So you’ve finally done the impossible: you’ve gotten over your dick bag ex, you’ve done the whole “single and crazy” (which we know actually just means staying at home with Netflix finishing at least three series in their entirety) and you’ve finally readied yourself to start *shudder* DATING again.
Dating in its own sense is terrifying, because of all the judgment and impending doom and heartache, but it can actually be fun once you meet someone cool and seem to hit it off.
So what happens when you meet someone who’s great? He’s fun, he’s cute, he’s smart, he has a good job he’s easy to talk to, and he seems GENUINELY interested in you? I mean, he’s actually said, “I want to date you,” verbatim. He’s made an effort to make future plans with you (as in, actual concrete, future plans with you) and then all of a sudden, radio silence?! He’s not texting. He’s not Facebook messaging. He won’t answer the three texts you sent. What the fuck?
Well congrats, you just got fucking ghosted.
“Ghosted” is how I like to refer to guys being total dick bags and dropping off the face of the earth, without notice or without reason.
I’m not sure why this phenomenon exists, but I can tell you one thing: there is NO reason for it.
If you’re going to have a totally awkward encounter, let’s call a spade a spade and chalk it up to that, knowing that neither party is interested in seeing the other at any point in the near future and moving on.
WHY bother making plans, acting interested, and putting in an effort just to ghost? I’m a fucking adult, I can handle being let down. You don’t have to pretend to want to see me again, and then keep up the song and dance for days before just going MIA.
I would love for some 20-something male to explain this ridiculous trend. Why bother pursuing a girl and then just disappearing? If you’re not interested, don’t act interested at all. Don’t have a great date, tell her you want to see her again, make concrete plans, text for days, and then disappear. Just leave us with a vague, “yeah, see you at some point” like every other douche we’ve encountered and send us on our merry way.
Here’s my theory on ghosting: if guys do it out of the blue, it’s probably for one of two reasons: an ex came back into the picture and they can think of no reasonable excuse (which is totally immature, by the way), or he got afraid of the impending commitment and instead decided to run away. If a guy is attempting to stay single, the prospect of a new relationship, regardless of how promising it may be, can be daunting. Instead of being an asshole and straight up saying “hey, I was actually hoping to just be a man whore for a little while,” he just fucking peaces out.
Either way, it’s a bitch on your self esteem. Getting ghosted on basically catapults you into the throes of an existential crisis. “Wait, what did I do wrong!?” You replay your last interaction to painstaking lengths, searching for the minute you did something to make him run. 9 times out of 10, there was nothing to be done, because, you know…HE FUCKING TEXTED YOU AND MADE PLANS WITH YOU AFTER.
So what do you? Ugh. I guess you just move on and continue to “date.” There’s a good chance he’ll come out of the wood work at some point (generally when you’re dating someone who’s equally great, another phenomenon to be discussed). And then you can say something great such as, “oh, I’m sorry, I ASSUMED YOU WERE DEAD BECAUSE YOU FUCKING GHOSTED ON ME ASS HAT.” Or something of equal eloquence.
7 Comments
Man whore is totally a thing but lets be real . . . . girls “Ghost” (dig the phrase) just as much as guys do, and you know why its sucks just as hard b/c girls get to cry over ghosting, guys dont guys aren’t allowed to like a girl after one date. We have to play it cool otherwise the girl flips out thinks “the guy is weird” tells all her friends that hes a “loser/dork” when he was just honestly trying to be a normal guy. Ghosting is a real thing I’ve done it many times only to have it happen right back to me. As you mentioned I am an adult just tell me you aren’t into it so I can move on. “My phone is messing up . . . sorry I wasnt getting your texts . . . how are you ?”. . . . .BS I’m over it all to say solid insight. . . . boys and girls are the same except boys cant hide the horny
This literally happened to me yesterday.. ugh douches.
Frankly, guys do this for the same reasons girls drop the “I think I need some time to myself” bs during relationships out of the literal blue instead of bringing up issues or having mature talks.
You see, guys are often just as confused about their feelings as girls are, and just as likely to go along with something because it’s there, due to the caustic mix of low self esteem and loneliness. Only guys usually ghost during the dating stage (immature, yes, but at least no hearts are broken, usually done to avoid responsibility), whereas girls like to turn coat a year and a half into an “I love you” relationship for a slew of reasons that were never broached prior, and overnight become a different person who deflects gestures and conversation, and celebrates passive aggression until the guy’s attempts to fix the situation get desperate enough to actually put the nail in the coffin.
Ghosting. Not just a guy issue.
Haha great post!
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Yes ghosting sucks really bad. I had never even heard of this term before up until last week because nothing like this had ever even happened to me before. Me and this guy met online and had been talking/hanging out/dating for only 6 weeks but as this article says why keep talking to a person and making plans with a person if you KNOW you’re not that interested?! Our last conversation was a day before he “ghosted” me! Like wow! He called me, not even a text, a phone call! Lol. Smh. And the day before that I told him to be honest with me and tell me straight up if you’re really interested in me or not. His exact words were “Do you think I would still be calling you if I wasn’t interested?” And yes, well why are you still calling me?! Because you weren’t interested! Which makes him a liar and on top of “ghosting” me, a jerk and not so nice of a guy like I assumed he was from previous behavior. Oh man, sent him texts wondering about him because I thought he had died, until he finally responded with “?” To one of my messages. Yes literally a “?” Was his response, a question mark, like really? I thought you were in a car crash and died! Lol. But no, sorry to bother you, you just decided to “ghost” me all of a sudden, randomly out of the blue and leave me confused, wondering, guessing, rethinking our last conversation to see if I said something to scare him off, yada yada. I mean the same way he responded back with “?” He could have simply typed “no longer interested in you or continuing this” or something along those lines. It sucks to see someone you like losing interest in you, but it’s not the end of the world and it sucks even more for this person to just ignore all of your texts and phone calls suddenly. But oh well, funny thing is I was never even mad about it, still not mad, just confused and it makes me wonder a lot. :-/
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