According to Urban Dictionary, "ghosting" is defined as "The act of suddenly ceasing all communication with someone the subject is dating, but no longer wishes to date." But I'm sure most of you, like myself, have your own personal experience with this ever growing phenomenon.
This is not to say it didn't happen in earlier years. I've heard examples of it dated long before any of us were even born, but it has become such a problem in recent years that we had to give it a name. The whole idea of it is just ridiculous. Although, I can’t say that I’m not guilty of this myself. I’ve done my fair share of ghosting, I’m not proud but I recognize that it happened and if I’ve ever done this to you I’m so incredibly sorry, I should have told you when I figured it out because no one deserves to be treated that way. But I got mine, like many others I’ve also been on the receiving end.
I start flirting with a guy and things are going great. Being the little optimist that I (sometimes) am, I get my hopes up. Then when he up and leaves me on read for an entire week, I’m completely blindsided and I have no idea what could have gone wrong. We go from consistent communication to nothing at all and my first thought is “What did I say or do to scare him off?” But after some serious reflection I realize that it wasn’t me. He knew that something wasn’t right about us, he just chose a profoundly idiotic way of handling it. My personal feelings on this that we are both grown-ups and I feel that when it comes to ending a companionship of whatever caliber, be it “just talking” or in a defined relationship, things like ending it should be discussed.
Just tell me that it isn’t going to work!
To some extent I do understand the thought process behind it, the idea that if you just stop talking to them they will eventually understand and move on, no harm done, right? WRONG. This is one of the shittiest things our generation has come up with. Not only does it leave the other person confused as hell as to what is going on, it is also extremely disrespectful! I get it, you don't want to be the bad guy for cutting it off, but it hurts worse to spend weeks wondering what you did wrong to make the other person to just up and ignore you. This causes unnecessary stress and is so freaking rude! Just act like a damn adult and treat them like what they are, A HUMAN BEING. The sooner our generation starts thinking about others and how our reckless behavior and treatment of them effects the rest of their lives, the better off everyone will be.
So next time you want to end whatever kind of relationship you are in, instead of pulling a Danny Phantom and "going ghost," why not try a more respectful way of handling it? For example, talking them through why it isn’t going to work, then going on with your life with mutual respect for each other for having used your words like grown-ups.