I was just ghosted for the first time.
It’s not that I’ve never had a relationship end ambiguously. We’ve all had those first few uncomfortable dates where we know that a third isn’t coming. When the passion wanes and the texting peters off – where a natural end follows an unsuccessful middle. That seems comfortable to me. It always has.
But for the first time ever this year, I experienced the full ghosting experience – of meeting someone I was crazy about, feeling an intense connection with them, being altogether sure that the feelings were mutual – that they were different than the other shady people I was used to dating – and then having them disappear into absolute thin air.
I can’t pretend it doesn’t suck to be ghosted. I know I’m not the first or last to experience the phenomenon but it still felt a bit like someone had punched me in the gut when it happened. The disregard is insulting. The lack of closure is maddening. You move on, but not before your self-esteem takes a hit. The only thing worse than being broken up with is realizing that someone didn’t even consider you worth breaking up with.
Being ghosted was an unpleasant experience. But it was also one that forced me to reflect on my own past dating behaviors. While mulling over my own rejection, my 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,” I explained. “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with him objectively, the attraction just isn’t really there for me.”
“That’s fine,” She assured me, “But you have to tell him.”
“I don’t know.” I winced. “We weren’t serious or anything. I think I’m just going to let it… you know… die out.”
She gave me that infuriating look that only someone who’s a generally better person than you can give you. “Okay,” She said. “But consider if it were you in his shoes.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I 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 I stood by my own logic. I ghosted the guy I wasn’t feeling and I slept fine at night. I told myself that was just how we do things now. That it was the modern break-up protocol we’d all agreed to adhere to, after all.
Flash forward a few months later: I’m sitting on that same friend’s couch, lamenting over my own unfair dismissal (karma working in full force, as per usual). It turns out that I did mind being ghosted – in fact, I minded a lot.
And what I was forced to realize at that point was my own cardinal dating mistake prior to being ghosted – I’d put all my eggs in one basket. I had foolishly expected dating post-college to work the same way it always had – you were single for a while, you did your own thing, and then you met someone and started casually seeing each other. If it went well, it became a relationship. If not, it ended amicably because you still had to see each other in econ class.
But that was not how things happened anymore. Dating post-college was an entirely new ball game and I had to face the stark truth of what had happened to me: The person I’d been dating was in the game and I was not. College was over and the real-life dating scene was an absolute rat race.
