An increasing phenomenon
Many people do not know what “ghosting” means. Some may think of some sort of supernatural thing, however, it is a practice that many of us have experienced first hand, and perhaps we have even carried it out deliberately without knowing the definition. “Ghosting” happens when a person we had a relationship with, for a short or long time, suddenly disappears with no contact. Often the disappearance also comes with being blocked on social media, including the phone number. It is a complete vanishment, often without warning, especially without a clear explanation of why it’s done.
It usually occurs with people who are about to establish a new relationship, but it can also happen with people who have known each other for many years. Friends are also part of this list, and the deeper the relationship was, the more confused the victims appear, precisely because they cannot explain such behavior, especially from a person they thought they knew so well.
The drastic nature of such behavior is that you have no warning, and when you suffer it, you are left with a constant question in your head that keeps nagging at you: “Why?”, “What did I do wrong?”.
Maybe we meet someone and go out on a date, things seem to be going well. We talk for a while and things seem moving in the right direction. Then, out of the blue, the person doesn’t answer anymore. We wonder why. Although at first, we try to justify the lack of response by thinking the person is busy. Then as time goes by we realize that we have been blocked from social media and we can no longer call.
The brain, by nature, tends to look for answers. In this case, it keeps on overthinking and reasoning to find a solution that it will never find. Then anger begins to rise, alternated with sadness. We are angry with the new person’s attitude and we are sad because he has done us such a wrong. In addition, we try to give a new perspective, even to the positive moments. Were they sincere or fake even then? Was the pleasure we had an illusion? And in the midst of all this inconsistency, the mood swings are continuous and we do not know what strategy to implement.
You surely wonder how the other person will be experiencing this. Whether he or she will have any remorse for the harm done. Or if his/her ruthlessness and indifference will be perennial. Certainly, the person carrying out “ghosting” will initially feel relieved from a burden and responsibility. Or even happy to have achieved what he/she wanted, but in the long run, he/she will have to reckon with his/her avoidance. With the fear of meeting his/her victim and having to account for it. And on the other hand, living with the knowledge that he/she has acted unfairly, even if he/she may never regret it. Those who behave like that, usually tend to justify themselves by convincing themselves that they are right, rather than admitting that they are wrong. In the long run, such people will likely tend to repeat this behavior with others, and it will be increasingly difficult for them to cope.
The feeling you get when you suffer this behavior, as well as confusion and mood swings, is often compared to grief where, however, there isn’t a body to cry on, but we cry over events and aspects of a person that are no longer there. When someone dies, we know that everything ends there; in this case, we are also tormented by not knowing what the person we no longer see can do and what his/her life will be like. Will it get better or worse? And we feel overwhelmed by this multitude of thoughts as we sit there brooding without knowing what to do, but more importantly without a chance to speak.
The “ghoster” is therefore a person who is incapable of dealing with situations that are too emotionally charged and is unable to take responsibility, as well as handling the consequences of a conflict. The “ghoster” is afraid of the victim’s reaction, but also of having to manifest his/her behavior to the other person’s face. Therefore, he chooses to flee and not face the situation.
To try to get out of this situation it is best, first of all, to avoid tormenting ourselves with obsessive questions that we cannot answer. Instead, we must focus on ourselves and aim to pursue the goals that we are interested in, that we want to achieve, and that give us satisfaction. In addition, we need to stop idealizing such a person, avoiding focusing too much on his/her merits, but also highlighting the flaws that were probably already present, in order to make less unrealistic the overly idyllic vision that we had of that person. So it is not a matter of considering two separate people (the one before and the one after), but the same person and what he/she was able to do as a whole and understand that if he/she really cared, he/she would not have done so much hurt. It may also help to try to bring out the advantages we might have in being without that person, perhaps even thinking about how we lived before we met that person.
A different case is when the victim is the one who disappears from a toxic relationship. In that case, cutting off contact becomes an effective weapon for the victim, because when there is no awareness of the negative behavior on the other side and the situation becomes increasingly oppressive, the only solution is to disappear.
Beyond all that, however, I personally am not convinced that leaving the “ghoster” at the mercy of his/her fate is always enough, especially in cases of very long relationships. We live in a real world, and if you hurt so much, you should at least have the courage to justify yourself face to face. And that is why sooner or later we will be faced with the “ghoster” and instead of turning away, it would be more than justified to ask for an explanation and see how he/her will relate to his/her shame. The important thing is to have firstly clarified all our inner doubts and realize that for better or worse, people always teach us something even if it seems that they have only stolen our time and energy.
