And How to Respond When It Happens to You
It happens. Things seem to be going well — good conversation, genuine laughs, maybe even a date that felt like it went somewhere. And then: nothing. No response. No explanation. Just digital silence where a person used to be.
Ghosting — the practice of ending a relationship by simply disappearing — has become so common in modern dating that it has its own vocabulary, its own memes, and an entire cultural shorthand most people under forty understand immediately. But despite how normalised it's become, it still stings. Often badly.
So why do people do it? And what does it actually mean when it happens to you?
Humans have been avoiding difficult conversations for as long as difficult conversations have existed. The phenomenon predates smartphones and dating apps by centuries. What technology did was remove the friction that previously made disappearing harder.
Before apps, if you'd been on a few dates with someone, ghosting them required actively avoiding mutual friends, possibly dodging them in shared spaces, and carrying a low-grade social risk. Now, you simply stop responding. The person exists only as a contact name and a chat thread. Deleting it takes a second. The emotional cost of ghosting — the awkwardness of a rejection conversation — has been dramatically reduced, while the technical ease of doing it has been dramatically increased.
That's not a justification. But it is an explanation for why it's so prevalent.
Research by Leah LeFebvre at the University of Alabama found that the most commonly cited reasons for ghosting were:
Notice what's largely absent from this list: anything to do with you specifically.
When you're on the receiving end of a ghost, the brain immediately starts hunting for explanations. What did I say? What did I do? Was it the thing I said on the second date? Did I come on too strong? Not strong enough? Was it the shirt?
This self-focused attribution — making the ghost about your failings — is both deeply human and largely inaccurate. In most cases, ghosting tells you far more about the person who did it than about you.
Specifically, ghosting is strongly associated with:
None of those things are about you. They were true of that person before they met you and will be true after.
The particular cruelty of ghosting is the absence of information. A clear rejection — "I don't think we're right for each other" — is painful but finite. You know what happened. You can process it and move on. A ghost leaves everything ambiguous. Are they dead? Busy? Did they lose their phone? Are they thinking about it? Should you follow up?
This ambiguity is itself stressful, and the mind fills it with stories — usually unflattering ones about yourself. Research on ambiguous social rejection shows it activates the same threat response as clear rejection, but with the added burden of uncertainty, which keeps the threat response running longer.
The antidote is to make a decision about what the silence means, and make it sooner rather than later. After a clear and unreasonable gap in communication, the silence is the answer. Waiting for clarity that isn't coming keeps you stuck in the ambiguous middle.
If you've had a connection with someone and they've gone quiet, it's entirely reasonable to send a single, brief, non-demanding message. Something simple: "Hey, haven't heard from you — hope you're well." Then leave it. If there's no response, that is the response.
The temptation to fire off a "thanks for your honesty, really mature" message is understandable. Occasionally it might even make you feel better for thirty seconds. But it rarely achieves anything useful and occasionally creates more drama than the original silence. The high road is the one where you retain your dignity.
Being ghosted genuinely hurts, and the hurt is worth taking seriously. But be careful about what conclusion you draw from it. The hurt is real. The narrative that it means you're unlovable, too much, or fundamentally flawed is a story your brain is telling you, not a fact.
Someone who ghosts has told you something genuinely useful: they're not comfortable with honest communication, they prioritise their own discomfort over your need for closure, and they handle difficult feelings by disappearing. That's not someone you would have wanted a relationship with long-term. The ghost was, in a way, a service.
If you've read this far, you probably don't want to be the person who does this to others. The standard is actually simple: if you've been on more than one date with someone, they've earned a brief, honest message if you're not interested in continuing. "I've enjoyed getting to know you, but I don't think we're the right fit" is kind, direct, and takes about forty seconds to write. It's a small act of basic respect, and it's worth doing.
The Love Guide's Dating Pitfalls chapter covers ghosting in full — along with the other patterns that derail modern dating, and evidence-based strategies for navigating them.
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