I’m definitely not mad :angery:
I see you are a guy - I’d like to offer the idea that some men are actually scary and unpredictable as fuck
It’s easier for women (but some men too) to ghost men rather than risk a confrontation.
Outright rejection and explanations can quickly lead to violence. There is a genuine fear
Not saying you are any of those things, you are likely not. But all it takes is for one guy to stalk/harm/lose his shit when rejected directly for that fear to be present, speaking from experience myself and experiences of people I know, especially vulnerable ones.
This may not be the case for the person that ghosted you, but it has also helped be to not feel so personal about it when I am ghosted by folks.
Redditors' self-defeating attitude when it comes to women is so cringey and tiring to deal with. I say that as a person who was exactly like that when I was still a man.
Yeah it’s pretty bad. It’s very obvious that it’s a mostly male space, and that many of them have pretty much no women in their life at all. Like, posts on life pro tips about how you should have tampons in your house if you have a girlfriend that stays over. Like...yeah? Seems like such a big tell.
As a guy I have tried to ask about this with my female friends in a genuine attempt to understand and to help be on the lookout for when uncomfortable situations arise in the future, but the impression I get is that some women completely repress the unwanted or uninvited attention they receive from men, to the point where they're like, "what do you mean?" That kind of response made me pretty sad to hear, not only because I didn't learn how to be more helpful in those situations, but also from the psychology I was left to infer behind it. Naturally I have since dropped the subject with those friends.
All that just to say, not all women are comfortable talking about the subject with their guy friends, or perhaps even acknowledging the issue out loud to them. Forums like this can be helpful to the population of men who want to help, but lack knowledge that might seem obvious or basic to anyone who's been on the other side of the interaction.
Men are just as likely to ghost people as women are in my experience, so while this is probably a factor, I don't buy it as an explanation.
I'm leaning towards the idea that most people are cowards, although there is probably more to it than that. If you ghost someone all you have to do is forget about them and don't worry about it, no thinking or emotions of any sort involved. I seriously doubt it is that scary and difficult to get over enough to at least text someone for that many people. Either most people are such cowards they don't want to experience even that much emotion if not absolutely necessary, or they care so little about other people they don't care at all how their actions effect them if they don't have to see it.
Either that or most people are so oblivious to other people they don't get why getting ghosted sucks.
Anxiety alone doesn't explain why ghosting is so common. There are other factors going on.
this.
some guys take "no" for an answer the way Bush takes 911
some guys take “no” for an answer the way Bush takes 911
Like if your dad announced that Christmas was going to be every day from now on? I think your metaphor is flawed because 9/11 was the greatest thing that ever happened to Bush.
I think your metaphor is flawed because 9/11 was the greatest thing that ever happened to Bush.
but I'm not Bush in this metaphor, so it still works
This is something that people have told me in the past but it is just something I genuinely do not understand.
A crazy person is going to be crazy regardless, how is telling someone to back off not lower the chance of a bad encounter compared to just blatently ignoring someone.
Provides a point of fixation
If she stops talking, there's nothing to focus upon
If she says "no," then they focus on reclaiming their pride, proving a point, defeating the feeling of rejection, proving her wrong, and so on
It's not unlike yelling "fuck you" at someone you were arguing with outside of a bar at 2AM--if you said nothing, there's nothing to hold onto, but now they're going to kick your ass
If she stops talking, there’s nothing to focus upon
There is actually, the fact that she's not talking.
Yeah, wouldn't it make more sense to give a text saying they don't want to continue and then ghost?
Some men bad and it ruins trust in the others because you can’t always immediately tell who is bad.
Not saying you are any of those things, you are likely not
Let's keep it 100 - people who complain about ghosting are always abusive and often violent. That's why they complain - they can't manipulate vulnerable people and trap them in shitty relationships
I don’t know about that. Feeling sad that you’ve been ghosted is an entirely human feeling of rejection, I don’t think that it makes you abusive and violent to feel shitty about being ghosted.
What does though, is how you react to it. Contacting the person to abuse them because you’ve been ghosted? Shitty and abusive and wrong. Complaining anonymously on the internet isn’t really
I don’t think it’s manipulation, if you like somebody and they disappear it feels bad.
"Ghosting" is and always has been a natural part of human relationships. People who feel bad about it are simply emotionally immature. Maybe they're just naive, but most people who make it a point to complain are manipulative narcissists who are PISSED that they aren't entitled to wear down their victims because of social norms/obligations like they could previously.
Poor, innocent romantics aren't the ones writing paragraphs about how ghosting sucks. Abusive assholes who want to make victims feels obligated to talk to them are.
Ummm this really isn’t a good look... I get where you’re coming from, but this just straight up isn’t true at all. Like, I’m pretty sure I’m not an abusive asshole...
Violent and intimate crime rates have been trending downward for decades so "genuine fear" is a poor explanation for the recent phenomenon of ghosting. In fact, I'd posit that you got causality exactly ass-backwards. Ghosting is only possible in the modern era because the threat of violence has been minimized. It really only works with people that you can adequately expect not to encounter on the street.
It's difficult to ghost someone in your social circle, at your work, at school, or at church and it's practically impossible to ghost anyone who knows your address. So ghosting was practically impossible to accomplish in premodern times as it requires the capability to break communication routes at a distance. Even as the home phone was introduced, you still needed to perform the "emotional labor" necessary to make a clean break because there was no caller ID and an emotional ex could still fill a answering machine tape. Also there was the matter that if they knew your last name, there was a handy book updated yearly with your phone number and personal address. Blocking calls and getting unlisted from the phone book required enlisting the aid of a third party so (as long as you weren't dating a clear psycho) it made sense to put forth the effort dealing with an aggrieved partner or associate because avoiding them would require effort anyway.
But modern e-communication made it possible to ghost a partner and avoid the emotional fallout with ease. E-mail could be filtered. Caller ID came standard on cell phones. Blocking calls and texts could be done without even talking to your service provider. You don't even need to unfriend people on social media anymore to snooze their feed and block updates. Meanwhile, HR has made it verboten to date within the office and social pressures are making it weird to date within your social circles and online dating has become the norm. Why settle for someone nearby and muck up your existing relations with romantic drama when your perfect match exists out there in the sea of ghostable strangers?
Of course I could be completely mistaken. I was still in high school when cell phones started entering the middle and working class market and I exited the dating market just as match.com starting advertising on TV. But I do have recent experience in the job search market and see these same ghosting strategies exhibited by recruiters, hiring managers, and ATS systems. Meaningful feedback is unnecessary because there is zero chance there will be any future human interaction with the unsuccessful candidate.
Edit: Wow! Thanks chapos! 3 hours later and only downvotes. Glad to know I'm completely wrong but I was hopeful that the chat would pull together and explain how and why my understanding of community, interpersonal responsibilities and relationship maintenance, emotional and physical vulnerability, and violence is incorrect and possibly even dangerous.
Thanks for the dunk. I guess I can understand that fear being entirely genuine but perhaps I understand it as being somewhat irrational and disproportionate given historical context. And perhaps it makes sense if you have no faith in your fellow man, believe in the disproven bystander effect, and insist on handling all matters in an atomic and autonomous way. Surely I'm not suggesting that people rebuff their lackluster, misanthropic suitor alone in a blind, darkened alley with total disregard for personal safety. But since we cannot prosecute and execute every creep and moron for minor social infractions then we should be able to provide them guidance towards pro-social behaviors.
And certainly I'm not saying everyone can be rehabilitated and it's your responsibility! You shouldn't have to enlist an ally or comrade to tango with a violent jerk, sexual deviant, or dangerous stalker nor take them on yourself. All I'm saying is that you cannot dismiss each and every 'ghosting victims' here as deserving of that act. If they legitimately do not know what happened and why they were ghosted then they'll never get the opportunity to grow their emotional intelligence, address the issue, and contribute to their future relationships and communal responsibilities in a more meaningful way.
I understand your explanation of how dealing with unresolved past trauma may be a legitimate reason for you to ghost someone who accidentally triggers your PTSD. If someone intentionally triggered your PTSD I wouldn't even call it ghosting if you immediately broke all contact. But libertarian-brained nonsense is believing that you never have to explain your behavior and have zero responsibility to educate and correct your fellow man.
Thank you for this dialog. I don't want to just be some dumb reply-guy so I'll let you have the last word.
If they legitimately do not know what happened and why they were ghosted then they’ll never get the opportunity to grow their emotional intelligence, address the issue, and contribute to their future relationships and communal responsibilities in a more meaningful way.
Tough shit. They need to figure this out for themselves. No one is obligated to give toxic shitheads who get ghosted the "opportunity to grow their emotional intelligence", you fucking creep
Also, our culture does nothing ng to teach people how to treat others and do the heavy emotional lifting. When we are all treated as consumers, we start believing it and behave like we are customers who are always right.
Bad service? Get up and walk out.
Bad date? Doesn't matter. They aren't a person and you don't owe them shit. There are plenty more.
It goes without saying that we have become super detached. I started noticing it at music festivals where they sold you the "woodstock vibes" but there were advertisements for products everywhere, everyone was creating a false sense of scarcity with their "limited edition, brah!" T shirts where they took the tony the tiger logo and put a band name under it.
When the music was over every night, everyone files out of the stage area back to the camping area, they don't look you in the eye or acknowledge you in any way as they push through the crowd that is literally shoulder to shoulder. It gets so tight you can't even breathe. It's because they are all consumers, and other people's comfort or feelings are not factored into capitalism. You got yours, that's all that matters. Then you can go home and tell everyone what a beautiful experience you had and how it was "just like woodstock".
Capitalism is.meant to put you in a smaller and smaller box throughout your life until that box is a coffin. I'm honestly surprised they still encourage people to take up a 6x4 hole in the ground when that space could be used better for a Dollar General across the street from a Family Dollar.
For some reason this reminded me of the time I was fucked up on Molly and some flavor of speed at a party and a dude gave me the rest of his water bottle, I drained and tossed it without even thanking him feelsbadman. If you're out there guy, thanks for the water.
It happens.
My wife and I were packing up at a music festival one time and a woman who was still very obviously tripping wandered into our camp and started getting all star child on us. My wife gave her our last gatorade in an effort to maybe get her back on track and hydrated. She took it, opened it up, spun it around in the air, spilling it everywhere and said "nothing matters, man"
We were both a little miffed because I would have loved to have that for the ride home. But we have to at least make an effort to help others out. I'm not saying we all have to bend over backwards and give it all away, but it's always worth a try in my opinion.
Capitalism is meant to put you in a smaller and smaller box throughout your life until that box is a coffin.
Damn. Well said
People who complain about "transactional relationships" are usually cishet men who are mad that the free ride is over. "Transactional" simply means that "marginalized people aren't forced to interact with me unless I offer them something"
People aren't obligated to talk to or associate with other people. It's very revealing that we chose to ignore others when we are actually given free choice in our social relationships. Most "non-transactional" relationships are pure misery, and people are more satisfied when they can avoid them
You're a piece of shit and every one of your posts on this subject is wrong.
Gee, I wonder why a nice guy like you would get so upset over cishet men not being owed "politeness" anymore?
I don't know how to explain that you need to care about other people. Even for selfish reasons...
Maybe you should try some libertarian boards
What does it mean to "care" for other people? You don't have to acknowledge them or speak to them.
Tbf relationships are transactionary, in the sense that both parties get something out of it. Though, of course that’s not the entire picture. People are more complicated than that. Personally I think it’s more so to do with protecting yourself from harm. Putting the burden of ending a relationship on the other person to protect yourself from having to feel that. Haha good times had by all 🙃
The boy being stopped by a girl's brother who says "my sister doesn't want to talk to you anymore, leave" is a tale as old as time
It's not Capitalism. We are literally wired to see other people as objects. "Transactional" relationships are just what makes people the happiest on aggregate. The people who complain are cishet men who had a pretty good tyranny going for a long time.
I've only done it once. A girl told me she was obsessed with Harry Potter and the biggest fan in the world. I'd read most of the books so I asked her what her favorite was and she said she'd only seen the movies. I tried to text her back but I literally had nothing to say to it.
Transactional relationships are actually far, far more self-actualizing and good for human happiness. The history of human relationships is mostly a lot of miserable obligation to put up with abusive, cruel, or just plain boring people because they are your family, or because of social pressure to be nice. The normalization of Ghosting is good because it empowers women, children, etc. to chose their relationships based on their needs instead of the needs of men, parents, etc.
Human relationships will be even more transactional under Socialism because transactional relationships are fulfilling.
It's actually good that people randomly abandon their social responsibilities. Why don't more dads never return from "picking up a pack of smokes"? Instead of announcing layoffs and doing exit interviews, why don't companies just disable your building access keycard and remote login id? Better yet, let them find out when they just don't get their paychecks. They'll figure it out eventually!
Man, this week I got dumped over text. I know it's not ghosting, but I met this girl in March. We didn't really start dating until maybe mid/late May because of the pandemic, but after that we were spending a lot of time together. She slept at my place as recently as last Thursday, now I'm never going to talk to her again. I don't know. I wasn't in love with her or anything, it was just nice knowing she was there. I thought after all that the relationship was worth more than a text message. I've been more heartbroken over month-long relationships, but this one is really fucking with my self worth.
I feel you. Sorry man, that shit sucks. It’s definitely not to much to ask for basic respect. I’m sure you know it’s probably not you and more her own problem, but shit still sucks. :sadness: condolences
Thanks dude. I appreciate it. I'll be fine and shit, like I said, I wasn't that attached. I just feel like it was a little cold.
Thanks MrSquid. I hope you feel better soon as well. I know how tough it is to get out of a relationship like that and wonder exactly what your identity is without that person, all while trying to become the best version of yourself so you can find somebody new. I try to pick out the things I love the most about myself and focus on nurturing those. I hope you can do the same.
I'm so much of a loser that I rarely get to the point where I can get ghosted.
Eh, I reckon ghosting - romantic or otherwise - will be a thing for as long as people struggle to put what they think/want to say in the right words and leave it way way too long until it's really unbearably uncomfortable and it nags away in the back of your mind but you can't message them because it's been way too long and it'd just be really awkward. Not that I'd have any experience with that of course.
I don't think it's a capitalism thing as such. Having said that, I am really glad I got taken out of the dating scene a decade ago before stuff like Tinder etc. really picked up and you tended to meet people you wanted to date at parties or down the pub or through a friend. From what I've seen of it, it's so weirdly commercialized and the entire process seems to have become a bit like online shopping or job searching. Create a weird resume and hope that someone calls you for interview or some shit like that.
Yeah that too. Stuff like waking up to two dozen increasingly desprate texts from someone after you've had a broadly acceptable first date is a good reason to ghost tbh.
Idk about anyone else but I'd definitely still ghost people under communism. It's not like intentional ghosting like some people do, but I'll definitely just lose interest in some people and like we'll both slowly just stop responding to texts and shit.
Yeah that’s fair. Imagine having a really good first date where you vibe really well with each other and click and nothing goes wrong only to not get no responses a week later haha couldn’t be me
When I ghost some one it's often because I don't think I'm good enough, or want to save myself from rejection.
Yup... sorry to all the people I've ghosted but I literally can't even imagine that someone would be upset over me ghosting them. 0 self esteem :agony-turbo:
Personal theory is that we aren’t taught how to handle conflict and confrontation in a healthy way. I worked in education for about a year and a half and I saw it first hand that kids are not taught healthy ways of communication and confrontation. It’s either “oh just let them play with you, be nice!” or it’s “just find some other friends to play with!” until it boils over into a slap fight. I always tried to get kids to explain why they didn’t want to play and try to work through it because it’s a growing experience for everyone involved. Most educators are too busy, too burnt out to usually do that though. Hell, after a while I got burnt out trying to give my all and eventually left. I will say this, ghosting is inconsiderate, but for women and other vulnerable romantic groups I can see why they’d rather completely disengage than maintain contact which brings us to another discussion about consent and communication and when to recognize you’re becoming threatening. Again, this would be great to start teaching at a young age in the scope of friendship but we’re back to educators being burnt out, busy and hounded by administrators and parents (e.g. these kids need to be crammed full of temporary information for testing so we get funds and, my child doesn’t need you to raise them even though I have no intention of raising them save for maybe feeding and clothing them because I can barely keep body and soul together...and the ugly cycle repeats, so yeah, ultimately it does kinda come back to the massive social failures linked to capitalism.)
Garfield Sez
"You don't hate women (or men or enbys), you hate capitalism"
Almost had me there, gotta admit
The "all my personal problems and/or natural disasters are caused by capitalism" line is a perpetual reminder of how out of touch people can be
Tbf I like that a helluva lot better than having to acknowledge my own flaws and emotions :screm-a:
I do actually think that we don’t thoroughly consider the distortions in equitable human social development caused by the agricultural revolution.
Getting people to think about things that happened in their lifetime is hard enough, much less 12,000 years ago
