For Jaelyn, now 28, it happened overnight. One day she was graduating high school with a tight-knit group of friends she grew up with. The next day all, except one, cut off communication. In Morgan’s case it happened two years ago, right after her best friend’s wedding. Chloe, 25, still feels a bit of the sting. She had a friend who she talked to almost every day, then suddenly, radio silence. Texts went unanswered, she was out of the close friends list on Instagram, and then unfollowed all together.
These women, and all of us who have been ghosted, have been left to wonder: Why do people ghost? And are ghosts as cold as they seem?
Why Do People Ghost?
Annah, 24, remembers “feeling overwhelmed with the issues that [her friend] was facing.” Today, Annah acknowledges that she, herself was depressed but at the time, “I had my own problems, and issues and I felt as though I wasn’t able to express that to her because I didn’t want to put more on her plate. I didn’t want her to think that she’s too much, because I’ve been in that position before. Instead, I just put her and our friendship on the back burner.”
Wait, what? Annah ghosted out of a desire to be kind?
And she’s not the only one. When people wrote about being ghosted on or ghosting someone, ghosters endorsed that they ghosted because they did not want to hurt the ghostees feelings or make them feel rejected (Experiment 4). They even reported moderate levels of care for the ghostee. And yet, ghostees, reflecting on being ghosted, underestimated ghoster’s care, and underestimated the degree to which ghosters ghosted them to protect them from feeling rejected. In another part of the study (Experiment 7), ghosters imagined wanting to reject a new friend because they were fundamentally incompatible. In this situation, the more reluctant ghosters were to hurt feelings, the more likely they reported being to ghost.
Ambiguous Loss
Even as ghosters think it’s kinder to ghost than it is to share why they’re pulling away, ghostees don’t feel better when ghosted. In fact, ghostees felt more cared for when they imagined getting directly rejected (i.e., we aren’t compatible) than when they were ghosted upon (Experiment 8).
Ghosting triggers ambiguous loss, a complicated form of grief that occurs when we don’t get closure as to why a relationship ended. Even two years later, Morgan still has this grief. “I’m still very confused and I don’t really know what happened. I’m racking my brain trying to figure out what happened.” Chloe also found herself looking for answers afterwards sharing that, “I feel like you’re not going to ghost somebody for no reason, so what hurt was realizing [she] would rather terminate ties with me than address whatever it was that you were feeling. It made me feel like I wasn’t important enough to you. This relationship wasn’t important enough.”
Getting Over Ghosting
Ask for Clarity
If ghosters care about us more than we think, then they also may be more likely to offer clarity than we think they are. Try:
“Hey. I haven’t heard from you in a while and I’m feeling bummed. Just wanted to check in. If there’s something on your mind you’ve been wanting to communicate, I’d love to hear it.”
Reframe the Experience
What if ghosting is more about the ghoster’s comfort level with conflict than anything you did wrong? Remember that they may be struggling with their own emotions or trying to avoid a tough conversation. Ask yourself, “what if this experience has nothing to do with me?”
Find the Offering
Ask yourself what you learned from the friendship. If you’ve ever felt the ambiguous loss that comes with ghosting, you may now know, for example, how much you value good communication. Thus, you now know what to prioritize in a friend.
Grieve without Closure
While knowing why a relationship ended soothes the grieving process, you can still grieve without closure. Instead of revisiting the relationship and wondering what you did to get ghosted, accept that you will never know—and that you can be ok not knowing. Sometimes, grieving involves getting answers. Sometimes it involves accepting that there’ll never be any.
This post was co-authored by Victoria Gillison
