You’re Going to Get Ghosted This Summer. May I Propose a Solution?

May 5, 2021 7:56 AM

"I just wanted him to value me enough to break up with me." "When you are ghosted, you may feel like you should quietly accept the rejection and never bother the person again—either to prove that you “get the message” or because you want to preserve your dignity. This is exactly what your ghoster wants: to not have to deal with you. "

"They want you to feel bad and then second-guess whether you even have the right to feel bad over a person who doesn’t even think enough of you to dump you, and then doubt yourself until you’re tired out. But here’s the truth: You cannot preserve your dignity, because this person has taken it from you by pretending you do not exist. What you can do is stand up for yourself.
I hope if you have the misfortune of being ghosted, you will consider doing what I did with Jesse. I arranged to dump myself."

This lady suggests politely confronting anyone who ghosts you. What do you think?

posted by jenfullmoon (172 comments total)

I think it seems a little "high drama" for me, but everyone has their own tastes.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 8:04 AM on May 5, 2021 [18 favorites]

I'm not certain that "staging a big in-person breakup scene" is the method I'd choose to resolve an otherwise-ambiguous ending to a brief relationship, no. I think a simple "I'm going to assume we're over. [I'm blocking your number]/[call me if you want to talk]/[fuck off into the sun]" text would do just fine.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:04 AM on May 5, 2021 [56 favorites]

I think there's a certain level of And Then Everyone Clapped to the story, but it's well-suited to getting eyeballs and engagement, so good on the author.
posted by Drastic at 8:08 AM on May 5, 2021 [28 favorites]

I don't think someone who ghosts you necessarily wants you to feel bad. They might just not want to be in contact with you. Ever again.

I expect there'd be a consensus here that women have a right to break off contact with men, regardless of how the man feels about it.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:09 AM on May 5, 2021 [66 favorites]

What's interesting to me is that the author is fine with settling for a text-message breakup. Because there once was a time when that was really not ok.
posted by Morpeth at 8:10 AM on May 5, 2021 [13 favorites]

I think there's a certain level of And Then Everyone Clapped to the story

I will always find the “and then everyone clapped” thing hilarious, because it perfectly captures so many online stories and this article
posted by glaucon at 8:10 AM on May 5, 2021 [17 favorites]

I expect there'd be a consensus here that women have a right to break off contact with men, regardless of how the man feels about it.

I have ghosted men. Some I distinctly feel bad about. Some I do not. A woman does not know if a man is going to take no for an answer in this world, so sometimes it's safer not to give it.

What is unequivocally bad is standing people up. I've been stood up twice, both times leaving me with the distinct possibility that the dude looked into the restaurant, saw me from behind, and left.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:12 AM on May 5, 2021 [32 favorites]

I hate ghosting. Usually, it seems to be done by individuals who largely do not want to take responsibility for their actions in this world and/or hope to avoid being held accountable to their actions. Our actions and words do have effects on others: own up to it and act accordingly.

If I no longer want to see someone who I’ve gone on one or two dates with , I send a general “I appreciate you taking time to meet, I know how sometimes first dates can feel like an act of courage. I enjoyed our talk, but wanted you to know that I didn’t feel that “spark” that we’re both looking for. I wish you the best of luck finding your perfect partner.”

If they get mean after that, ghost and block. You are under no obligation to continue a conversation with a rude person after you have respectfully extended your regrets.

As to confronting a ghoster? Absolutely, thru text, something along the lines of, “I can only assume by your lack of response that you have no interest in pursuing a relationship or even friendship. No worries there, but communicating your feelings really is an act of dignity - yours and other people’s. Please do better with the next person you interact with.”

I am just tired of shitty behavior in general, and I don’t think standards for kind behavior gets better until people voice their expectation of kind behavior.
posted by Silvery Fish at 8:26 AM on May 5, 2021 [133 favorites]

This article also falls into Betteridge’s Law of Headlines
posted by glaucon at 8:26 AM on May 5, 2021 [10 favorites]

They want you to feel bad and then second-guess whether you even have the right to feel bad over a person who doesn’t even think enough of you to dump you, and then doubt yourself until you’re tired out.

Interesting article that I'm glad to have read. But, I doubt this quote is true in most cases. They don't want to feel bad about what they're doing. They don't want to experience conflict. "I don't want you to be angry at me" is very different from "I want you to feel bad." It hurts you just as much, but it isn't actually directed at you. That doesn't mean it isn't shitty or worth complaining about or responding to. But, dumb and mean are two different things.

I've never ghosted a date, as far as I know. I've definitely ghosted colleagues that I don't actually want to collaborate with. Perhaps that's the same thing. But, just forgetting to respond is a lot easier than saying, "I don't actually respect your work and don't want to waste time pretending otherwise." I am a coward. But, I'm not sure the alternative would actually make anyone happier. I can imagine a similar impulse when dating, even if I've been lucky enough not to have encountered it.
posted by eotvos at 8:26 AM on May 5, 2021 [19 favorites]

I'll ghost relationships that make me feel afraid. Texting to break up is fine, but it does give me one bad nasty shock of fear and adrenaline.
posted by poe at 8:30 AM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

They want you to feel bad and then second-guess whether you even have the right to feel bad over a person who doesn’t even think enough of you to dump you, and then doubt yourself until you’re tired out.

This sounds like narcissism. I doubt many ghosters care at all about the inner lives of the people they are ignoring, it's just lazy and somewhat cowardly. Imagining that everyone who wrongs you has a complex plan for how to make you suffer is bizarre and unhealthy.
posted by atrazine at 8:35 AM on May 5, 2021 [75 favorites]

But, just forgetting to respond is a lot easier than saying, "I don't actually respect your work and don't want to waste time pretending otherwise." I am a coward.

No, I don’t think that you are! In conversations that I’ve had with people over ghosting issues, for those who honestly want to be kind, it often it comes down to “I don’t know what to say.” I spent a lot of my life eschewing what I saw as social niceties in favor of what I felt was “truthfulness”, but I’ve come around a bit. Could you say that you feel your research is going in a different direction than theirs, or that your schedule currently doesn’t allow it? Or just a general, “I appreciate the offer, but I do not think I would be your best partner in this”?

Societally, we really have lost the skill of “the soft answer.”
posted by Silvery Fish at 8:37 AM on May 5, 2021 [13 favorites]

I was ghosted pretty hard in my twenties. I saw this girl for what I thought were a few great dates, and then she just vanished from my life and refused any attempts I made to get in touch. I heard later through the grape vine that she didn't want to hurt me but she was dealing with her own mountain of shit and didn't know how to deal with me too.

It hurt really bad, but I did slowly transform it into a learning experience for myself. I mean, why should I let someone who wants nothing to do with me affect my emotional well being? I think I managed to build a nice door to my heart that I open for people who wanted to be there, and who I wanted to let in.
posted by Alex404 at 8:41 AM on May 5, 2021 [12 favorites]

I see why this works for her but my assumption has always been that ghosting is about the ghoster being the problem, not the ghostee.

It shows me you are not worth dating. And that you are cowardly.

I guess you could see her approach as teaching dudes like that a lesson, but life is too short and I am tired.
posted by emjaybee at 8:53 AM on May 5, 2021 [16 favorites]

They want you to feel bad and then second-guess whether you even have the right to feel bad over a person who doesn’t even think enough of you to dump you, and then doubt yourself until you’re tired out.

I kind of doubt that most people who ghost someone they briefly dated are thinking this much about them at all.
posted by thelonius at 8:58 AM on May 5, 2021 [10 favorites]

I hate ghosting and I’m fine with the idea of sending the kinds of texts she ends up suggesting. But tricking Jesse into coming over with her dire-sounding voicemail was worse by far than the behavior she objects to.
posted by daisyace at 9:00 AM on May 5, 2021 [12 favorites]

I've never ghosted anyone I was in a deep romantic relationship with. (Though -- if we've only met a couple of times and there's been no plans made for further dates, I'm not sure it occurred to me that I particularly need to break up with someone.) I've ghosted some suffocating friendships, and I'm sure that was very hurtful. I know it's bad behavior. I knew it was bad behavior when I did it originally -- really back before the term "ghosting" had become all that popular -- but at the time I didn't really have the ability to course-correct the relationships or downgrade them kindly. I'm glad none of my ghost-ees tracked me down and demanded answers; I suspect I would've (unintentionally) made them feel a lot worse.

I'm better at managing relationships these days, and far better at not deepening relationships that I think I'm going to need to eject from. I haven't ghosted anyone in years. But if it helps to hear from the perspective of a one-time ghost-er, uh, try not to take it personally. And consider that your life will be better with a person who has learned to communicate better, and values you as much as you deserve.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:06 AM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” -Marcus Aurelius

I'm remembering the woman who posted in AskMe awhile back that she thought the person she was dating was really sick/in the hospital and couldn't reach him. Turns out he was fine and just ghosting her. That was a shitty, shitty move.

I've ghosted some suffocating friendships, and I'm sure that was very hurtful. I know it's bad behavior. I knew it was bad behavior when I did it originally -- really back before the term "ghosting" had become all that popular -- but at the time I didn't really have the ability to course-correct the relationships or downgrade them kindly. I'm glad none of my ghost-ees tracked me down and demanded answers; I suspect I would've (unintentionally) made them feel a lot worse.

Also a recent AskMe about this that is topical!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:10 AM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Closure is a myth, except in so far as being ghosted qualifies as "closure". It's the closing of the relationship. Forcibly contacting others who don't want to be contacted is the opposite of closure.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:12 AM on May 5, 2021 [19 favorites]

Not sure why everyone is second-guessing the author of this piece.

Of course we are only getting one side of the story. It could be that she was abusive or manipulative or gave off a threatening vibe.

But it's also possible that it's just as she told it, and that Jesse ghosted her because of pure selfishness and avoidance - the kind that recognizes that suddenly ghosting someone after eight or nine dates is probably going to make her feel pretty shitty, but you're more OK with making her feel awful and confused for days than take the slightest bit of accountability or discomfort.

The fact that it is OK to cut off contact with abusers, manipulators, and malevolent folks does not mean it's OK to hurt perfectly innocent people just for shallow convenience.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:20 AM on May 5, 2021 [16 favorites]

There's a difference between "ghosting because so-and-so is dangerous" and just plain ol' "I lost interest but can't be arsed to say so." And it's probably more of a straight dating/gendered issue with regards to danger ghosting vs. the other. Women probably ghost more because they're afraid of saying no to the guy. I can't speak as to why the guy would do it, but being afraid of the lady is probably not quite the same. But the sheer head games of "Maybe he's in the hospital" vs "Take the hint, bitch" stuff when you don't know what's going on....just uck. Even a text message breakup is better than the head games. At least then you know.

I admit that when I read Jesse squirming and “I felt like maybe we were moving more toward being friends," I was all, "Oh, sure, friends, as in 'I'm never going to talk to you again' level of friend." Bleech! So many people say "friends" as code for "I never want to talk to you again, I just want to make sure you're not mad." I just really enjoyed reading his squirming hypocrisy. I probably wouldn't do this myself, mind you, but I did kind of admire her nerve on calling out shitty dudes leaving her in suspense. I like Silvery Fish's suggestion, personally, if one wanted to do this sort of activity.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:20 AM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

The fact that it is OK to cut off contact with abusers, manipulators, and malevolent folks does not mean it's OK to hurt perfectly innocent people just for shallow convenience.

No one is suggesting it's OK to hurt people. Most people here agree -- I certainly do -- that ghosting is bad to various degrees. But no one owes anybody else their attention if they are unwilling to give it. If someone hurts an innocent person by ghosting, then they're a jerk, but that doesn't mean the person they ghosted is allowed to manipulate them into a confrontation they clearly don't want.
posted by Gelatin at 9:29 AM on May 5, 2021 [19 favorites]

Ghosting people is shitty and people shouldn't do it to anyone they've been on >1 date with.

But if you're pretty sure you're being ghosted it's really not hard to send a text that says "so do you want to go out on another date or nah" and close the book on the thing if you want to confirm it. Take some agency.
posted by phunniemee at 9:32 AM on May 5, 2021 [20 favorites]

Without exception as far as I can remember, any action people I knew at university and during my 20s took during a breakup in order to “spare the other person’s feelings” made things worse, and sometimes much worse. Sometimes these actions seemed like good-faith efforts to lessen the emotional blow for the person they were breaking up with which went awry (as good intentions often do), but as often as not they were motivated by a desire to avoid unpleasant scenes and/or emotional heavy lifting.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:40 AM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

But if you're pretty sure you're being ghosted it's really not hard to send a text that says "so do you want to go out on another date or nah"

I think you should assume that this is the precursor of believing you’ve been ghosted. My experience and that of other people I’ve talked to is that it’s only on the second or third unanswered text that people default to the ghosted assumption. I do not know what your personal experience is, but the “take some agency” seems bad-faith.
posted by Silvery Fish at 9:49 AM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

I had someone take the same approach as the author with me years ago when I ghosted them after having dated for a couple of months. In defense of the author and the woman I was dating, she is right that ghosting behavior is frequently motivated by selfishness. In my case it was almost entirely wanting to avoid the awkwardness of hurting someone’s feelings, the potential confrontation, the emotional aftermath, knowing I might make someone cry and not wanting to deal with that. In hindsight I look back at this with a lot of embarrassment knowing both that the woman deserved better and that if I had been willing to deal with a few minutes of unpleasantness it could have saved me a lot of further complication. Having a job now where letting people go occasionally is part of the gig makes me realize that I can have uncomfortable conversations and the entire world won’t come crashing down.

That said, I do somewhat disagree with the author’s “empowerment” narrative here. She seems to think she takes ownership of the situation by forcing a confrontation. We are all the heroes of our own stories and write our own narratives, so perhaps in her mind that is indeed the case. I can tell you in my situation, when the woman I had been dating stalked my apartment for hours and hours, rang my doorbell endlessly, and then ranted at me forever in my room, it wasn’t shame or guilt that I was feeling, but relief that I had dodged a bullet by leaving a very unhinged person.
posted by The Gooch at 9:50 AM on May 5, 2021 [22 favorites]

I am old and have been mostly in long term relationships since I was 20, so my experience with ghosting is minimal. What struck me about the article is how often this appears to happen to the author. I get that dating these days is a numbers game, but getting ghosted as often as she implies she is, seems like there are other things going on here too. Or am I old and just don't get how things are done these days (get offa my lawn?).
posted by AugustWest at 9:54 AM on May 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

There is the ghosting that occurs after a romantic-intimate relationship, and there's the ghosting I have experienced with two male friends. In one case, a buddy got married and had a kid so I think it's a case of growing apart, but I don't have many friends that go back to high school and that one still smarts a little. I am definitely not some kind of party animal dude who still texts to meet at the club to snort lines, I don't get the abrupt silence and I've stopped reaching out. The other buddy seems to be a recovering alcoholic, I did not even believe he had a drinking problem because he was hiding it from his family and friends, but a few people knew. I feel like I'm a casualty of his life changes, but I was never a drinking buddy and I'm not sure how I fit into a past he seems to be trying to erase. All of this to say, people have interior lives and their own reasons. There are times our attempts to reduce things to explanations are fairly spot-on, but we can sure miss the mark also. I hold hope that there are years remaining and we'll reconnect one day. I don't think I was the best friend, but also nowhere near a bad friend as far as I know. Thinking on it, the only ghosting that troubles me is with the guy (non-romantic, to put an imperfect category to it) friends.
posted by elkevelvet at 9:56 AM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

What struck me about the article is how often this appears to happen to the author. I get that dating these days is a numbers game, but getting ghosted as often as she implies she is, seems like there are other things going on here too.

She says it happened once. "Let me tell you about the first and last time I was ever ghosted" is the first line of the article.
posted by betweenthebars at 9:57 AM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed the article, the author has a funny and interesting style, but I thought she was giving Jesse a lot more importance (both in staging the confrontation with him, and then subsequently going on to write about it) than he ever gave her.

I haven't done a lot of ghosting, but I have been ghosted a few times, including quite recently. All the times I have been ghosted have been those quasi-romantic, superficially-platonic relationships that may or may not have led to dating - not actual dating relationships. Maybe it's because I'm used to it, but it doesn't bother me that much. I mean obviously no one actively wants to be ghosted, but I'd prefer that than an awkward confrontation. An outright rejection (which I have never experienced), I feel would be rather more unpleasant and final? The thing about being ghosted is that I can just assume it was that the other person is too busy/caught up with other stuff to respond to me, and I'd rather make that assumption, than know that they find something about me actively objectionable.
posted by unicorn chaser at 9:58 AM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

here’s the truth: You cannot preserve your dignity, because this person has taken it from you by pretending you do not exist.

Bullshit. Preserving dignity is achieved by behaving in a dignified fashion, not by throwing the switch to vaudeville.
posted by flabdablet at 9:58 AM on May 5, 2021 [31 favorites]

It is incredibly common now, August. Think about it this way, how easy is it to ignore a text message? We've all done it.

Ghosting big and small is inevitable for people dating now.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:59 AM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

In 1968 there was a sign next to the dorm floor telephone that indicated that if a certain person called, I was not there (we had been on one date and he took that as an indication that I was the Person For Him and would not be dissuaded). Ghosting has been around for a really long time. It's just that it's harder for it to be un-obvious because generally you know the other person got your message.
posted by Peach at 10:12 AM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Lol, I don't know much, but this article should not be read by the menfolk.

Fellow dudes, let us work together to take hints! Hints, body language, and subtext are critical things for real men to understand!!!
posted by eustatic at 10:12 AM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

"But if you're pretty sure you're being ghosted it's really not hard to send a text that says "so do you want to go out on another date or nah"

I've done that, but I've also had fun with it and gone the other way. Usually it's pretty clear when you're being ghosted, so sometimes I've called that shit out by escalating the level of intimacy on texts. Increase the frequency and intensity of your texts. Bring up the subject of meeting parents. Cutesy couple things like asking what they're having for lunch. Sometimes just raw sexting. I'm not going to make ghosting easy for you. I WILL NOT BE IGNORED, DAN.

Because, as said above, (and save and except for necessary cases of safety and real conflict avoidance) ghosting is about the ghoster's own cowardice and convenience, and fuck that. If you cannot end things with someone decently, you are not a grownup, and you have no right to be in an adult relationship.

And then I grab hold of my own agency and block them. The reason I don't hear from them again is because I choose not to. Goodbye, child.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:12 AM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

I'm with eotvos in thinking that ghosting is mainly about conflict avoidance, sometimes for safety reasons but often for cowardice or laziness.
posted by slkinsey at 10:14 AM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Capt. Renault, I'm not sure that example is really painting you as any more mature than the other party? If you're sexting someone like that when they've made it clear they don't want it, that's... gross.
posted by sagc at 10:15 AM on May 5, 2021 [35 favorites]

She says it happened once. "Let me tell you about the first and last time I was ever ghosted" is the first line of the article.

She is referring to being ghosted and NOT responding. She says near the end of the article,
Every time I do this, I feel a little better referring to her new plan of dumping herself.
posted by AugustWest at 10:19 AM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

I really want encourage any single MeFites in the early years of their dating life to know that this article is terrible advice. What this author is saying, it represents a real but small minority of people you might go on a date with.

I went through a phase a few years ago where I ghosted *nobody.* Four dates and I wasn't feeling it, you got a phone call. One date and meh? A text. And Y'know what? It wasn't a popular move.

I told a couple of my friends about it and it was strongly panned. It was an interaction that was likely going to trigger an emotional response in the other person that they might be just as happy not experiencing. Radio silence sometimes allows for an open-ended mutual ambivalence. Ending every week to month long relationship with a conversation is a little bit of narcissism that implies "oh, well, of course the other person needs to know why someone as special as me deigns them unworthy." And they were right. Every time I've been ghosted I've forgotten about it within a few weeks, but the one time someone broke something off by text after two dates seemed like an almost confrontational rejection.

Ghost away. The majority of people probably prefer it.
posted by midmarch snowman at 10:21 AM on May 5, 2021 [67 favorites]

If you're sexting someone like that when they've made it clear they don't want it, that's... gross.

But that's just it -- they haven't made it clear. They've said nothing at all. I am proceeding as though we're still in a relationship. I am putting them in the position of having to actually deal with this human being on the other side.

I see no reason to legitimize someone's ghosting of me.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:21 AM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

But that's just it -- they haven't made it clear. They've said nothing at all. I am proceeding as though we're still in a relationship. I am putting them in the position of having to actually deal with this human being on the other side.


Yoooooooooo though, the thing is, even within a relationship, sexy stuff needs affirmative consent. Not cool.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:22 AM on May 5, 2021 [51 favorites]

I suspect that the model most people operate under is that sexts are unwanted unless pretty explicitly requested; certainly, it's the model that I've been taught (on Metafilter, mostly!) is a lot more respectful of other people.
posted by sagc at 10:23 AM on May 5, 2021 [12 favorites]

I heard later through the grape vine that she didn't want to hurt me but she was dealing with her own mountain of shit and didn't know how to deal with me too.

Translation: she wasn't into you.

Finding out that someone isn't into you, when you're into them, is the worst motherfucking feeling on the planet. It's hurtful, shitty, humiliating, dehumanizing, makes you question your sanity. It unleashes a mountain of feelings the size of Mount Everest. It may cause you to be irrational, lash out at the person/engage in stalky behavior, wonder why it's worth living. All this talk about ghosting and texting and phoning and cowadice is just because admitting that we are not into someone, when the other person feels differently, is the worse thing imaginable, and we do everything we can to dance around that conversation.

I've ghosted a couple of people in the past, and while yes I should have given them a polite no in person, I reframed it to myself that I was sparing them the indignity of having their humiliation aired out in the open, especially out in the open to the person that was doing the humiliating. Some of us prefer to deal with our difficult feelings in private, and actually I appreciate it when someone ghosts me because I'm getting the clear "I'm not into you" message, without having the embarrassment of being a blubbering idiot. Perhaps it's my British heritage, or something.

On preview:

Ghost away. The majority of people probably prefer it.

Yup, that was what I was trying to say.
posted by Melismata at 10:23 AM on May 5, 2021 [17 favorites]

OK setting that minor derail aside: this seems like something that just is always going to be in a state of tension because people date for all kinds of reasons and have all kinds of goals and have all kinds of patterns. You run into trouble because of situations like:

• Person A has gone on 12 dates this month with 8 different people and is not invested in any of these people; they go out with anyone mildly appealing who asks. Ghosting person B makes sense because they only went on two dates
• Person B has gone on 2 dates this month, with Person A. Person B is actually feeling pretty invested; they don't date a lot and they choose their dates extremely carefully, limiting it to people in whom they are genuinely quite interested.

Person B is going to get hurt whether they're ghosted or not but they're going to take the ghosting so much more personally than it was meant.

We can make social "rules" about ghosting but there's no rule we can make that keeps Person B from going on those 2 dates with Person A and getting a little stung.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:28 AM on May 5, 2021 [22 favorites]

(Also I know that "what if the genders were switched" is a kind of cheap rhetorical tactic so I won't apply it to TFA, but will as always post the perpetual, constant, apparently forever-needed reminder that for women who date men dating is FUCKING TERRIFYING and if your solution to the conflict avoidance we employ in order to NOT BE MURDERED is to become more and more conflict-y? You need to take it down a thousand.)
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:35 AM on May 5, 2021 [18 favorites]

This is exactly what your ghoster wants: to not have to deal with you.

Completely true.

They want you to feel bad

Not at all. They just don't want to have to deal with you. Caring one way or the other about how you feel would itself be dealing with you, and if they wanted to deal with you they wouldn't have ghosted you in the first place.

The stories you tell yourself to explain why they might have done it are yours and yours alone. How you feel as a result of telling yourself those stories is a consequence of the particular stories you chose. If you don't like those feelings, choose better stories.

and then second-guess whether you even have the right to feel bad over a person who doesn’t even think enough of you to dump you, and then doubt yourself until you’re tired out.

Oh for fuck's sake. It's not all about you.

When people are rude to you, just flag them and move on.
posted by flabdablet at 10:37 AM on May 5, 2021 [16 favorites]

I am so fucking glad that I'm over dating.

I mean, yeah, 54 and single, and will die alone. But I'm much happier this way than dealing with the constant emotional turmoil of trying to manage these sorts of interpersonal dramas on a day-to-day, intimate basis.
posted by darkstar at 10:38 AM on May 5, 2021 [14 favorites]

Please don't sext me.

Ever.

Even if I'm married to you.
posted by flabdablet at 10:42 AM on May 5, 2021 [16 favorites]

A person who writes (and thinks and behaves) this way is not someone I will take any personal advice from:

No matter what they reply, I don’t get into a conversation. (In the early days I let an in-person self-dump get out of hand, and he ended up crying and saying he needed therapy, which was kind of thrilling but ultimately beyond my capacity.)

For the author, this is not about dignity or honesty or anything else than her own pride and emotional self-gratification. And yes, the whole piece makes clear that she's done this many times, and the story about "Jesse" was just her first time doing this.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:43 AM on May 5, 2021 [20 favorites]

Finding out that someone isn't into you, when you're into them, is the worst motherfucking feeling on the planet.

In my experience, which has included many years of finding out that very thing, watching my mother die of cancer was infinitely worse.
posted by flabdablet at 10:44 AM on May 5, 2021 [17 favorites]

It is reasonable for men to be afraid of women (and other genders). Men are more violent and abusive and vindictive, but women do these things often enough to merit fear.
posted by poe at 10:51 AM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

Ew. Why is this an article.
posted by firstdaffodils at 10:56 AM on May 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

I take ghosting one step further by never going on dates in the first place. It’s like I was never there at all! Ha
posted by thedamnbees at 10:57 AM on May 5, 2021 [35 favorites]

It’s like I was never there at all! Ha

Oh no, my dignity
posted by flabdablet at 11:00 AM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

But that's just it -- they haven't made it clear. They've said nothing at all. I am proceeding as though we're still in a relationship. I am putting them in the position of having to actually deal with this human being on the other side.

This has big "i showed you my dick pls respond" energy.
posted by phunniemee at 11:06 AM on May 5, 2021 [22 favorites]

This has big "i showed you my dick pls respond" energy.

I have done no such thing. And when I've sexted, it was in the context of months-long relationships where sex and sexting already occurred, all with consent. And being ghosted to end months-long sexual relationships? I found that unacceptable, and I called that shit out.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:14 AM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Jesse sounded like bad news from the beginning. He started with love-bombing her (My first conversation with Jesse* lasted four hours. “Tell me your life story,” he said. He acted rapt, as if the mundane stories of my childhood contained some secret code to his future happiness.), quickly moved on to dramatic displays in front of other people (On our second date, he paid for an extra ice cream for the elderly woman waiting in line behind us. “I’m just showing off,” he told the woman, winking, “to impress this girl.”), and continued by basing his behavior on terrible models (It was as if he was doing an over-the-top pantomime of a male lead in a romantic comedy—he kept waking me up with extravagant pancake breakfasts and watching me eat them.).

It seems entirely unsurprising that he'd handle ending a relationship with any more insight or emotional skill than he handled the beginning of it.
posted by Lexica at 11:14 AM on May 5, 2021 [17 favorites]

I think I managed to build a nice door to my heart that I open for people who wanted to be there, and who I wanted to let in.

Schematic for that, please?
posted by JanetLand at 11:24 AM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

This article is borderline toxic narcissism.
Were I in a counseling relationship with *Jesse* I would reaffirm that he (and he alone) has complete agency over how, when, and with whom he chooses to communicate.

You do not owe anyone a return phone-call or a text or anything else. That's not how consent works. There may be consequences for choosing to stop communicating with someone and you may want to consider those consequences (choosing not to call your boss back can get you fired, ignoring your mom's birthday might cause her to cry, choosing not to respond to a jury summons can land you in the clink, etc, the possible ramifications are endless.)

But you are at complete liberty to decide what you will do with your consent to communicate.

It hurts to be ghosted. But it is the entire responsibility of the individual being ghosted to decide how they will process that hurt.

I work with countless children of narcissistic parents and often have to write these words down for them to put in their pocket:

1. You are under no obligation to return your parent's phone call or text.
and
2. You are also under no obligation to state your reasons for why you aren't returning their communication. They may demand this of you and say things like, "you at least owe me an explanation for this behavior." You owe them nothing. You are an adult human being in charge of your own life.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:24 AM on May 5, 2021 [52 favorites]

I appreciated this article. I probably will not confront people who ghost me, mostly because I am bad at confronting people, and do not believe it to be effective when it comes from me. I have tried confronting people who make racist comments towards me, for example, and it does not work.

But as someone who is ghosted, I feel like there's a lack of acknowledgment and sympathy for what it feels like to be ghosted. On one hand, you get messages from society like you need to be sympathetic, maybe the guy is just busy, maybe he's in the hospital, etc. On the other hand, you get messages like, a non-response is a response, don't bother people who have made it clear they don't want to be around you. You have to guess which one it is, or else you are a bad person. You are either high-drama or can't read social cues.

I was sexually assaulted by my ex-boyfriend, and then in some sense ghosted. Subsequently, I was overwhelmed by my feelings about being ghosted, because everywhere you look, including this thread, people give off the impression that if you feel bad about being ghosted, that you are a bad person. That no one owes you anything, and people can do whatever they want. I felt like my ex-boyfriend was a better person than me, because he no longer wanted to have anything to do with me, and I so desperately wanted just an apology. I felt like, since I couldn't handle being ghosted, maybe I deserved to be sexually assaulted. After all, no one owes me anything.
posted by chernoffhoeffding at 11:31 AM on May 5, 2021 [25 favorites]

And when I've sexted, it was in the context of months-long relationships where sex and sexting already occurred, all with consent.

OK, but by ghosting you they clearly indicated that they no longer wanted to continue that relationship, i.e. they withdrew their consent. You may have found their method of doing so rude, but that does not make their consent any less withdrawn. You are sexually harassing these people.
posted by Anonymous at 11:33 AM on May 5, 2021

"ghosting is very rude but the problem is that completely unhinged responses to it sort of make the case for its usefulness" - Brandy Jensen
posted by General Malaise at 11:39 AM on May 5, 2021 [37 favorites]

if you feel bad about being ghosted, that you are a bad person.

Not the case. Feeling bad about being ghosted is completely different from reacting to those feelings by indulging in the kinds of behaviour that would legitimately give anybody reason to think of you as a bad person.

People feel bad for all kinds of reasons all the freaking time. Not a thing wrong with that. Bad people are people who do bad things, not people who feel bad feelings.

The boyfriend who sexually assaulted you proved himself to be a bad person by doing that. There is no legitimate excuse for perpetrating sexual assault.
posted by flabdablet at 11:42 AM on May 5, 2021 [17 favorites]

My last date before the pandemic: we went out once, fooled around, and then the next day she sent me a looooong text detailing all the ways I wasn't what she was looking for, but good luck to me, etc.

For gods sake, just ghost me instead. Please.
posted by frogstar42 at 11:48 AM on May 5, 2021 [33 favorites]

There are (to the best of my knowledge) three people alive in the world today who believe I ghosted them. Two of them were people with whom I simply stopped being the one to initiate contact. I was always the first to reach out and I was tired of always being the first to reach out so I decided to wait for them to contact me and they never did. Some mutual friends let me know these two had told people I'd ghosted them but I had the receipts in the form of text messages showing I had in fact been the last one to reply to a message; I'd just stopped sending more messages after that.

The third is the person from this question. Despite having sent her a five-paragraph email explaining why her behavior was not ok and instructing her never to contact me again, she insists I've ghosted her because I didn't reply to any of her emails or texts messages she sent subsequent to that.

I've been ghosted three times that I can recall, all in situations where we had been on more than one and fewer than five dates. It's not ideal but I'm not sure what ideal would look like; I've certainly found it preferable to being dumped in person (less for emotional reasons than logistical ones; don't make me go through the trouble of getting dressed up and driving across Los Angeles just to tell me you're not interested in continuing to date).

So if we're keeping score, mark me down for "I have never intentionally ghosted someone but am pro-ghosting to the point that certain individuals believe that I have."
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:51 AM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I thought the solution at the end of the article of sending one short straight-forward text to actually communicate "I see you've ghosted me, I think that was shitty, do better, and goodbye" and then cutting off contact was pretty much perfect, and I'm astonished that people here are characterizing that as controlling and narcissistic.

For those of you advocating for ghosting intimate partners, at what point in a relationship do you start to owe them the courtesy of knowing that you're no longer interested?
posted by joannemerriam at 11:53 AM on May 5, 2021 [15 favorites]

Ghost away. The majority of people probably prefer it.

I don't. If I ask someone to meet again and they don't want to meet, I'd rather get a "hey had fun but I don't see us moving forward" response (or the soft "I'm super busy lately" with no specific alternative date) than radio silence, which is a) rude and b) a waste of my time as I have to wait like n days for no reply before I'm sure it's a ghosting and you're not just busy and c) putting me in an awkward position because I have to calculate like, is this person ghosting me or are they just busy, should I try to send them a followup message to check or would that be intrusive and so on and so forth. And on my part, that's what I do when I've been in the position where someone asks me to go on a second date, and I don't want to: I just tell them. If you take a quick, polite "No thanks, good luck" as a confrontational rejection, then you're way too invested.
posted by airmail at 11:53 AM on May 5, 2021 [11 favorites]

For gods sake, just ghost me instead. Please.

Look, if you haven't affirmatively and explicitly stated you don't want a powerpoint presentation enumerating your flaws, I don't see what leg you have to stand on.
posted by Drastic at 11:53 AM on May 5, 2021 [29 favorites]

"“Hey, there’s something I really need to talk about with you…” message, channeling my gynecologist when she leaves me foreboding voice mails that turn out to be about yeast infections."

I'm just really glad I'm not the only one to deal with this. Gynos, why you do this.
posted by Dynex at 11:57 AM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

if you haven't affirmatively and explicitly stated you don't want a powerpoint presentation enumerating your flaws, I don't see what leg you have to stand on.

I AM TRYING TO EAT BREAKFAST
posted by flabdablet at 11:57 AM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

It's.. cringe worthy. I clicked it by accident yesterday, from another site.


There's legitimacy in a "hey, can I get a few sentences as to wtf?" And avoiding socially awkward power moves, but no one needs to rewrite the Odyssey for a novel interest.

Also, ghosting can protect men/women from unnecessary entanglements. It's completely situational, mostly I don't understand why she continued caring after the introduction of Jason Mraz, but everyone is entitled to their own kinks, I guess.
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:57 AM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I don’t condone ghosting, but after reading this article I certainly understand it.
posted by PaulVario at 11:59 AM on May 5, 2021 [14 favorites]

There may be consequences for choosing to stop communicating with someone and you may want to consider those consequences ....

There are problems in thinking solely in these terms. If there are no direct “consequences” to you — do you default to behavior that is easiest for you personally but has negative effects on others? I hope not. That path is loaded with all sorts of societal problems we here on the Blue spend lots of time talk and feeling about, and there is a fair body of research that points to choosing and consistently living within a set of ethical codes and behaviors as being foundational for developing and maintaining internally-grounded self-worth and dignity.

For those dealing with narcissists: they have already shown that they do not respond to communications of needs or boundaries respectfully. That puts them in the Category B for me — you are under no obligation to *continue* in a relationship/communication with someone who isn’t going to deal with you with respect and consideration.

Please - do not conflate an initial non-ghosting communication with communications with someone who has already shown damaging interpersonal behaviors with you.
posted by Silvery Fish at 12:01 PM on May 5, 2021 [15 favorites]

This seems like a culturally specific thing. Since a lot of people don't really think that anyone is substantially culturally different, (or if they are then they have the wrong culture,) ghosting and its degrees can be rude normal or somewhere in between. There are cultures where it is rude to accept someone's demural of an offer to, say, pay for dinner until it has been maid 2 or 3 times. That seems very confusing to me but so easy to transgress and the anger at the rudeness is quite real.
posted by Pembquist at 12:02 PM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

I thought the solution at the end of the article of sending one short straight-forward text to actually communicate "I see you've ghosted me, I think that was shitty, do better, and goodbye" and then cutting off contact was pretty much perfect, and I'm astonished that people here are characterizing that as controlling and narcissistic.

It's not the short straightforward text that screeches "controlling and narcissistic", it's the wall of psychodrama it's buried in.
posted by flabdablet at 12:02 PM on May 5, 2021 [11 favorites]

If you want your society to function and thrive then in some small way, and to varying degrees, the members of this society must care for one another and one another's feelings. If your partner has been violent and abusive and demonstrated themselves to literally be dangerous when denied, then ghosting is understandable. But otherwise be kind, deal with the discomfort, and help the other person find closure. Sure, we all must find our own closure blah blah blah, but it is possible to make that closure easier by putting a definitive pin in the relationship on your end.

I think in the USA at least there has been the development of an attitude that you don't owe anybody anything ever and if you're expending emotional labor on someone you are being used, nay, abused. Look, if someone has demonstrably been shitty and violent to you then don't give them the time of day. But if that's not the case then "this is hard and I don't feel like it" is not a good reason to not treat others with kindness. We cannot build a world where people acknowledge each other's humanity and worth and where people form governments that take care of all their citizens if our treatment of other people is "fuck you, got mine" the minute we aren't interested in a relationship with them.
posted by Anonymous at 12:06 PM on May 5, 2021

But if that's not the case then "this is hard and I don't feel like it" is not a good reason to not treat others with kindness

I don't disagree with this but it's apparent to me, from this thread and the many, many AskMe threads on the topic, that people have a wide and varied definition of what kindness is. Some people prefer not to have that conversation, some people find it agonizing to be left hanging. People are generally doing their best in a world where there isn't a right answer.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:09 PM on May 5, 2021 [25 favorites]

In my personal experience as someone a bit younger than the likely median age of metafilter, and as someone who is usually assumed to be male (but no longer interested in investigating whether such is true thanks to some wonderful gatekeeping) and who has dated mostly women, confronting ghosters usually gets reconstrued as "creepy" or something far worse via the misappropriation of social justice vocabulary. I think what usually incurs this is my open vulnerability (having autism and usually discussing it with people I am intimate with, to reduce friction), and my implicit sensitivity to such language, as I don't think the average dudebro would care. It really muddies the waters in such scenarios where determining who is in the wrong relies on subjective testimony, by escalating it to a dire moral struggle in the ghoster's favour, when more often than not, such is not the case.

The most common tactic I've encountered is making it about consent; "By suddenly and abruptly cutting you out, without explanation, when I had previously not expressed any dissatisfaction or discomfort (and perhaps even initiated things with you myself, quite aggressively and one-sidedly) is an unambiguous assertion of a retraction of consent to communicate with you. To now contact me disrespects this consent, and so it constitutes harassment!".

I would like to be very clear that the few times I have futilely attempted to ask ghosters what happened, I was always cordial and polite. The indignation I received in return was pretty awful. Usually I don't pick up on being ghosted, because of the aforementioned autism. For the first handful of times I worried something had gone horribly wrong, like that they had been suddenly injured/incapacitated, or that I had unknowingly done some terrible thing to them. Since it has happened so many times, I also sometimes wonder if my autism encourages it in some way, where they think I won't notice, or that they can play with the inherent ambiguity. I have had extensive experience where my autistic traits or my eccentricities have been treated as synonymous with intellectual disability, so it could also be that they think I'm too stupid to understand.

In general, I've found that under-30's are completely bereft of communication skills. I don't even kiss someone without asking, and yet still people expect everything to be read from between the lines. Explicit communication is "unchill"/"awkward"/"cringe". Asking for consent is "a turn off". Requesting sensitivity to neurodivergent thinking is "gross". And then you get caught up in people dishonestly politicizing sex and romance to their advantage. Sometimes it feels like shit's a free-for-all, but since this is all I know, I can't imagine it was ever any better.
posted by constantinescharity at 12:16 PM on May 5, 2021 [20 favorites]

People are generally doing their best in a world where there isn't a right answer.

This thread feels not unlike the infinite threads of How To Do Pandemic Best. Where we just, my god, we want rules, we want them clear and numerous and for everyone to follow them to the dot. We want to know that as long as we do X, Y, and Z, we have ironclad guarantees of our safety, physical and moral and emotional.

And it isn't surprising that we want these rules and guarantees in a world that demonstrably does not give a single solitary fuck about our safety or security on any level. But it just doesn't work.

That said I will quibble with the idea that in dating, people are generally doing their best. As much as I consider heartache and frustration and embarrassment to be absolutely 100% inevitable consequences of human relationships, the patriarchy under which we live guarantees that quite a few people are NOT doing their best in dating, whether because they don't have to or because terrible constraints mean they cannot.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:16 PM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

This thought isn't original to me, but I haven't seen it on the thread yet: one reason why ghosting is more common and may be even more socially acceptable these days is because employers do it all the time after job interviews. The last time I looked for work (which, happily, was a little over ten years ago), I was regularly ghosted. If you didn't hear back from an employer after a few days - well, on to the next.

I was ghosted a couple of times when I was single (I'm male). The hard part was the waiting: not being sure whether a potential date was just being slow to call back or whether that was it. I can't really blame women for ghosting after a date or two: so many men react so badly to being rejected that the women don't want to put themselves at (possibly) literal risk.

But I have a female friend who was once ghosted after a four-month relationship. One day, he just stopped calling. Ugh.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 12:23 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

the patriarchy under which we live guarantees that quite a few people are NOT doing their best in dating, whether because they don't have to or because terrible constraints mean they cannot.

Sure, I just think it leads to a psychologically better place (i.e. not where the author of this article is) if you can just dismiss people with "I guess they're doing their best, bless their hearts" rather than constructing narratives where they're evil and out to get you specifically. And it's more likely to be accurate, on average. Active malice is more work than most people bother with.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:25 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

If your partner has been violent and abusive and demonstrated themselves to literally be dangerous when denied, then ghosting is understandable. But otherwise be kind, deal with the discomfort, and help the other person find closure.

Posted by schroedinger

Your username seems appropriate here, as discussions of dating often bring about a reference to Schroedinger's Rapist. When you're dating a stranger, you cannot know that they're violent or a rapist *until they assault or rape you.* Which is a pretty fucking goddamn high price to pay to learn whether it's "understandable" to ghost someone.

"Guess I should have ghosted him," thinks a literal ghost, after they are murdered.

Obviously a bit hyperbolic but I think most people will take being considered kind of a jerk over being considered fully dead any day, tbh.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:27 PM on May 5, 2021 [16 favorites]

Look, if someone has demonstrably been shitty and violent to you then don't give them the time of day. But if that's not the case then "this is hard and I don't feel like it" is not a good reason to not treat others with kindness.

After, say, two dates, you really don't know an American man well enough to know how he will take rejection (unless you've already figured out he'll take it badly). I'm not saying one should therefore preemptively ghost anyone you might break up with, but I am saying there are genuine safety concerns involved in dating men in this country.

I don't think I'd ghost someone I'd gone on more than three dates with (unless I was dumping him specifically for creepy behavior or bad vibes), in part because that's still so often the point where some physical action is expected, and I do think you owe more respect and care to someone you've been intimate with. But I know why women do it, and I also know that most women are slower/more reluctant to pick up on red flags than me.
posted by praemunire at 12:30 PM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

Schematic for that, please?

I hope it's not presumptuous of me to actually answer this, but just in case you're interested... I guess it came from developing a fundamental sense of my own value as a human being. Overall... I like myself, and I try to be good to those around me. Other people not liking me isn't a failing on my part, because as long as I'm being true to myself I couldn't have acted any differently. Of course I try to be receptive to criticism too, but there's many reasons why people don't like each other, most of which can't and shouldn't be "solved". The best we can do is surround ourselves with people who we help and who help us flourish.

Sorry if this sounds puerile and obvious to most people here, but I did struggle a lot with being very sensitive when I was younger, and this was the kind of thinking that helped me embody the "empathic" parts of sensitive, rather than the "needy" part.
posted by Alex404 at 12:45 PM on May 5, 2021 [11 favorites]

This Askamanager post is my favourite ghosting come uppance story. (Starting with how the guy downplays as "ghosting", what he did to his live-in-girlfriend.)
posted by Omnomnom at 12:46 PM on May 5, 2021 [10 favorites]

Ghosting can be a way of protecting yourself, but ghosting can also be used as a way to escape having to face consequences for your actions. Harm someone, then ghost and set boundaries, so that way the ghostee can't confront you without looking crazy and inconsiderate. If your actions fall below the threshold where the ghostee can take legal action, it feels like this works perfectly. I liked this article because it felt like it addressed the second type of ghosting, but after reading the comments, I'm back to feeling narcissistic for wanting an apology from my ex.
posted by chernoffhoeffding at 12:46 PM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I guess it came from developing a fundamental sense of my own value as a human being. Overall... I like myself, and I try to be good to those around me.

This is exactly backwards for my experience. Overall, I like(d) myself just fine. I remember even going up to a popular, handsome guy in college and trying to talk to him, and he swatted me away like a mosquito. But I hate it when people say "the reason why you don't get dates is because you don't like yourself." I don't like myself (much) because I've been rejected for 30 years, not the other way around.
posted by Melismata at 12:51 PM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

I'm pretty sure I've seen variations of this article for all these scenarios:

- it's not OK to ghost
- it's not OK to break it off via text
- it's not OK to break it off via phone
- it's not OK to break it off in person in public
- it's not OK to break it off without giving reasons
- it's not OK to break it off for those reasons...

I'm not a big fan of ghosting. I've been ghosted a few times, it's no fun. When I was dating, my practice was to break it off swiftly by text if just one or two dates, phone if we'd gone out enough to establish any expectations of more dates, and in person if it was serious.

Usually texting was fine after a date or two. Phone breakups were almost always awkward but usually not horrible. In-person always sucked. Sorry, I can't give you the "why" you're looking for. It's not a negotiation or negotiable. I just know it's not going to work out. Sorry.
posted by jzb at 12:52 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

As an old, being ghosted was a lot less fun when it included calling a landline, having a roommate or relative pick up, take a minute to cover the phone and then clearly lie to you about the object of your affection not being there, 'they just went out, no I don't know when they'll be back'.
posted by signal at 1:05 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

But I hate it when people say "the reason why you don't get dates is because you don't like yourself."

I definitely wasn't trying to say that, and that strikes me as a shitty thing to say. Sorry, I guess I leaned too far into puerile. I'm the sort of person who read Dostoevsky's The Idiot as an aspirational Bildungsroman, so most of what I write should be ignored.
posted by Alex404 at 1:05 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

I think in the USA at least there has been the development of an attitude that you don't owe anybody anything ever and if you're expending emotional labor on someone you are being used, nay, abused.

Honestly, in the USA I'm surprised dating apps haven't already built in a feature that automates break ups to prevent ghosting. It's not ideal of course, but it's a simple matter of a counter sending a message after X days of no communication. I can imagine a programmer then saying, "Boom, problem solved, now let's charge users 2.99 a month for it."
posted by FJT at 1:08 PM on May 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

It's fundamentally structural. In a capitalist world dating and relationships take on a neoliberal form; social hierarchies due to class inequality creates this norm of expendability. I remember reading a paper saying that people who lose out on the social hierarchy of dating become the ones to reconfigure their worldviews, etc.
posted by polymodus at 1:09 PM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Also as an old, I wonder how much of the angst is because you absolutely know they got your voice mail/text message/email or they saw your private message on social media.

It was a lot easier when your letter could get lost in the mail or your phone call was going to a landline and answering machines hadn't been invented yet.
posted by Peach at 1:11 PM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

Honestly, in the USA I'm surprised dating apps haven't already built in a feature that automates break ups to prevent ghosting.

E-harmony did that for a while, ~15 years ago. I got several emails of "Sorry, x is not interested in you, because (check one): [most common] 'I just don't think we're a match.'" After getting too many of these I stopped using E-harmony, because my ego was too wounded. Live and learn.
posted by Melismata at 1:11 PM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

It's also just fundamentally easier to ghost someone that you met for the sole purpose of dating and don't intersect with otherwise, as opposed to meeting people through your social circle or activities.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:14 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

E-harmony did that for a while, ~15 years ago. I got several emails of "Sorry, x is not interested in you, because (check one): [most common] 'I just don't think we're a match.'" After getting too many of these I stopped using E-harmony, because my ego was too wounded.

I remember one time on Match I "winked" at a guy, which was basically the lowest, mildest form of expression of interest available, not even involving using actual words. The guy wrote me at least two paragraphs explaining why it wasn't me, it was him. Far more offensive than just not responding! Dude. It was a wink. How fragile do you think I am?
posted by praemunire at 1:19 PM on May 5, 2021 [13 favorites]

My anecdote is the one time I was ghosted/stood up was on my birthday after a month or so of dating in university. I was honestly worried since a birthday seems an odd time to just not show up and no one at her house seemed to know (or possibly wouldn't tell me) where she was. It was not what I would call a good time.

An honest question... multiple comments have been made to the effect that many women ghost out of fear that the men will react violently, but over the years I've had the misfortune to know some super shitty dudes and it's mostly seemed that their biggest trigger has always been being ignored. I'm not sure what the question is... but is it just the thankfully small pool of shitty guys I've known (or at least seen their shittyness) and the general experience is different?

I've personally settled on as simple and painless a break as possible. Partially based on the fact that I've mostly dated over the years within my extended social group so it's really not possible to ghost someone you are likely to run into (in the before times of course) randomly.
posted by cirhosis at 1:21 PM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

If I was dating someone that had the capacity to be thrilled by me breaking down in tears I'd probably ghost them too. Seriously, that line sounded sociopathic.
posted by Hutch at 1:25 PM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

Omnomnom, thank you for posting that ultimate ghosting story. I was seriously about to by the time I got to the bottom of reading the rest of this.

It seems to me that it's probably a different experience between "we went on a few dates and I'm not feeling it" vs. "we had sex, we've been officially together for months/years, I met their parents, we shacked up" levels of involvement. If there's not a whole lot of involvement, then a polite no or nothing may be fine. If you've had your lives entwined for awhile, it's incredibly cold to just bail like that with nothing.

Per Ask A Manager: "If you had ghosted her after a month of dating, it would have been rude but potentially salvageable. A month of dating more than a decade ago isn’t likely to loom very large for most people, emotionally. And ghosting after a short amount of time dating shouldn’t generally be devastating. Rude and frustrating, but not devastating. But you were together for three years, and you lived together! And then you disappeared with no word? That’s some serious emotional destruction that you inflicted there. I’m not surprised that she contacted your family and friends; she was probably worried about whether you were alive or not! (Really, think about it. If you came home one day and your long-time partner was gone and had left no note, would you just shrug and go on with your life, or would you try to figure out if she were okay or not?)"
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:28 PM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

I remember one time on Match I "winked" at a guy, which was basically the lowest, mildest form of expression of interest available, not even involving using actual words. The guy wrote me at least two paragraphs explaining why it wasn't me, it was him. Far more offensive than just not responding! Dude. It was a wink. How fragile do you think I am?

I remember going through the guys who had clicked "Like" for me (or whatever the equivalent was back then). I found one to be interesting and sent him a short introductory email, only to have him reply "I was just clicking Likes, I'm not actually interested in dating you or anything." An early lesson in how online dating works.
posted by Melismata at 1:29 PM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

It has been about seven years since I was last in the dating pool. My impression of ghosting then was that it was part and parcel of pickup artist culture, along with negging and other hurtful, entitled behaviors. It was part of the "pump-em-and-dump-em" schtick. It would usually be done after the first time the ghoster slept with their date, and then it was on to the next conquest, another person they would trick into thinking they wanted a relationship.

I'm kind of surprised to see it defended here like this, and dismayed that it's become so mainstream. As for the article, when read in the context of getting revenge on a sexist PUA it has a different tone, to me, than when read in the context of a person overreacting in a creepy way to something that's now part of mainstream dating etiquette.

I'm thinking that ghosting, in today's world, is another thing that we can think of as an Ask/Guess issue and that it's something that isn't driven by a conquest mentality anymore (if it ever was; maybe I was just wrong). I personally am not a fan of it. I'm autistic and anxious, and it's just way too triggering. It's not great to be dumped either, but there are ways of doing so without listing a person's faults, and I guess I'm one more vote in favor of closure.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 1:30 PM on May 5, 2021 [12 favorites]

Beethoven's Sith, I don't think that ghosting is nearly as gendered as PUA culture is. Many of the people defending it in this thread are, indeed, defending it as a way for women to protect themselves.
posted by sagc at 1:32 PM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

Phalene: putting emotional significance on having sex or sharing some fun intimate behaviour is gross.

Fine. Feel free to consider me gross, then. And let's never have sex together.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:33 PM on May 5, 2021 [15 favorites]

@cirhosis
I mean, I mostly socialize with women in my age bracket (late 20's) and am quite close to them (10+ year relationships), and most of them have told me that they ghost out of convenience. I asked them if they'd been ghosted, and they said it was horrible and that it had hurt quite a bit. Only a few of them were able to push through the cognitive dissonance and make the connection between them being ghosted, and their ghosting others. As far as I can tell, in the majority of cases, it's people who feel like they are in a position of power or greater value than the other, unilaterally severing ties out of personal ease and for the unassailability of the action; ghostees' responses look crazy. Other people in the thread, talking about how dating has integrated a lot of neoliberal and capitalist structure are correct. Even in the eThIcAlLy non-monogamous crowd. We commodify eachother, and in turn, are commodified ourselves. Dating is so strictly hierarchical, productivity-focused, and functionalizing today. What can you expect when the easiest way to meet people for anything these days is through an inherently comparative process of being displayed in a stack of cards, amusingly, along with advertisements? No one is safe. It's a pseudo-Darwinian nightmare where the best you can hope to be is an exceptional sex toy that earns its keep.
posted by constantinescharity at 1:34 PM on May 5, 2021 [11 favorites]

I have a friend who was in a 9-year relationship, 3 moves, with someone who propose to her, she bought the wedding dress - and then, in pre-cell phone days, he moved out while she was at work and never talked to her again. (She did find out what happened - he had applied for a third post-doc and met someone else and moved across the continent.)

That is a situation where a fake pregnancy and a conversation seems somewhat appropriate.

Also, I had a 7 year really close, daily contact, relationship end in a ghosting at a truly terrible, awful, traumatic point in my life and I did not handle it well; I did in fact chase the person and sent several emails and it is one of my regrets in life.

Because...even if it's rude, or hurtful, silence is actually a no. It's a shitty no, but it's a no nonetheless. I think more harm is done overall when we override people's limits than the bad feelings we have when we come up against them.

At the ghosted point I think the only okay behaviour towards that person is maybe the wrap-up text and then be done. Everything else is just trying to control the situation (which is a lousy one.) And feelings. It feels bad. It felt awful, in fact. Years later, I see that in fact the ghosting was because we were in a kind of guess vs. ask terrible spiral and it ended a relationship that should have ended much earlier.

It's okay to have bad feelings at any stage and that's different from deserving a response...because even with those really bad feelings, I wish I had just let it go from the moment the ghosting became clear to me. At least I learned.

I think there should be better manners. But the reinforcement shouldn't be at the point of fracture, so to speak. When we're talking about dating with our kids, friends, at the gym changeroom, etc. - that's when saying "aw man, ghosting is lousy, don't do that" - is a good spot. It's one reason I'm reading bits of this thread (edited) to my teenage kid.

I want to push back on the idea that ghosting is new. I think apps/tech make it easier in a way because you're dating in a situation where you don't attend the same book club or live on the same street. But from pre-cell-phone dating memory, I know I was ghosted and ghosted. Summer romance endings, having parents take messages until the person gave up, etc. Even in Victorian novels people run away on their supposed engagements or even marriages.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:35 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

It also sounds like to me that ghosting could be at least be partly caused by procrastination. One of the ideas of why people procrastinate is because they put off doing things that are associated with negative emotions or feelings. Instead of doing that action, they do anything else to cope even though they know it only provides temporary distraction or relief.

So, maybe some of the strategies people use to stop being procrastinators can also be applied to stop being a ghoster?
posted by FJT at 1:42 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

That article was a wild ride. She takes pains to say stuff like, "People who don’t want to see you anymore don’t need to provide an explanation," and then she talks about manipulating this guy into coming over with a vague, foreboding message and feeling powerful while he hems and haws. It strikes me as really unhealthy behavior, and it's not OK for anybody of any gender.

People ghost for plenty of reasons. Maybe they're selfish jerks. Maybe they suck at confrontation. Maybe the person they were dating was putting out a worrisome vibe. (One person's ghosting is another person's "no contact.") But I think very few of them "want you to feel bad." The idea that people are ghosting you maliciously is how scary stalkers happen.

"And if I don’t get basic decency, I will ask for it nicely."

Making somebody think you might be pregnant or something so they'll come over, and then cackling to yourself while they squirm in your apartment? That's hardly "asking for decency," and there's nothing nice about it.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 1:49 PM on May 5, 2021 [29 favorites]

An essential skill in striking gold in the takes mines is to be able to frame a mundane personal anecdote, preferably one where you're an asshole, as not only virtuous but as a matter of justice.

Bravo, Jenny Singer.
posted by Reyturner at 2:03 PM on May 5, 2021 [11 favorites]

Around 2014 Joan Holloway was imagined as saying, in the 60s, “Men don’t take the trouble to break up with you. They ignore you until you insist on a declaration of hate.” Which I did circa 2005 and Marianne Dashwood did 200 years before that - disastrous outcomes both times. I now think it’s better to let people hate you - or forget you, which is the same thing - in peace. Trying to force others to act how you want is always an empty well.
posted by acantha at 2:14 PM on May 5, 2021 [10 favorites]

Floam, are you commenting in the spirit of the author, right now!?

This is a fine opportunity to ghost!

To be fair, I felt deflated for reading the article.
I'm going to cleanse my mind with an article from somewhere else. Someone complain to this magazine in the tone of the author, please.
posted by firstdaffodils at 2:22 PM on May 5, 2021

I was making a light joke of it, because there is humor in it, but in all honesty, you're right.

Commenting in the spirit refers to outright commenting on the article instead of ignoring the situation and running away.
posted by firstdaffodils at 2:26 PM on May 5, 2021

Also as an old, I wonder how much of the angst is because you absolutely know they got your voice mail/text message/email or they saw your private message on social media.

Huh, to me the major annoyance of ghosting is the possibility that a text or phone call hasn't gone through (I've had instances where I know someone sent me a bunch of texts and I never received them*). Back when communication was less likely to connect, you both had to be proactive. So if we aren't connecting then we're not all that interested in each other. Mutual parting of ways.

Now communication misfires just often enough that I'd worry. Is it ghosting? Or does it look like I'm ghosting?

The roommate obviously lying about someone not being there sort of eliminates the possible angst of a missed connection. It wouldn't be fun, but it wasn't going to be anyways. I guess I fall on the side of not really needing to know why someone doesn't want to see me anymore. Just knowing they don't is plenty.

It is rude to ghost a long relationship and I think most people wouldn't want to be ghosted in that situation. But for something that hasn't reached a relationship stage there seems to be a wide range of what people would prefer.

Maybe when you're ready to break off after a few dates you can have their number routed to a break-up service the next time they call. Then the dumped person can indicate how much information they want. Press 1 pleasant nothings ending things, Press 2 for the truth, Press 3 to have your every fear about yourself confirmed.

For the one and done dates you can just text a ghost emoji.


*Receiving texts halfway through a saga involving hospitals and ambulances was not fun.
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:33 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

"“Say it,” I said. He was silent.

“Say it!” I hissed. “Say it now!” He looked up, spooked, like a peasant child waylaid in the woods by a witch woman.

“I felt like maybe we were moving more toward being friends,” he stammered.

I am the witch queen, I thought, as his steps echoed down the hall. I am the resurrector. I am she who turns ghosts to men and men to dust! I was still sad. I did not want to be rejected. But I did want my rejection to feel humane."


..read the rest of the article.
Now I want to ghost.
Outta here.
posted by firstdaffodils at 2:34 PM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

He swept her off her feet and she loved it. She was all in. He fooled her, because those guys are really good at what they do. And she seemed primed for that sort of dude. He was a player, probably "dating" several others at the same time, cycling through a repertoire of moves and scenarios. She was easy pickings for him.

To be ghosted in that situation forces you to realize you got played, and you are angry at him, yes; but you're angriest at yourself for falling for it. You let yourself build up expectations and fantasies about a person who was as substantial as a meringue. You believed it because DAMN, you really wanted it to be true. But as is the case everywhere- if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, and I blame her for falling so hard for someone who clearly was a player.

Maybe she's just too inexperienced? I don't know. But her description of "Jesse" set off every alarm bell. No one does that shit! No one. And if they do- beware. That's love-bomb stuff, that's non-reality stuff. Never go all in until you get the real stuff. And if you never get the real stuff? Then you're better off anyway, and you protected yourself. She says they only went on 8 or 9 dates!! That's nothing. Girl, you need to lighten up.

It's no loss to be ghosted by someone like "Jesse." That's a gift! It's a free seminar in the school of life and relationships, and by letting him go on his player-way, you passed with an A+ and graduated to the next level. Celebrate that. Learn from it. Do better next time.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 3:03 PM on May 5, 2021 [20 favorites]

multiple comments have been made to the effect that many women ghost out of fear that the men will react violently, but over the years I've had the misfortune to know some super shitty dudes and it's mostly seemed that their biggest trigger has always been being ignored.

You're right about that, that's a trigger to an awful lot of those dudes. Presumably they don't know where the woman in that scenario lives, though? If they met at the theatre/restaurant/whatever.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:03 PM on May 5, 2021

Is ghosting etiquette or escape hatch? There should be no etiquette experts in foxholes, to be sure. Once things get even a little bit hinky, by all means take the measures you need to feel safe.

But many times it is an etiquette issue, and I'm shocked to see the defenses of ghosting in that context. I admit I still send handwritten thank-you notes and have dated only one person this century, but ghosting seems unspeakably cruel. It is not, as noted multiple times, a new technique. Men, granted, can be awful, but we're not more dangerous than we were a century ago. What has changed is the ease of stopping all communication and, apparently, societal acceptance. Avoiding unnecessary hurt feelings has always been one of the keystones of real etiquette, and those social conventions should be treasured. E.g., responding with a specific reason ("I've got yoga") when declining a welcome invitation, but something vague ("I'm super busy lately") when it is unwelcome. It makes it easier for both parties, as the decliner doesn't have to say out loud, "If I saw your greasy mug again I might literally throw up", and the declinee doesn't need to hear that.

However, it's also an iron-clad rule of etiquette that pointing out someone's rudeness is almost universally worse than the original fault, no matter how caddish the precipitating incident. So the author has absolutely gone around the bend and veered into the absolutely unforgivable. I don't think she could be prosecuted for fraud, but I would be legitimately scared of her.
posted by wnissen at 3:08 PM on May 5, 2021 [2 favorites]

Good for this woman. Jesse sounds like a narcissistic man-child who created a fantasy love affair then drifted away when it threatened his self-centered reality by being real. People like that suck, he got what he deserved.
posted by diode at 3:11 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

Nobody deserves to be tricked into an apartment under false pretenses and berated for ceasing to respond to text messages!
posted by sagc at 3:12 PM on May 5, 2021 [14 favorites]

Finding out that someone isn't into you, when you're into them, is the worst motherfucking feeling on the planet.

Is it? Let me tell you about how my dad died.

've been through some real shit in my life, including finding out someone I loved was kinda lukewarm about me and very warm for others, and I can assure you there are worse feelings out there.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 3:15 PM on May 5, 2021 [12 favorites]

Overall, my chips are on the space that involves both of them having a string of relationships that are just exhausting for anyone to hear about for their various individual reasons.
posted by Drastic at 3:16 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

@darkstar:
I mean, yeah, 54 and single, and will die alone. But I'm much happier this way than dealing with the constant emotional turmoil of trying to manage these sorts of interpersonal dramas on a day-to-day, intimate basis.

Preach brother. One of the first things I decided when I got sober around 8 years ago, was not to look for 'romance' either at work or in the rooms. As I was not going to bars to hang out anymore; that left me with dating apps. Around this time; I also read that the two sets of people who were the least 'desirable' groups were Asian Men and Black Women. On top of that I was in my mid 40's, kinda broke (after a divorce), and making a career change. As soon as I saw that I pretty much gave up.

Now that I have been single for almost 10 years; I am glad I am not dealing with trying to navigate this now. I think the movement of dating to online has made things easier for people to be treated with less consideration. I don't remember Ghosting being such a big topic of discussion in the 90's before Smartphones and Internet dating. I am sure ghosting existed; but people still moved in similar circles so you got the scuttlebutt on the why. Is the fact that people are dating 'strangers' now; people they would not otherwise have other people in common; making it easier to ghost? As there is no real social repercussions anymore? What I mean is that if you are in the same friend group, or someone in your friend group knows someone in their friend group etc., being a jerk will spread. In this modern dating scene; this kind of behavior maybe doesn't have the same social cost associated; and it is leading to less consideration,
posted by indianbadger1 at 3:33 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

"I called Jesse and left a mysterious, “Hey, there’s something I really need to talk about with you…” message, channeling my gynecologist when she leaves me foreboding voice mails that turn out to be about yeast infections. He texted back immediately. I said it would be better to talk in person. He arranged to come over right away."

So far only Ursula Hitler has noted this explicitly, but HOLY Fuck - I guaran-damn-tee that the thought that went through that guy's head was "OH SHIT SHE'S PREGNANT!!!"

And even if gynecologists do this on a regular basis, there's no damn way this Jenny Singer character didn't KNOW that that's what the guy would think.

So yeah, this whole thing is a perfect example of "two wrongs don't make a right." Ghosting someone may be Wrong and emotionally immature and whatever, but that doesn't make it OK to pull this kind of manipulative shit to force a confrontation. Everyone Sucks in this little vignette.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:37 PM on May 5, 2021 [22 favorites]

Either pregnant or an STD, is what I thought.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:38 PM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

It's easy to say that you'd never ghost someone until you meet that person that you do not feel at all safe around. I don't like ghosting and I don't like being ghosted but there was that one time when the person in question really creeped me out and I just needed to not be around them anymore.

I would have not been happy if I were the dude in the article.
posted by nathanfhtagn at 3:51 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

Nobody owes you a god damn thing

I see this attitude embodied frequently, and I think it is disgusting. Yes, people owe each other things. Parents owe their kids physical and emotional sustenance and caretaking. Spouses owe their partner to abide by the vows they took. Business partners owe their partner to do what they agreed to do to build and run their business.

I would argue that people also make implicit agreements. After 8 or 9 dates and an ongoing sexual relationship, there is a reasonable expectation you will see the person again. You owe that person the bottom line decency of communicating if you don't want to see them again.
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 3:51 PM on May 5, 2021 [32 favorites]

Even if you're owed that, it doesn't make it ok to respond however you'd like when you don't get it.
posted by sagc at 4:08 PM on May 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

I mean, sure, because that's what you owe the other person reciprocally.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 4:15 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've ghosted when every single boundary I've tried to put in place or explain has been met as open for negotiation. If I've tried to politely explain my lack of interest in X activity, and someone continues to do it, and that pattern is repeated, it will be repeated for any sort of break up. So yeah, I've ghosted friends after repeated attempts to get them to respect my boundaries. Or significant violations of a boundary.

Part of it is that I know, if they drag me into a confrontation because 'dignity' or what they think I owe them, I will react like I am cornered. Which for me means a lot of fear that has the potential to become aggression, and for them means every bit of empathy and understanding I ever had will be turned on them like a weapon. I try and make sure to avoid that situation with people as a general rule, because it's so much more harmful than it needs to be for them, and also leaves me a wreck for an indeterminate amount of time.

I'm not thinking about power and hurting them, I'm trying to avoid it because I know that their propensity to try negotiate boundaries, or push for reasons they can then excuse in order to invalidate my choices, will trigger me in a way that is unpleasant. And in the process I am liable to do long lasting emotional damage well beyond the ambiguity of ghosting.

(Also I have often spent significant time explaining myself already and if they can't see that then I imagine they won't for any final text either)
posted by geek anachronism at 4:24 PM on May 5, 2021 [17 favorites]

Ghosting sucks, but I am guilty of doing it myself, so I couldn't exactly complain when it happened to me.

Only one time it happened really bugged me. This person gave every indication that we would make a great match, when after a few dates I just...stopped hearing from her. It was so surprising that I was actually worried about her and didn't even consider that I had been dumped. But over the next few days, through mutual friends, I learned that she was alive and well and apparently living her best life. Without me.

For some reason, that stuck in my craw for weeks, months, even. I mean, I've gone through many a breakup with exes, and like I said I'm guilty of ghosting as well, but with her, it just didn't make any sense; to this day, I don't think there was anything in my behavior that should've turned her off, or at least, nothing overtly offensive. I think she ultimately just wasn't interested but chose not to be honest about it. What bugged me was the lack of closure, like it was an open wound I couldn't stitch myself.

Anyway, I didn't mention that this was a bazillion years ago when Facebook was a plucky young social media site and growing really fast, circa 2005 or so. It had been at least a year since the ghosting and I saw her profile. "What the hell?" I thought and clicked "Friend Request." A day or two later I got the response: denied.

This should've made me sad, but it made me happy. I was denied, but I got a response. She communicated, in the laziest way possible, that she didn't want me, which was not ideal, but I finally finally got closure. And after that the stick in my craw just went away, poof, and I could move on. So thanks to FB I guess; sometimes it does come in handy.
posted by zardoz at 5:04 PM on May 5, 2021 [6 favorites]

Abruptly cutting off communication with someone because of abuse, harassment, or red flags is completely acceptable. Doing it because you find honesty uncomfortable is juvenile. I’d prefer a polite, brief rejection any day. Literally a one sentence text is fine. Not ideal, but fine.

Creating a lot of unnecessary drama because you’re pissed off about being ghosted isn’t cool either. Nobody wins a contest of pettiness.
posted by dephlogisticated at 5:31 PM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

I find this fascinating because a statement like 'You cannot preserve your dignity, because this person has taken it from you by pretending you do not exist', and the notion that human decency is an owed relationship, of reciprocating acts of formal recognition, is so eerily familiar. What does this remind me of so strongly? What are these assumptions about dignity? I start out by asking, wait, if human dignity is innate and inalienable (as I, child of twentieth century humanism, have been nicely brought up to feel), how can it be degraded just by being ignored by some person you went on dates with? And then I realise that the context where these kinds of demands make sense are old novels, the ones where characters duel.

Part of why I insist upon behavior that other people would find embarrassing is that I want to remind myself that I have worth

Finding one's own self-worth in the behaviour of others was core to the kind of aggressive male-only cultures where the failure to defend one's own dignity (i.e. by putting up with an insult) led to polite pistols at dawn. These concept-relationships of dignity and recognition and insult seem odd in 2021 but make perfect sense if, say, compared to Tolstoy's Pierre Bezukhov shooting his shameless wife's lover, and then finding himself the shamed one. The last place I would have thought to find pre-20thC gentlemanly codes of honour and insult would be postmodern dating, but here we are.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:39 PM on May 5, 2021 [20 favorites]

I’m with the hooray for ghosting crowd. My dating was pre-texts (mostly pre-ubiquitous cell phones) and mostly with people enough in an ongoing social circle they couldn’t be ghosted even the means available in the 90s.

How perfectly mortifying to listen to someone you saw a few times tell you why they aren’t into you and be expected to acknowledge/forgive/agree - doubly so when you skipped out on a TV show you liked (pre-DVR and steaming) for the privilege. How even more mortifying to be the administering the sharp end of that with “you have to be cruel to be kind” running through your head.
posted by MattD at 5:53 PM on May 5, 2021 [5 favorites]

I was ghosted once but I got some sweet revenge.

This was a year or two after high school. One of my friends offered to hook me up with someone she knew at college and I accepted. We met and hit it off but before I could make a move my friend suddenly decided she had feelings for me and we should go out. Hey, sure!

That whole thing lasted maybe two months. She went to school about two hours from me so we didn’t see each other often and when we did nothing happened – we would see a movie, go to Denny’s, and I would drive back home. I don’t think we even held hands.

Spring break was coming up and I tried to make plans but she wouldn’t give me a straight answer. She claimed that her phone was randomly deleting voicemails. Eventually there was radio silence. I left one more voicemail and then went to hang out with the person she originally set me up with. I went to her dorm but she wasn’t in so I broke up with her by writing a message on her whiteboard. She was a RA as well so her entire floor probably saw the message before she did.

Few hours later she called. She was furious. I explained that I wanted to be absolutely sure she got the message this time since she was having such bad luck with her phone.

Not my finest moment but I don’t totally regret it.
posted by Diskeater at 6:00 PM on May 5, 2021 [8 favorites]

Ghost away. The majority of people probably prefer it.

I'm glad someone said this better than I could. I feel like the definition of "ghosting" has seen a lot of drift in pop culture. It went from someone maliciously dropping out of a defined relationship in a destructive way to "anyone I have ever gone on a date with who didn't text me back." My experience has been that "ghosting" in the casual sense is the default for online dating unless you've had The Relationship Talk.

But regardless of your feelings on that, the behavior of the author of this piece is so far out of bounds for anyone of any gender I'm amazed to see any comments here defending it. Bringing someone to your apartment under false pretenses so you can revel in their discomfort and make a big scene is crazy person stuff.
posted by bradbane at 6:02 PM on May 5, 2021 [19 favorites]

I feel like people are talking a little past each other in this thread because there are pretty disparate definitions of what counts as "ghosting." Consider these scenarios:

1) Persons A and B are officially in a romantic relationship, and then abruptly one person vanishes and doesn't respond to any attempts at contact.

2) Persons A and B have gone on a few casual dates and/or hooked up. Then A disappears and won't respond to any of B's pleas for an explanation.

3) Persons A and B have gone on a few casual dates and/or hooked up. Then it fizzles out, or maybe one person writes, "Hey, what's up?" and doesn't get an answer and that's that.

To me, I wouldn't consider the first scenario to be "ghosting" - it seems much too serious to call it that, especially once you've moved past the casual stage. Doing this would be seriously unethical, unless the person poses a danger and it's important to quickly go no contact.

Scenarios 2 and 3 are much more ethical ambiguous and I don't think there's a right answer. I think it gets at the fact that there aren't universal etiquette norms, and what is considered rude in one dating culture is viewed as polite in another (similar, as someone pointed out upthread, to whether it's considered rude to accept a gift on the first offer). My opinion is that a lot of people view ghosting as the kind, merciful option in a lot of scenarios. Basically, "I'm going to help you save face by not explicitly drawing attention to my rejection of you and letting this dissolve organically" vs "I'm going to make a big deal and go out of my way to make sure you know I think you're undesirable." Personally, I'd rather be ghosted. I feel like it's usually polite to give an explanation if requested, though that too can get tricky if the other person is likely to lash out.

I disagree that this is an outcome of capitalist commodification of social relations or whatever. I think it's more an outcome of the fact that people "settle down" a lot later in life, and there are a lot more types of sexual-romantic entanglements that people have, especially with strangers and acquaintances.
posted by adso at 6:17 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

Without a ghosting I’d never have the pleasure of a “new phone who dis?” reply to their fishing text six months later. Because those are sweeeeeet
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:23 PM on May 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

all this and he didn't even ghost her

she says he canceled some plans - not ignored her, not stood her up, but canceled, like a grown-up - and didn't ask her out again.

and then the second she contacted him with a vague message of need, he was right there with a prompt and considerate response.

"he stopped pursuing me" is not fucking GHOSTING, my god. you don't have to stage a break-up when you're not someone's boyfriend. she got a whole article out of this one guy and he didn't even ignore her damn messages.
posted by queenofbithynia at 6:32 PM on May 5, 2021 [43 favorites]

I am sure that if you asked anyone I've "ghosted" they would tell you how terrible it was, how gutless I am, how abrupt and ambiguous it was. But like others in the thread, I'd be able to show you the ignored boundaries and unambiguous "no thank you" and my lack of engagement to pursue them further. Because yes, it does suck when you do something and want the person to pursue you and they don't. It isn't ghosting.
posted by geek anachronism at 7:43 PM on May 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

Everyone is different, but when it actually, finally, happened, it was something I handled a lot better than I did my wife letting me know she wanted noting to do with me anymore 3 weeks later. People are weird.

No, it makes sense: it's quite different to live with the threat of death for years and the anvil hanging over your head vs. very suddenly having an anvil drop out of nowhere when you were totally fine before.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:07 PM on May 5, 2021 [1 favorite]

Hints, body language, and subtext are critical things for real men to understand

*stares autistically*

It's not gonna happen, I have a diagnosis and everything.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:10 PM on May 5, 2021 [11 favorites]

Our relationship was characterized by me being uncomfortably full of breakfast foods.

We went on maybe eight or nine dates.

I'm sorry, but eight or nine dates is not a relationship. That's borderline "fling," but even that is tenuous.

I assume the author is writing for effect and probably exaggerating or otherwise telling a good story, but even so I found it offputting. I've ghosted people (including before cellphones, when ghosting took some work) and have been ghosted; it's not the best feeling but neither are some of the other options. If someone doesn't want to be with you, let them go without drama.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:24 PM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

Someone complain to this magazine in the tone of the author, please.

The magazine is called "Glamour". I can't be arsed to check, because the magazine is called "Glamour", but I'm assuming it's yet another of those low-rent "women's magazines" that exist only to sell advertising while attempting to inculcate implicitly patriarchal values into as many teenage girls as possible and that any such complaint would therefore be instantly circular-filed.

Probably without acknowledgement.

Just remember, girls: you have no dignity beyond what random pick-up artists deign to allow you. Stamp that into your brain.
posted by flabdablet at 8:36 PM on May 5, 2021 [3 favorites]

During the very brief period that i was dating after my divorce, I called up someone I'd seen for five or six dates to tell her that I didn't think we should continue to see each other, and why. There wasn't anything wrong with her, she was fun and lovely, I just wasn't interested in joining a polygamous web, my goal was to meet one person and be monogamous.

I don't know if it was the slight age difference or what, but she was genuinely shocked, in a good way. Apparently in all of her time dating online, no one had so much as texted to break things off. By calling my intent was to tell her that her feelings mattered to me, and that I thought she deserved the courtesy of an explanation. I'm not perfect, very far from it, but I try to show people the same courtesy I'd like to be shown myself.

Now for the person who wanted me to meet her mom and her priest after one date? Yes, I ghosted her. Context matters.
posted by 1adam12 at 11:17 PM on May 5, 2021 [9 favorites]

First, flabdablet, judging Glamour Magazine by its name alone, considering it was founded 82 years ago in 1939, may not be the wisest move. (FWIW, in the 1940s it incorporated the assumption that its readers had jobs as a subtitle; in the 60s, it was the first women's magazine to feature a Black woman on the cover. It may not be Ms., but it's no Tiger Beat.)

Personally, I had a subscription starting about forty years ago and found that it was neither "low-rent" nor targeted at teenagers. One of the best pieces I'd ever read on relationship abuse appeared in Glamour sometime in my college years and I recall us surreptitiously passing copies of it to friends who were being otherwise isolated from their support system. In my teens and twenties, Glamour (and the now defunct Mademoiselle) were targeted at mid-to-late twentysomething and thirtysomethings; yes, they're magazines, and so the editorial section has an uncomfortable balancing act with the sales department, but capitalism is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Considering the amazing political writing done during the Trump administration by Teen Vogue, I'd caution us all against judging magazines by their titles or their audiences.

As for ghosting, as someone who has probably spent 20 minutes on multiple occasions trading goodbyes (and contact information) with random people seated near me on airplanes, ghosting really isn't in my wheelhouse. That said, I believe that you always have the right to ask/insist/demand respectful treatment from the world, but you don't have the right to get it. If you ghost a creepy guy after two dates, it's different from not accepting your fiancé canceling the wedding by email and going underground.

People may ghost because they suck, or because the person they're ghosting sucks, or because they're in emotional pain and can't handle being an adult human, or a million other possibilities. And thus, I believe you can politely confront someone who ghosts you, but whether you should, and definitely whether I should, depends on the situation, the time together, the people themselves, and whether the experience is necessary to write the key scene in your screenplay.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 11:27 PM on May 5, 2021 [20 favorites]

I had a subscription starting about forty years ago and found that it was neither "low-rent" nor targeted at teenagers.

Happy to stand corrected. By all means, then, send them a stiffly worded complaint about letting down their editorial standards with this clickbaity piece of dreck.
posted by flabdablet at 12:39 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

metafilter is very silly sometimes.
posted by firstdaffodils at 12:50 AM on May 6, 2021 [4 favorites]

this seems ripe for a "hot ghost summer" followup...
posted by terretu at 12:50 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

With one, maybe two, exceptions, every woman I’ve considered a best friend in the last 30 years has ghosted me. When casual dates do it, it barely even registers.

My mantra is “this says more about them than it does about me.”
posted by bendy at 4:03 AM on May 6, 2021

Keeping it breezy sometimes faces a hollow wind.
posted by filtergik at 4:04 AM on May 6, 2021

Fucking fantastic. This woman is a feminist goddess.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:22 AM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

I thought the solution at the end of the article of sending one short straight-forward text to actually communicate "I see you've ghosted me, I think that was shitty, do better, and goodbye" and then cutting off contact was pretty much perfect, and I'm astonished that people here are characterizing that as controlling and narcissistic.

The in person telling him off is cathartic but not how I'd do it...this is how I took it, the best path. "I think that was shitty, bye" is a good plan to me.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:41 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

Folks seem to be interpreting "wtf do not confront a ghoster because that's creepy and boundary pushing" to be the same as

- "stop feeling bad about being ghosted"

- "ghosting is 100% okay and cool, none of us owe each other anything"

- "you're unreasonable to expect a formal breakup and feel disappointed or angry or betrayed when you don't get it"

- etc.

Like, I have just about the most extreme opinions when it comes to how much we owe to other people. We are put on this earth to connect with people not because we deem them worthy but because this is our mandate and our duty as humans. We owe one another everything: love, forgiveness, respect, care, support, and yes, explicit communication when we are breaking up. Ghosting, in my opinion, breaches a sacred contract we have with other human beings. I'll even go to the extreme of saying it is probably a lot safer to discreetly text an abuser saying "I am breaking up with you, goodbye," once we have gotten away safely, and only THEN block them everywhere, than to let abusers stew in the awful uncertainty and rage that accompanies a sudden "unexplained" disappearance!

But equally and by the same token, when we are ghosted, we are obligated to accept it as a shitty thing that has happened to us. We need to treat it like a flooded basement or an unexpected illness: it's unfair, yes, but it's also a fact of life. Arguing with it and "forcing" people to "deal with me as a human being" after they've ghosted me breaks the sacred social contract just as much as their ghosting did, or maybe more. Hate your ghosters with all your heart, but leave. them. be.
posted by MiraK at 6:54 AM on May 6, 2021 [32 favorites]

Very well said. We use the language of debt to describe certain social obligations, and I think it creates the concomitant expectation that you can enforce "collection" of the debt. But in many situations, that's not the right way of looking at it.
posted by praemunire at 9:05 AM on May 6, 2021 [9 favorites]

The following notice is required by the Fair Dating Curmudgeonly Practices Act of 2021:

THIS AS AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT A SOCIAL DEBT OBLIGATION AND ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED WILL BE USED FOR THAT PURPOSE. AS REQUIRED BY LAW, YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT A NEGATIVE CREDIT REPORT REFLECTING ON YOUR CREDIT RECORD MAY BE SUBMITTED TO A REPORTING AGENCY IF YOU FAIL TO FULFILL THE TERMS OF YOUR SOCIAL CREDIT OBLIGATIONS. UNLESS YOU NOTIFY [COLLECTOR] DIRECTLY WITHIN 30 DAYS AFTER RECEIVING THIS NOTICE THAT YOU DISPUTE THE VALIDITY OF THIS DEBT OR ANY PORTION THEREOF, [COLLECTOR] WILL ASSUME THE DEBT IS VALID.

*ahem*
posted by Juffo-Wup at 11:03 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

I used to hate getting ghosted. Or I thought I did. I really just hated being rejected. Who doesn't? I've gone on to ghost people. The best is really just a mutual slow fade when you're both not into each other.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 11:13 AM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

It really must be difficult to be this simultaneously insecure and narcissistic.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:05 PM on May 6, 2021 [3 favorites]

Even though I didn't care for the article, I want to genuinely thank everyone for this discussion on ghosting, even though it feels like one we (both as MetaFilter and the world) have had a million times already. Even though I agree that we should treat people better and I hope that I'm at the point in my life that ghosting of any kind is something I'd avoid, I also felt more strongly than ever reading this that we, as individuals, don't owe anybody our time, and that definitely felt like a disconnect.

I realize that it's exactly the language of debt that I have a problem with. You can deserve something (the respect of a response given the emotional investment of any relationship, not just romantic) but that's not the same as being owed.

I'm glad to have that cleared up, at least for me. Ironically, now it feels like I owe you all a debt.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:22 PM on May 6, 2021 [6 favorites]

I didn't think it was possible to be secure and narcissistic. The show is just to hide it all behind smoke and mirrors.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 3:25 PM on May 6, 2021

With one, maybe two, exceptions, every woman I’ve considered a best friend in the last 30 years has ghosted me

Yup. In many cases I knew it was them, in many cases I am sure it was me, I am definite in all cases it was both. No matter what, I don't want to run that risk again. I am Bad At Best Friends and by this point in my life, I really know it. (I am really good at many things relationship-wise and I do have close friends, but not many, just not the kind of bffs that I was raised to want and always wanted. That is off the table for good.)
posted by 41swans at 7:22 PM on May 6, 2021

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if this guy was really into her early on but then backed off fast and went no contact when the red flags started adding up and he saw that she was the kind of person who is capable of pulling stuff like, well, this. She makes him look like an asshole, but I'm not sure if she's a very reliable narrator.

This woman is a feminist goddess.

If a man wrote this article about the mind-games he played with a woman, how he lured her back to his place with an ominous voicemail and then yelled SAY IT and gloated while she hemmed and hawed about how she'd been meaning to get back to him sometime, what would you think of him? Good rule of thumb: If it would be fucking toxic if a man did it, it doesn't become awesome just because the person doing it has a XX chromosome.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:21 PM on May 6, 2021 [11 favorites]

If it would be fucking toxic if a man did it, it doesn't become awesome just because the person doing it has a XX chromosome.

I wish it did but you are right.
posted by JanetLand at 5:46 AM on May 7, 2021

Jenny Singer: Tack into the wind. I hadn't realized that we were in a performance piece. Very well. Now it's my turn to define the gig.

Non-congruent expectations. Reasonable trepidation. Self-worth, defined by your social debtors. Common courtesy. Human decency. Jus in Bello. Jus ad Bellum. Closure. Revenge. Bad acts beget bad acts. You have failed to live up to my standards. Now I insist that you explain why you believe I have failed to live up to yours.

This keeps happening to me. But the first time was the worst.


On the other hand: "Leaving me was one thing, Carla, but why'd you have to leave so slow?" (courtesy Todd Snider.)

So much left unsaid.
posted by mule98J at 8:38 AM on May 7, 2021

I am firmly in her side.

"You don't owe anyone anything"...

But if you were dating for three years and you suddenly up and left and ghosted your partner, surely that would not be okay? At some point by inviting them into your life and opening your heart to them and telling them they can open their head to you, you have a responsibility to honour that?

You don't owe anyone anything.... So you don't owe them a phone call if you're going to be Kate, you don't owe them turning up when you say you will, you don't owe them sharing your honest feelings.... I mean yeah, maybe you don't, but then who are they to you if not a stranger, why date in the first place?

To ghost someone you have just met is kinda shitty but not really so bad, i think. But as the level of emotional commitment rises, so does the harm caused by ghosting,, to the point where ghosting is a slap in the face, an act of blatant disrespect, a dehumanization. She said it in the article. "We went on too many dates for that to be okay". In other words, you built a relationship with me and invited me to open my heart to you and there are consequences to this and you can't just pretend that didn't happen because it did. You have a responsibility here. If you chose to shirk it you are slapping me in the face and you should not get to walk out of here pretending that you aren't .
posted by PercussivePaul at 8:59 PM on May 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nah, 9 dates isn't license to trick someone into coming back to your apartment so you can yell at them. A person might think so, but the other party in the relationship can reasonably disagree.
posted by sagc at 9:02 PM on May 8, 2021 [3 favorites]

I've been ghosted and I've ghosted. It sucks when it happens to you, and I've done it because I'm a coward. Dealing with other humans (beep boop) is messy.
posted by h00py at 10:18 PM on May 9, 2021

I know a woman whose partner of nine years disappeared while on a mountaineering trip in the Himalayas. They’d been living together and were engaged to be married when he returned from his trip. They’d been trying for kids. The relationship was, she thought, solid.

This happened in the early 2000s, before mobile phones were ubiquitous, and he didn’t have one. A couple of weeks into his trip it became clear he’d gone missing. Friends went to Nepal to search for him, and for while she thought he must have died. Turns out he’d met a woman there and was living with her. His partner never saw him again and he never contacted her again directly.

The way he handled the situation didn’t just break her heart, it fucked with her sense of reality. It wasn’t just rejection, it was an act of needless cruelty that put her in suspended mourning, a complex grief, for years. I’m not sure the wound ever really healed.

I’d like to think the people in this thread saying ‘ghosting is fine, get over it’ would agree this extreme example is not ok. There’s probably a ghosting spectrum—with ‘didn’t text back after lacklustre first date’ at one end of the spectrum and something like this at the other. But if you’re in an actual relationship with someone (who you’re not in fear of) and you’re telling yourself it’s ok to just wordlessly disappear from their life without having the decency to tell them them it’s over... well I think this is/can be a kind of emotional violence and you’re a bit of a shitbag.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 10:50 PM on May 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

The way he handled the situation didn’t just break her heart, it fucked with her sense of reality. It wasn’t just rejection, it was an act of needless cruelty that put her in suspended mourning, a complex grief, for years. I’m not sure the wound ever really healed.

The thing about even as extreme a case as that, though, is that nothing is made better by trying to force as thoroughgoing a piece of shit as that to mouth any particular set of words after inflicting that kind of damage. There is no way for somebody who has chosen to do something as vicious as that to explain their choices in any satisfactory fashion. They've clearly been lying to their partner for years about who they really are. Why would anybody expect them to stop?

The extent to which a particular ghoster is a shitty person is pretty much inversely proportional to the extent to which anything they could possibly say has any genuine power to redeem what they did. In other words, the worse the ghosting, the less rewarding any attempt to force verbal acknowledgement of it could possibly be.

If you get ghosted and it upsets you then seek your validation from people who actually care for you, not from the asshole whose actions have made it perfectly clear that they really don't. If they've already proved themselves willing to treat you as if you had no dignity, why even bother trying to take whatever they might say afterwards at face value?
posted by flabdablet at 4:00 AM on May 10, 2021 [3 favorites]

I’d like to think the people in this thread saying ‘ghosting is fine, get over it’ would agree this extreme example is not ok. There’s probably a ghosting spectrum—

I mean, of course it's not okay. In my opinion NO form of ghosting is okay, no matter where it falls on that spectrum. It's always a shitty thing to do to someone.

But it's also always wrong to forcibly confront people who have ghosted you. Not to mention creepy, illegal, threatening and potentially an actual crime. You can send a couple of emails or texts, you can even call them on the phone once or twice, but then you have to leave them alone. Refusing to become a stalker != condoning what they did to you.

I have a feeling nobody on this thread would find this concept so difficult to understand if the relationship in question was a familial one rather than a romantic one. Here's a bit of personal history: my sister ghosted me out of the blue a few years ago. No reasons were given, there were no warning signs, and she had just spent a wonderful few days visiting with me and my kids over Christmas, and then suddenly over the next few months I realized I was ghosted. I was devastated, but I never once considered forcibly physically confronting her. I always knew that was wrong.

What I did go looking for on my favorite internet hangouts was... a smidge of sympathy and understanding, commiseration that this was a shitty thing for someone to do to their sibling and niblings without any warning. But here's the interesting thing: even though I had noted explicitly that I have no desire to confront her or forcibly reconnect with her or demand answers, even though I was very clear that I was only looking for validation that this was a shitty thing for her to do, literally every response on every forum I tried was along the lines of, "She doesn't owe you anything. She is well within her rights to stop communicating whenever she likes. She did nothing wrong." Many responses went further, saying, "Your feelings of hurt and betrayal and anger are proof that you, MiraK, are a toxic and entitled person, typical narcissist, fully deserving of what your sister did to you." I'm still salty about how those posts went on various internet places. It laid out starkly in the open one aspect of internet culture that really bums me out.

But I do think this aspect of internet culture is useful to bring up here, because people seem to view ghosting from a completely different lens when it's family members who are doing it. So let's recast the situation in the article this way: What would you think of a cut-off parent responding the way this writer did - refusing to accept their adult child's decision, engineering a confrontation with their adult children in person, interpreting the adult child going no-contact as "you have stripped me of my dignity and now I will force you to return it to me"?

Not cool, right?
posted by MiraK at 10:36 AM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

What would you think of a cut-off parent responding the way this writer did

I think the framing of a parent confronting a child is the opposite of what happened in this story, because the power dynamic is flowing the wrong way. Men are above women in the power hierarchy of society in the same way that parents are above children -- i.e. society condones and supports men oppressing women in the same way it condones and supports parents oppressing children. So a parent engineering a confrontation with a child is aggressive and a violation of boundaries. But imagine a parent is abusive and then ghosts the child, dodging any attempt at accountability, refusing to own what they've done. That child engineering a confrontation with a parent could be an expression of the child asserting their human rights and dignity, naming the crime that was done to them and refusing to be silent and therefore complicit in their own abuse. The parent doesn't have to do anything for this to be a meaningful action, it's about self-actualization on the part of the victim.
posted by PercussivePaul at 8:18 PM on May 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

> I think the framing of a parent confronting a child is the opposite of what happened in this story, because the power dynamic is flowing the wrong way. Men are above women in the power hierarchy of society in the same way that parents are above children

I disagree completely that parents are above adult children in the power hierarchy of society.

When children reach adulthood, the power balance between parents and children equalizes: parents are increasingly conscious of the one sidedness of their emotional connection to their child which the adult child almost never reciprocates even in the best of circumstances; parents are also facing a future of increasing physical and financial dependence on their children.

In young adulthood, the adult children's childhood emotional structures and patterns are still strong so they feel dependent on their parents' approval (even though they're no longer technically beholden to it), and there is also a possible financial dependence on the parent. That makes the mutual relationship balanced in terms of power, but in many cases it's the balance of a seething buried resentments and mutually-assured destruction, not a peaceful or stable balance.

When children are able to support themselves, the power balance outright flips in the adult child's favor and from then on it only gets worse for the parent as time goes on. On a very basic level, there's the fact that old people frequently become physically and financially dependent on their adult children, putting them directly under their children's control. But don't discount the power of emotional needs either, nor the developmental needs of older people which they depend almost entirely on younger members of the community to fulfill... and if they have adult children, they become dependent on these adult children to fulfill these needs. Just like a child feels a survival-driven clinging need for its parents, old age tends to activate attachment systems and send emotional needs into overdrive because old people need the younger generations around them to survive.

Adult children aren't obligated to fulfill their parents' developmental needs just because parents have them, of course, but that simply underlines how much the power balance has tilted heavily and decisively in adult children's favor by the time these children are in their thirties. It's only underage children who experience power as being entirely in the hands of their parents, and only younger or otherwise dependent adults who can genuinely claim that their parents have even partial power over them. When you consider the duration of a lifetime, children spend FAR more time having greater power over their parents than the other way around.
posted by MiraK at 11:15 AM on May 31, 2021

I''m not really seeing it. Most examples I know of adult children cutting off parents is as a last ditch efforts to assert a boundary that the parent repeatedly tramples. In this story the dude just ghosted the woman because he didn't feel like breaking up with her to her face. Nobody was trampling his boundaries, as far as we know.

Like what if a dude gets a woman pregnant and then "ghosts" her? He's a slime who's walking out on his responsibilities. What if a dude pesters a woman and ignores her "no" and then she "ghosts" him? She's protecting her boundaries. He stonewalls her; she blocks him. He tries to silence her; she tries to preserve her peace. I absolutely think we could say the dude is wrong and the woman is right to "ghost" here because these are two completely different situations and we shouldn't use the same word as if they're equivalent.
posted by PercussivePaul at 9:53 PM on June 1, 2021