Why Do We Ghost Each Other? (Because We're Human and Flawed)
Featured Image Credit: https://www.instagram.com/eni_saurus/
We all ghost people, and we all have our reasons for ghosting someone.
Or indeed, not.
It can be situational, a matter of pride, simple inconvenience or, as they do, conversations naturally petering out.
I used to be really hurt by ghosting. Now, though, I, like everyone else, select when I ghost a message. Because, sometimes, it just is the easiest way out. And yes, I am a hypocrite, here.
Ghosting, gaslighting, mansplaining, catfishing. This is how people “connect” online today. Of them all, ghosting is the least heinous because, well, it’s the most human reaction. Wanting to avoid someone but not wanting to hurt their feelings: ghost them. Whether you do so with any ill-feeling, I guess, depends on the who and the why. Our communications are hugely contextual and, in some instances, intimate.
For an overthinker, like me, it isn’t the ghosting itself that gets you. It’s the possible why’s that pinball around your brain irrationally: the “ah, f***” conversation killers, the reply ended with a signing-off thumbs up and full stop, the little dot we all use regularly strutting out with authority like a commanding pedestrian strolling across the Dual Carriageway, completely controlling the traffic’s pace, tone, feel.
Chattiness, as a characteristic, is far easier to flow reciprocally in person than online.
Work aside, my communications are all with family, friends, and the people I want to be in my life. Ghosting accentuates my overthinking, I’ve realised. While my brain frantically whirls back how I might have accidentally insulted somebody, the classic breakup line, “It’s not you, it’s me,” is more often than not more applicable to my life.
Which isn’t to cleanse any clumsy text I’ve ever sent but does make sense, especially when I consider why I ghost.
Some days, I am just too busy.
Fact.
Busyness is relatable, but it’s also a convenient copout, a way to acknowledge contact by ignoring it. When I go to type “Sorry, I’ve been busy” (and not reply to missed messages), I’ve to fight the urge to add “and cowardly”.
Other times, I simply don’t want to engage with the person. This can be because I’m angry with them or, on the flip side, that I’m wary of them, and that I know a reply will only take me down a hard conversation that I don’t want to confront, so will therefore avoid.
There’s also the case of people talking at you rather than, you know, with you. These are easier to escape online, for sure and whilst there’s no polite means of telling someone you can’t get a word in, sometimes it’s most revealing to stop engaging altogether and see if they even notice anything different.
I often worry that I’m more dependent on my friends than the other way around. That, if one of us were to be confined to an entirely solitary Desert Island life, devoid of any companionship, I’d be the deranged sucker who ends up talking to pine trees 24 hours in, making small talk with the wind, unable to function without social stimulation.
Emojis have gained more responsibility in our online discourse. To heart react a message is a way of happily ending a chat, to thumbs an agreed, mutual exit.
The novelty, which hasn’t worn off completely, of emojis has diminished. We still use them but less spontaneously and more strategically. Like with busyness, the thumbs-up is handy because it’s transparent, removing the strain of discussion.
On the other hand, thumb reactions can be used passive-aggressively, cutting off those pesky natty texters without ghosting them. Truthfully, those are texts you could happily do without. Is it better to imply that preference via thumbs or to say the harder, honest thing? Which is, "I’m just not interested right now."
As a former text apologist, “Sorry to bother you” was another regular auto-type of mine. Until the last year or so when I’ve wondered why am I apologising for reaching out? Asking about your dog, U.S. election opinion, reaction to The Guardian’s latest investigative journalism piece, foreign adventures, what the best type of late-night cheese is (Camembert), outfits. These are harmless and, more than that, my way of keeping connections genuine and light, especially when I remain perpetually aware of slipping into loneliness.
However you choose to communicate, it is still your choice, nobody else’s. But, as I’ve also learnt the tough way, that cuts in both directions.
Being ghosted is something, but being ghosted and then gaslit by the ghoster is something else. Emotional manipulation is cruel but common. If someone you know of, but who’s never actually bothered to engage with you before, suddenly starts cosying up, it’s for a reason. They want something and hope to schmoose it out of you.
There is no easy means of dealing with gaslighters. You could ghost them, but some persist to the point of stalking. They can (and do) make life hellish, and make you doubt who manipulated who but to reply is to play their game. Don’t engage. Block.
Crimes now are commonplace on the internet, with malicious people targeting vulnerable people. Conspiracies rage about all sorts. From Martin Ødegaard’s internationally sustained hamstring injuries being a world plot against Arsenal, to the impending Trump administration, and all the accompanying unease that brings, a reflex shudder and a twitch of horror now to my body when he arises in chats.
Misinformation is deadly and that, to me, makes our small, inconsequential little natters about your labrador’s latest trick, the friend group’s hottest drama, where, oh where, you acquired such a snug knitwear, all the MORE precious.
Ghosting and busyness have never been the bad guys, the callous part in us all is now just framing them as such.
With the daylight dwindling, we need those we love and laugh actively in our lives, even if that means confronting our texting evasions, which have now become harmfully habitual to the seemingly simple premise of keeping in touch.
