Rant of the week – is ghosting okay?
Some of us have done this all differently, met at school, hooked up in a club, shared a rollie, bumped into each other in a supermarket while contemplating if carrots can actually turn you orange, so you might not know what “Ghosting” is.
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Ghosting in dating terms is the act of cancelling or ending plans or conversation with someone by literally vanishing like a ghost, that means no text responses, no calls, nothing. Or as the almighty Wiki has put it:
“Ghosting refers to the act of breaking off a relationship (often used in the context of intimate relationships) by ceasing all communication and contact with the former partner without any apparent warning or justification, as well as avoiding and/or ignoring and refusing to respond in any way to the former partner’s attempts to reach out or communicate.” much more eloquent than my explanation I think.
The different ghosts of dating
On dating apps this happens a lot, a person might not be interesting enough and eventually stops responding within the first day or two, that’s no biggie and can barely even be referred to as ghosting. The whopper of a ghost is when you’ve actually made plans or met with the other person and they suddenly stop responding to messages, leaving you baffled, red faced and sometimes turning your evening work out into something out of a Beasty Boys music video. In our generation, I get the vibe that it’s meekly accepted as part of our dating culture, but is that okay?
There are some situations where “ghosting” is all you can do. Like when the other person refuses to take no for an answer, or becomes weirdly aggressive. Then there are others where perhaps one person loses interest and decides they’d rather skip town than have that awkward conversation. I get the mindset behind it, only narcissists like to give bad news, it can be difficult and uncomfortable but it’s nothing like the anxiety of being left high and dry with no idea of what to think… cue angry work out.
Whats-app makes it even worse
Lets stir the pot a bit by adding Whats-app to the mix and the infamous double blue tick. I can only imagine the amount of rage created by a very simple update to a popular texting app, the ability to be notified when a contact has received and read a message as well as giving users the ability to hide some of this information in return for not seeing it themselves is a mine field of anxiety, misunderstandings and of course ghosting.
We all have our reasons, I for one try to avoid ghosting best I can, though I have found that some people prefer the clarity of silence than the accuracy of rejection.
What do you think? Leave a comment
