The Ultimate Guide To Ghosting: Why People Do It, How To Respond & More
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Loading... - Fred Manute
- 02 Sep 2022
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Your date from last weekend still hasn't texted you back about hanging out again. A promising new lead at work suddenly stopped responding after you shared your rates. The guy on Facebook Marketplace who offered to buy your old television just never came to pick it up, and you never heard from him again.
It comes in many different forms, but the experience of being ghosted is universal. And most of us would probably agree: ghosting sucks.
In This Article
1
Meaning
2
Ghosting examples
3
History of the term
4
Why people ghost
5
Ghosting responses
What is ghosting?
Ghosting is when someone stops responding to messages and disappears from a relationship without explanation, usually in the context of dating. The term can also be used for any situation where a person abruptly stops communicating or showing up, such as when a friend starts ignoring your texts or when an employee just stops showing up to work without ever formally quitting.
"Ghosting exists on a spectrum and can happen at literally any part of dating, from disappearing from a chat on a dating app and unmatching, to leaving your text messages on 'Read' after a date, to cutting off all communication with you after years of dating," explains sex and dating coach Myisha Battle, M.S. "All of this is ghosting behavior."
Many relationship experts discourage ghosting because of the way it affects the person being ghosted. "It leaves the other person to guess at what they did or didn't do to cause you to ditch them. That guessing is the specter that looms in people's lives after a disappearance," Battle tells mbg.
According to clinical psychologist Carla Marie Manly, Ph.D., that lack of closure can trigger feelings of uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, and even reduced self-esteem in the person being ghosted. "In general, ghosting is disrespectful and tends to perpetuate patterns of dismissiveness and avoidance," she says.
13 examples of ghosting:
1. Ignoring or choosing not to respond to someone's texts or emails indefinitely
2. Leaving someone's text messages on "Read"...forever
3. Going on a date with someone and then never speaking with them again, despite them trying to follow up
4. Unmatching with someone on a dating app in the middle of a conversation without explanation. Read More...
