As a fellow college student and a girl living in a big city, I'm aware that the opportunity to meet new people is everywhere. During the summer, apps like Snapchat and Instagram pave a pathway to those opportunities, whether it be a boy from your college or someone from your hometown you haven't seen before. We have all grown accustomed to those summer flings, where you speak for hours on end and it's all dandy and beautiful. You're telling everyone about this new boy, and your brain is literally reeling with daydreams. And then, the inevitable happens.

They stop responding.

Nothing feels worse than someone leaving your message on 'read,' and then never hearing from them again. It feels as though the person you're talking to could care less about you, and that they could easily go on about their life pretending you never existed. Normally, I would recommend you take a good, hard look at yourself and ask if it really matters, but this epidemic has spread far and wide enough to make me realize that society has normalized this issue.

We've gotten used to the idea of being ghosted because we're too scared to create those deeper connections. I'm used to thinking to myself, "If we talk for too long, this might actually go somewhere." I'm used to realizing that all good things must come to an end, simply because everyone ends up being too afraid to talk. And it is sad to think about, to think that someone could toss a human aside like it's nothing.

To be honest, we have all ghosted someone before. Even if it's a friend or someone who was interested in us, it is all the same. Sometimes it makes us feel like we're winning like we have all the power. We left that person wondering about us. But in what universe has it become okay to torture someone like that, to let their mind wander off about what they might have done, or why they weren't good enough for you? Sure, we might have all ghosted someone before, but that doesn't mean it should be a normalized thing.

I know I can't make a crazy impact on the world by asking if ghosting is necessary, and it won't stop the frat boys of this universe, but we should finally be mature enough to realize that ghosting isn't something to be proud of. You shouldn't be proud of hurting other people's feelings and making them feel lesser of themselves. You shouldn't be happy that you're frightened by the idea of commitment or even worse, an actual human connection.

We should communicate with people. Talk about your day or talk about why the freaking sky is blue. And if you're not interested in someone, maybe instead of ghosting them, you let them know why they might not be the right fit for you. If we communicated more with others, we might realize that there are more words and stories to every person. So, respond. Stop being scared.

Because with the way society is headed, there might not be enough words left to save us in the future.