What Is Ghosting Dating and How to Avoid It

ghosting dating

In the digital age, it’s very simple to disappear from someone’s life. So simple that this phenomenon has grown into a new term. Here’s what you need to know about ghosting in dating meaning.

At all times, people preferred to disappear from the lives of those made their own lives too complicated or miserable. We love giving names to different phenomena, trying to keep everything or at least part of the chaos around us under control. So the desire to go silent suddenly became a separate concept and got a name – ghosting. About 50% of men and women claim to be a victim of this trend, and almost as many admit that they did it themselves.

What is ghosting in a relationship?

So, what is ghosting in dating? Online poker fans are already familiar with this term: ghosting – is a type of fraud, when someone’s gaming account is taken over by another player, usually more experienced one. But now the concept has one more meaning: that’s how daters call a situation when one of the partners ends a relationship by disappearing without any explanation or obvious reason.

The popularity of this tactic grew so fast because most of the communication today (whether we’re talking about serious or open relationships) comes down to chatting in messengers and swipes in Tinder. It’s so convenient for us to think that it’s not we, who communicate online. It’s someone else. We hide behind nicknames that allow us to do anything we want without any consequences.

In times of paper letters and postmen on horseback, people also suffered when their romantic correspondence stopped for no apparent reason. There are dozens of examples in classical literature. Now the I-don’t-want-to-take-responsibility tactic became normal. Sometimes we just want to avoid constructive dialogue. What we really want is to “turn off” the partner and turn them into a gray noise that no longer tries to manipulate or neglect us. Sometimes a breakup without explanation is an attempt to defend oneself from aggression or the inability to overcome fear. In some cases, it’s a sign that a person has no manners. But mostly, ghosting in dating serves as a cover for selfishness.

dating and ghostingSomeone wants explanations; others would like to never hear why they were ghosted, especially if it’s about their shortcomings. Anyway, if you had the misfortune to get acquainted with this trend, don’t panic and don’t turn it into a drama. Ask yourself a question: why do you need a person who would prefer never seeing you or hearing from you again over a frank conversation?

What does it mean to be ghosted?

As we already said, ghosting describes the situation when the person you were building relationships with suddenly disappears. It seems like this person never existed: they don’t respond to your messages and calls, ignores/blocks you in social media. In other words, they cut all contacts with you. Being left without any explanation, the victim of ghosting is usually helpless and confused. Usually, after a couple of attempts to establish contact with a person that disappeared, the victim realizes that they will never meet again.

The term “ghosting” entered the lexicon of journalists and bloggers and is being actively used since. But when it comes to online dating, ghosting is not the only problem you may face. If you became its victim, then there’s a chance that you’ll experience the consequences of another trend, called zombie-ing. It’s hard to tell the difference between the victim of zombie-ing and ghosting, but there’s one exception: after some time (usually several months) a person who disappeared from your life suddenly appears again and behaves as if nothing happened. That is, you witness your ex-companion “rise from the dead.” Hence, the term “zombie-ing.”

The common factor in both cases is that a person can’t tell you in person (or at least online) that they’re no longer interested in you and don’t want to continue the relationship. Besides, both ghosting and zombie-ing have become such common phenomena due to the rise of social networks. People who have been ghosted or zombied rarely meet their partners in real life.

There’s also one term you should know about – benching. What is benching in dating? Basically, it’s when you “leave someone on the bench” because you don’t really like this person, but at the same time, you’re not ready to say goodbye to her/him.

What does it mean when someone is ghosting you?

What pushes people to ghost their partners? There are a lot of stories from those who learned this awful trend the hard way but almost no info from ghosters. So here are a few reasons why you were ghosted.

1) You were an option “B”

Ghosting in dating can be very convenient because when disappearing from someone’s life suddenly, you don’t end the relationship officially, and you can keep the person you dumped as an option “B.” Yes, that may sound weird. In fact, it does. But nevertheless, this works as an excuse for ghosting.

2) Your partner is too immature

Some ghosters admit that the only reason why they disappeared from their partners’ lives is that they were too immature to end the relationship properly. That’s the reason why such thing as millennials ghosting dating almost doesn’t exist.

3) Your partner isn’t ready for a confrontation

Some people can’t stand all these breakup conversations and don’t know what to say to make it easier for their partner to overcome the breakup. So if you were ghosted, this could mean that your partner just wanted to avoid confrontation.

4) Your partner had no respect for you

Yeah, this doesn’t sound good, but nevertheless, it can be true: your partner may have ghosted you because he simply didn’t respect you enough to end the relationship the right way. And it doesn’t matter whether you deserved such attitude or not; some people just don’t know what respect and empathy mean.

What is ghosting in text?

Dating and ghosting don’t necessarily have to be associated with real life. A lot of dating now happens online, bringing all its aspects to the Web, including ghosting. So ghosting in text is the same act of disappearing with one distinctive feature: breaking up, both partners communicate via text messages and never meet in person.

How to deal with ghosting

Whatever the reason for ghosting is, don’t let it ruin your mood. Sure, it’s frustrating, and it hurts like hell when someone disappears from your life suddenly, but here are a few ways to handle this problem.

millennials ghosting dating1) Keep reminding yourself that you have nothing to do with this

When you break up with someone, the first thing you should avoid is blaming yourself for this. And the worst thing about ghosting in dating is that it makes you focus on your shortcomings even more. Don’t do that. If you’re asking yourself what you did wrong, you won’t find the answer because you did nothing wrong. It wasn’t your decision to end the relationship by disappearing. Besides, if it was your partner who broke up with you, you should look for shortcomings in them first. If you ghosted someone – you’re the bad guy, not your partner.

2) Remember that it’s about fear

Ghosting is always associated with fear. It’s always scary to be open about your feelings, especially if there’s a risk to hurt your partner. People are too afraid, so they can’t come up with something better than ghosting. It’s the easiest way to avoid any confrontation. Ghosting always involves fear, but this fear doesn’t come from you. It comes from them.

3) Accept it

There’s nothing wrong with being mad at the person who disappeared right when you began thinking that there’s something between you. You may also struggle with the desire to write a couple of angry messages to your ex-partner. And you totally have the right to do that, and your anger is completely understandable, but yelling at the person who ghosted you won’t make you feel any better. Sometimes it’s better to take the high road.

4) Don’t offend your ex

If you want to write something to your ex, make it short and sweet. For instance, a message like “I haven’t heard from you for a week, so I’m assuming that we’re no longer dating. That’s fine, but it would be better if you said it honestly” will work much better than releasing your anger. Save your rage for another day.

5) Let it go

Really. It will be much better if you just go and hang out with your friends in a pub or watch your favorite movie instead of dwelling on this situation. It’s already in the past. Thinking about what happened won’t allow you to move on.

That’s about all you need to know about ghosting in dating meaning. Remember: no one likes ghosters, so don’t make your companion go through all you’ve read.

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