Ah…ghosting.
The term used to describe the act of completely falling off of the face of the earth when you want to stop dating someone without ever having to actually tell them you don’t want to see them anymore. When someone ghosts you, they disappear without a word and you’re left sitting there like WTF just happened here?
I’m not exactly sure where the term came from or who thought it sounded like a good idea at the time, but it’s becoming widely popular and itneeds to stop. If you’ve never been ghosted and have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, consider yourself in the minority—the few lucky ones.
For those of you that are blissfully in the dark on the subject, ghosting is a lot like going to a buffet and then deciding you’re not hungry anymore. Like, sorry, no, but you came here with the intention to eat and by eat I mean really eat (you’re at buffet, dude), then you pile up your plate high with every intention of devouring it and going back for more. Then you head back to your seat and say some weird thing like, “Oh wait, I forgot a fork” and instead of going to get the fork you just walk out of the restaurant. Who would do that? Exactly. No one, because it makes no sense at all. But it’s exactly what ghosting is.
Ghosters act like everything is totally normal until one day out of the blue they just stop texting or calling or being around. Just like in the buffet metaphor, they lead the ghostee (food at said buffet) to believe that this is the real deal and everything is just A-ok and then they say that weird thing (forgot my fork) and disappear without a word.
In my honest opinion, ghosting is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard of. It leads to unnecessary drama, hurt feelings and complications that could have all been avoided if the ghoster would have just had the nerve to tell the ghostee that they weren’t interested anymore. If you don’t like someone anymore, tell them. Explain how you’re feeling. I promise you they will respect you 10 times more if you do this and it saves them from going through the struggle of not knowing what the f*** is going on in your head.
So, for the love of sweet, sweet baby Jesus, let’s leave ghosting in 2015. It’s cowardly and childish, and we can do better.
