not, you are being ghosted. 

That feeling of dryness you feel in your mouth when you see that they’re alive and doing fine but you’ve been shut out of their life is the “ghosted feeling”. I want to say we have all been there but not everyone.

In this day and age, it's increasingly easy to just stop contacting anyone we aren't interested in without ever facing consequences. 

It’s like having the freedom to choose who we want and don’t want in our lives but what about the people at the receiving end?

One person walks away unhurt, while the other is constantly wondering what they did wrong. The truth of the matter is, if you use the ghosting technique to end romantic conquests, then you are full of crap(including me at some point in my life).

The thing is, people are very aware when they’re being ignored, and it’s just as much, or if not more painful than breaking it off with them directly. Last month, while I was in school, I ran into someone whom I previously ghosted, and he very honestly admitted to me that what I did, “fucked him up for a while”. 

I felt guilty for leading him on, but knowing the repercussion of my actions on him made me feel worse. I did like this person but after our second or third time going out I just couldn’t continue it, but he also deserved to know that.

Karma really came for me later, but I can't even share that.

You might think by ghosting the other person, you will make it easier for them to get over you. But, in reality, the other person's feelings are never even accounted for if you just disappear. 

Ghosting someone is selfish because it's taking the easy way out of an uncomfortable situation. If you truly don't want to pursue them, just tell them that. It's better to swallow a hard truth than to sit there wondering what went wrong or if you died in a tragic accident.

Being ghosted is maddening, you’ll feel your entire nervous system shut down, to say the least. You will overanalyze your last few conversations and your last text. 

You will ruminate for days and weeks because you weren’t given a real explanation as to why it ended or what happened. After all, everything seemed fine to you. 

Or maybe a little disagreement you thought was over led to never hearing from them again. 

No matter how hard you try not to, you will blame yourself because that was the easiest route when you tried to make sense of it all. It’s like you weren’t even used and dumped! You were used and left to yourself to do the actual dumping.

After getting ghosted and you meet a few people to share your confusion, they might say things like “why are you shocked” “Well, it’s what people do these days” and you should just “get over it” since it wasn’t that serious anyway. But to you, you know it was serious because you felt real things for this person.

No matter how desperately you want to believe this person isn’t terrible, you will get frustrated that they didn’t give you a fair chance or at the very least, some closure.

Part of you will want to be hurt. Part of you will hope that when your phone ring, it was this person. And the other part will be angry with yourself for not being able to move on as fast as they did. Logically you know that you shouldn’t have gotten attached, but emotionally you can’t help it.

If you’re in this position now you’re probably asking yourself where you go from here, or how you make yourself feel better after feeling completely rejected.

A very important piece to note is: 

Sorry to break it to you, but they saw your text. And they are not too busy.

Millennials always find easy ways out of situations by normalizing cultures that are wrong.

As much as it might seem incredibly normal to talk to people. It's not quite dating, so there isn't a huge commitment to the person, but it's more than casual. You tend to spend your time consumed with this one person, waiting on DMs, texts, or calls from them, hang out now and then, or sometimes a lot in a short period, and it feels like such a rush of emotions.

Then the ghosting happens. 

They drop off the map and you don't hear from them for a few days or even weeks or even never but you still have that lingering hope and feeling that they'll come back around. 

Then boom if maybe life happens, they call one night, or text or message you, and it's like you were suddenly put back together after weeks of anxiously waiting for them. 

Sometimes this becomes a pattern with someone you like, which makes your whole relationship feel like one big roller coaster. 

These types of relationships shouldn't be romanticized. 

This person literally is playing with your head. 

Is it a rush? 

Sure. 

That's probably why we look back and think it was some great roller coaster of a relationship and we constantly long for their attention or to get some type of closure. 

We think this person is the one that got away because they left without any explanation. We think there is something wrong with us because we didn't hear from them for a long period, or we simply never heard from them at all. 

It messes with our head and turns us into a ball of anxiety and stress. It turns us into someone who thinks we aren't good enough or someone who then worries and acts differently toward our next relationship because of how these ghostings affected us.

Does that sound like romance to you?

No.

This is not romantic. 

It is not the great love that we've all been waiting for. If it was the great love you've been waiting for, 

Would you be sitting by your phone waiting for a call? 

Would you be playing the who-cares-less game, and be pretending you never really cared even though it's eating you alive inside? 

Would you feel like you weren't good enough or feel like there was something wrong with you just because they never called or texted you back?

Let me make this clear:

The answer is no.

Now, call me old school, but romance is when they text you just because they were thinking about you or send you food knowing that it would make you happy.

Romance is when you get picked up for a date. Romance is when they tell you that they want to be with you and you two commit to one another. 

Romance is whatever you determine it to be, but at the end of the day, they aren't ghosting you. It makes you feel special. It makes you feel loved. It makes you feel like you're dizzy because this person is treating you better than you've ever been treated before.

Stop romanticizing non-relationship with people who don't know how to tell you they just don't see this going anywhere. Stop romanticizing someone making you feel less than special. Stop romanticizing something that is not romantic. 

What to do when you have been ghosted?

Might be difficult but MOVE ON!

Don’t wait on them. Don’t hope. The more you do this, the more you’d get hurt.

Cry as much as you want.

Take your time to heal.

If you are one of the people who were unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of this supposed-to-be-canceled culture, I have good news for you. 

You dodged a huge bullet. 

Even though the relationship might've been short-lived, it's clear that this person is lacking the emotional maturity for it to last anyway. 

If they can't even bring themself to admit they are not that into you, how would they ever be able to function in a communicative, loving relationship?