Friend’s story
Being ghosted was an unpleasant experience. But it was also one that forced her to reflect on her own past dating behaviours. While mulling over her own rejection, her mind flashed back to a day several weeks before, when I was sitting on my best friend’s couch with my phone in hand.
“I’m just not interested in him,” she explained. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with him objectively, the attraction just isn’t really there for me.”
“That’s fine,” I assured her, “But you have to tell him.”
“I don’t know.” She winced. “We weren’t serious or anything. I think I’m just going to let it… you know… die out.”
I gave her that infuriating look that only someone who’s a generally better person than you can give you. “Okay,” I said. “But consider if it were you in his shoes.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” She replied confidently. “Being broken up with is humiliating. When things peter out it’s just a way of letting everyone escape with their pride intact.”
And so She stood by her own logic. She ghosted the guy She wasn’t feeling and She slept fine at night. She told herself that was just how we do things now. That it was the modern break-up protocol we’d all agreed-ed to adhere to, after all.
Flash forward a few months later: She is sitting on that same friend’s couch, lamenting over her own unfair dismissal (karma working in full force, as per usual). It turns out that she did mind being ghosted – in fact, she minded a lot.
After taking a glimpse into my friend’s story, I reflected on my own actions. I, for one, consider myself to be an honest and straightforward person. And yet I’ve ghosted. I’ve flaked. I’ve blurred the lines of fidelity. And I’ve told myself, time and time again, that it’s all the fault of the toxic dating culture we’ve created. And at the end of the day, I think that’s what we’re all telling ourselves.
I’ve ghosted people and I’m not proud. I’ve done it for different reasons. Some, pure laziness. Some, not wanting to have difficult conversations that would end in more hurt. Some, because I was depressed and struggling to even get out of bed.
I am the ghost and the ghosted. I cannot claim one is better than the other. I cannot claim an exit strategy fundamentally makes someone a bad person. And while I do try to be upfront with people, I’m not capable of promising I’ll never, ever ghost again. If we’re being truthful, we all contain a little apparition.
Ghosting does not feel good. It doesn’t feel good to do it or be on the receiving end of it. Goodbyes are never fun. There’s always an awkwardness, an expectation, a feeling of disappointment. No one looks forward to them.
When you’re ghosted, it’s not even all about the heartbreak. Often, there isn’t heartbreak. Instead, it’s a sudden indignation. It’s anger. It’s a how dare THEY ghost ME? It’s ego, ego, ego. It sends us spinning, looking for clues or reasons. We become archeologists, digging away at ourselves trying to figure out what we did that was so utterly unlovable.
But see, this is not the fault of the person who ghosted. This is something you already contained. This is insecurity bubbling up. This is what we all have. Being ghosted just brings it front and center.
Be hurt. Be disappointed. Be honest. But don’t condemn someone for all these feelings. They didn’t cause them. These feelings existed inside you already.
Ghosting was just the match. The fire had been building up for years.
And that’s what makes ghosting so difficult; there’s no closure. It leads you to feel as if you’ve lost them forever, but they’re still alive.
At the of the day……
You can spend all your days whining about how this guy or that girl wouldn’t let you in. You can waste your time on dating apps when you’re really not looking for something casual. You can spend all your energy on someone who ghosted you, or by chasing after something that resembles love but you know, in the back of your mind, will never amount to anything real.
You can lose out on a meaningful connection because you’re too busy running in circles around someone who isn’t interested in you for the long term, or by being angry over the hookup that never turned into a relationship because you were never clear about your intentions in the first place.
Isn’t it crazy how you can look at a picture of someone who used to be your heart and soul, who used to be all you could see for your future and not recognise them? “Them” meaning that person that you loved with every fibre in your body and swore they were the love of your life. And maybe they were. But now when you look at them, in many ways, it’s like seeing a ghost.
You remember the face, but it’s not as crystal clear. You remember the experiences together, but they’re faint, distant, and you remember less each day. Ultimately, you look at their face, and you can’t see their smile, the way they looked at you with such love and admiration, the way you looked at them, so utterly happy you felt like you could die right there and never regret a thing. Now you sit there staring at their photo, or walk by them and think:
I used to know everything about you, and now look at us. I used to see what you had for breakfast, how your morning poo was, when you were in the shower because it was a particular time of day and you didn’t respond for a certain amount of time, your teachers names and the classmates you loved/hated, your parents work schedules and what holidays they’d demand to have you home for. But now, I know nothing, and I don’t feel empty anymore knowing nothing.”
If I see you in passing, I think you look good and happy. I am glad. But you are no longer mine, and I am no longer yours. You are with her, and I love him. We are happy not together, something we never thought possible. So thank you for letting me get off that coaster and hop on this new one. I’ve seen more, learned more, and loved more, even if the ride was shorter.And one day, you’ll find a ride that is so smooth it will feel perfect for you, and it will feel perfect for the other person involved. You will want to stay on that ride forever. You’ll know the smooth ride instantly after being on loopy ones, and you’ll be thankful for every leap you took that got you there. That my friends will be your favourite ride. That is the ride we are all working to find.
The truth is, for every negative experience you’ve had, there are a million other positives. It’s just hard to see them when your vision is zoomed in on parts that went wrong, on the pieces of you that were lost, or on the ways your ties with someone loosened instead of knotting together.
The truth is, there are genuine people out there. People who love to love, who want to be open, who are sensitive and caring and kind. Who want to build a bond with someone, who believe in forever, and who don’t just run at the first sign of trouble.
The truth is, there are people—both men and women—who don’t want to treat their significant others like crap, who are trustworthy and selfless, but also imperfect, and yet will do their best to create a relationship that is permanent and meaningful and real.
At some point or another, most of us throw in the towel. We pack up our bags, delete our apps and temporarily bow out of the dating game. We don’t like the people we’re meeting and we don’t like the people we’re becoming. We wonder if there are any honest people left out there. We wonder if we could even count ourselves as such, if there were.
The dating game is a vicious cycle that has taken any semblance of human emotion almost entirely out of the picture. And yet, as much as I’m frustrated by the culture, I’d like to think that there are still good people behind it. That we’re not all selfish, desensitized robots, controlled by the endless monotony of swiping right, being matched and feeling validated. That every once in a while, we stop to question ourselves. What we’re doing. What we’re looking for, and how exactly we’re going about it.
I’d like to think that as much as we all lie, deceive and discontinue, what we want deep down is still to tell the truth. That we want to believe each other. To trust each other. To be honest with each other, even when it’s painful and uncomfortable.
I’d like to believe all this and yet some part of me knows that as a society, we’re still all very far from figuring it out.
My story,my life 
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