A while ago, a friend went on a dinner date with a man she met on Tinder. His looks lived up to his profile picture, they had common interests, he was charming, they shared a few laughs. Everything went swimmingly. More dates followed. They continued to hit it off. Then silence. No responses to her messages, no phone calls, no texts. “Has he fallen off the face of the earth?” she wondered.
She was forced to face a harsh reality — he just wasn’t that into her. He’d clearly been seeing several people and had found someone better. More suited to his tastes, whatever. She was hurt and confused — had she misread the signs? She’d genuinely thought she’d felt a connection this time round.
Months later, the man contacted her again. Turns out, he’d been diagnosed with cancer and had been understandably distracted from his romantic life. He explained he needed to focus on his health for now and they parted ways amicably. Not every love story, however, ends with this kind of closure. In fact, the increasingly common scenario would be for my friend to be left forever pondering what had gone wrong. She’d never see or hear from him again. Maybe she’d turn into a cyber-detective and find out that he’d moved on via a Facebook post.
You’ve probably heard the term for this — “ghosting”. One party in a relationship simply dissolves into the mist. They fade away, absenting themselves via an Irish goodbye, an ill-mannered ducking-out manoeuvre without saying sayonara to anyone. Our internet-based lives facilitate and encourage this type of behaviour, says social scientist, Dr Lauren Rosewarne, from the University of Melbourne.
“The most common place to meet someone now is on an online dating app or platform,” she says. “This method not only gives you a large volume of partners — thus facilitating daters to be cavalier — it also means there is a high likelihood you match and form relationships with people from outside of your normal networks. This means you feel freer to ghost without the awkwardness that would come from exiting a relationship with someone whose path you’re likely to regularly cross.”
There’s an anonymity and lack of accountability to modern romance we haven’t seen in the past and this makes it more likely that partners will think they can leave relationships dangling. “Nobody likes being dumped; it makes you feel inferior, unworthy and like a failure,” says Lauren. “But being dumped at least feels final and provides a conclusion, even if unpleasant. Being ghosted leaves a person in a state of limbo, potentially making excuses for why the other person hasn’t been in touch. It can leave you questioning whether you did something wrong or offensive and unsure as to when it’s time to move on.”
The person who has been ghosted will no doubt feel they have been deliberately left in the lurch, but there’s always the chance, like my friend, that there’s a reasonable explanation for the sudden cut-off in contact — an illness, an emergency, a work trip to Antarctica. This tiny smidgeon of hope creates uncertainty and the ghosted party is not sure whether to direct their energies elsewhere or wait and see.
Our first instinct when we’re not interested in a prospective partner should always be to end things by being direct, clear and honest in a timely manner. We’d also be choosing a communication method we’re comfortable with and one that’s appropriate based on how far the relationship has progressed. On the receiving end, there are signs you can look out for that your prospective partner might soon dissolve into the ether — generally, the person will become unreliable and increasingly difficult to contact.
“The obvious sign is larger gaps between replies to messages or unreturned phone calls,” says Lauren. “In-person meetings might also be repeatedly cancelled or rescheduled to never eventuate.”
Contrary to appearances, though, ghosting might not always be a bad thing. Ghosting has a bad reputation, yet there are circumstances where it’s not only an acceptable strategy, but a necessary one for safety reasons, such as when you find yourself in a relationship with a narcissist. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2022 indicates safety concerns are connected to ghosting behaviour and, interestingly, that this might not be as strongly linked to gender as we might imagine (ie it’s not just women fearing a male partner in a relationship).
“There are certain times when ghosting is the only option,” Lauren says. “Situations of harassment or abuse, for example. Or when you have already articulated that you weren’t interested in pursuing things and the other person keeps contacting you; you can rightfully just disappear in those circumstances.”
You might balk at labelling a situation as abuse or harassment, particularly in the early stages of a relationship, but it’s not just physically or sexually violent behaviour that comes under this umbrella. The difference, says coach, teacher and founder of Better Boundaries, Claire Nettley, lies in identifying whether you want to ghost someone to avoid an awkward interaction or whether you’ve drawn a boundary around certain behaviour from this person and they have continued to cross the line.
“There’s a difference between ghosting and boundaries,” she says. “Ghosting is an avoidant behaviour we resort to when we don’t know how to have hard conversations. Boundaries, on the other hand, are built around clearly communicating our wants, needs and expectations.”
Drawing boundaries around yourself is a healthy practice. You are allowed to set limits with other people and putting yourself first is sometimes perfectly okay. Anyone who seems to delight in going against your wishes and disregarding
your needs should throw up red flags in a relationship. While these indicators aren’t always present in the early stages of an abusive relationship, we should certainly take them seriously if we see them and take action to protect ourselves. “It’s entirely appropriate to ghost someone when they continue to violate your boundaries after you’ve made it clear that you won’t tolerate their behaviour,” Claire says.
Continually promising good behaviour but not following through, violating your privacy and contacting you during times when you’ve made it clear you’ll be busy (short of an emergency) are all examples of boundaries being crossed. Pay attention when people exhibit this behaviour towards you, and how they react if you call them out or tell them “no”. These can be warning signs of an abusive dynamic at play.
Sometimes, it simply comes down to a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach and you can’t even articulate what’s setting off your body’s warning system. People often realise afterwards what their body was trying to tell them and wish they’d listened. If this is the case, ghosting the person may be necessary to keep yourself safe, including online. Cutting all lines of communication is best so that there isn’t any retaliation from the abusive person or repeated attempts to reel you back into the relationship. Block, change your privacy settings and ignore any messages that do sneak through.
“Ghosting in an abusive relationship is, of course, permissible, but it may also necessitate judicious use of blocking features on communication devices and platforms and, in more serious situations, potentially an intervention order,” says Lauren. The attempt to lure someone back with gifts, grand gestures, kindness and promises to do better in the future (that inevitably never last) is called “lovebombing” and is one of the known stages of the abuse cycle. “Ghosting” someone in these circumstances is entirely warranted so a potential abuser doesn’t get a chance to fool you again.
It’s important to note that it’s not only romantic relationships in which ghosting might be a necessary tactic. Abusive relationships are not confined to the realms of dating and domestic violence and include other connections such as friends and family. These bonds have often been formed through many years or even decades, so disentangling yourself can be tricky and involve disconnecting from other people who continually defend poor behaviour. However, if someone violates your boundaries over and over and you’ve explained why this is hurtful and asked them to stop repeatedly, the logical next step is to walk away to save your sanity, even if others struggle to understand. Offering an explanation will only afford them the opportunity to argue around your reasoning. Log off, disconnect, and move on.
Rebecca Douglas is an Adelaide-based writer who enjoys exploring topics relating to fashion, culture, wellbeing and fearless females. You can find her online as @becksandthecity on Twitter and Instagram, and on her website: rebeccadouglas.com.au
