From my easily-forgiving (and easily-forgetting) memory, I’ve been ghosted twice. I was actually dating both of them at the same time, so I can’t say much I guess!
The first was a guy I’d met on Tinder. We dated at least once a week, texted all the time, and he was overly romantic and intense, perhaps much more than social norms would allow. I remember thinking I really liked him, but he certainly wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea – his voice was quite high, he was really intense (e.g. talking about marriage), and he loved opera (he was a concert pianist and critical theorist). He also had a picture of an ex-girlfriend on his bedroom wall, which was a bit of a red flag. Anyhow, over the Christmas break in New Zealand we were both going on separate trips – he was going to Vienna and I was going to New York. I maintained contact when I was there, but pretty infrequently, especially since my phone died for 7 days. He seemed really keen to meet up, then less keen. I asked him if anything was the matter and he emphatically denied there was. That was the last I heard from him. Honestly, I think he may have been in the closet or still had a girlfriend.
The second was a guy I met in the trip on New York, which was a high-intensity fling. I met him on the first night in New York in a bar and saw him pretty much everyday for the rest of the 10-day trip, as he was friends with a mutual friend of the friend I was travelling with. He was very intense, shouting “Nooo!” when I was leaving. I knew it wouldn’t really last, because he was much more into me than I was into him, but we did really fun romantic things all trip long – Broadway, McDougal Street, Brooklyn Bridge, New Years’ night kiss . We decided to stay in contact and he wanted to come to New Zealand to study, as a transfer from New York. He started doubting how much I liked him, and I wondered whether I should tell him before he came. We Skyped often and one day the Skypes stopped coming. His mutual friend told us he thought it wouldn’t last between us, as the guy was an ‘in the moment’ person and would struggle with long-distance.
Just looking over these experiences, in my opinion, I think ghosting happened to me because intensely-romantic men didn’t know how to let go of the romance. They didn’t want it to end badly and ruin the experience, so they didn’t end it. I guess the problem is that it doesn’t ruin it for them, but definitely ruins it for the other person – it’s a pretty cowardly gesture that technology has allowed. I guess I’m also a believer that when it’s right, it’s right though – if something was perfect, no one would be ghosting that relationship.
On Ghosting 