Desensitized to Ghosting

Fairytales

The thing about romantic comedies is that when boy meets girl, pursues her and then disappears, he later realizes his mistakes.  Most women swoon at the fact that when he tries to rectify his behavior, he puts in serious effort.  He may send flowers, show up at her work place or home, sends her a sentimental gift or simply does something that is considered a grand gesture. He shows her that he really wants her back.  However, in real life after someone ghosts you, in my experience if this man returns, he sends you a text message to test the waters.  If you do respond, you may get a half ass apology and an attitude if you are not willingly ready to pick up where you left off previously.

Reality

The first time I got ghosted I didn’t even understand what happened.  I genuinely thought something happened to the person, so I called several times because I was actually worried about the person.  After getting no response, I asked my friends about it and they all said “oh you got ghosted”.  My brain couldn’t even process it.  I was thinking that if this person didn’t want to talk to me anymore, why didn’t he just say so.  I remember blocking my number and calling the person and when they picked up the phone, I was fuming.

Closure

Although my friends called it, I still couldn’t understand “ghosting someone”.  I felt it was rude, and left me without getting closure. For me closure was necessary for me to move on.  At that time, I didn’t realize I was giving up all my power because I thought that getting closure from the person was needed to move on.  I thought I need to hear what the person had to say as to why they no longer wanted to talk to me.  Without closure, my mind wouldn’t rest.  Unfortunately, when I realized that the person wouldn’t pick up on my calls or made any attempts to reach out, I realized I had to move on for the sake of my sanity.

Pattern

After being ghosted a few times, I became immune to it.  I remember on one occasion, someone ghosted and they messaged me some months later.  They wanted to know why I never messaged them to see if something had happened to them.  Although this was a possibility, I thought back to my days of naïve thinking when I actually thought that something could be wrong with the person.  The sad truth was that because of my previous experiences, thinking that something may have

happened was no longer a thought or concern.

To Care Or Not To Care

He tried to gaslight me and turn his ghosting around on me and said maybe he was going through something and by not reaching out, it showed I didn’t care.  He was hoping I would have reached out to at least check on him.  My response was if he was going through something he would have reached out, and if something had happened to me, someone would have reached out.  Truth is I felt I had cared too much in the past, so now it was a lot easier to care less and move on. This was my new reality.  After training my mind to move on without closure, I started to feel that ghosting came with the territory of dating. It may come off as cold, but you have to step out your feelings and keep it pushing.  The show of life must go on.

Growth

The truth about ghosting is that it is not okay because it is an immature cowardly way to end communication.  Nevertheless, women must train their minds to not take it personally, don’t over analyze it and blame yourself.  Perhaps it was something you did, but the courteous thing would be for that person to have that conversation with you.  That could have been a moment for reflection and growth.

Sanity

Coping with ghosting is not for the week, you have to play back the details in your mind, and if you honestly feel you didn’t do anything wrong, learn from the experience and move on.  Sadly, you can’t control someone’s actions, but you are in control of your reaction to them. In order to keep your sanity, you have to learn to treat ghosting like a red flag and keep moving forward in your journey to find what you are seeking.