Is it ever ok to ghost?
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Anonymous
I don't know what a "foster" is in that context, but I'd ghost you too. |
Anonymous
| Really, anytime you need to move on. |
Anonymous
| Yes. In adult relationships you don’t need to explain to someone that cheating is bad. See you never, bye |
Anonymous
How convenient for clients to be embroiled in toxicity and turmoil so their mental health professionals can swipe their HSA card quite swiftly. Something tells me that their bank account isn’t messed up and dysfunctional. And then we wonder why people turn to AI for therapy. |
Anonymous
+1. |
Anonymous
You make a lot of assumptions, as evidenced in your reply. It's not disrespectful to have a different position. If you want to take that personally, you can. I am one of the pp's saying ghosting could be an acceptable strategy to escape violence or abuse. That's not the same as assuming your friend/partner/person you're in relationship to "can't handle" hearing some mysterious reason you're not willing to articulate. It doesn't need to be a confrontation unless you're confrontational. You can simple tell someone "Larla, I've really enjoyed our time together, but this relationship isn't what I need in my life right now. I wish you the best." Despite being somewhat confrontational in your reply, I'd guess (based on not much) that you're actually conflict averse/avoidant, like most people who choose ghosting as a means of ending relationships/connections. To justify it, most people project the responsibility onto the other party. "Larla couldn't handle the truth, so I never told her." That's cowardice, and I stand by my point. Whether or not people are "entitled to your time", self-respect says YOU'RE entitled to your time and your position. Communicating like an adult is for YOU. far more than the other party. "You're chickenshit. You're going to use what happened today as an excuse to give up." |
Anonymous
DP. I'd suggest therapy for your obvious grudge, but you wouldn't do it. Maybe waste some water talking to the clankers about it? You need help. |
Anonymous
Aww, lil buddy... The "histrionics" is a movie quote from the same movie quoted by the pp, and calling an action cowardly isn't "name calling". Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. This game is not for you. |
Anonymous
So verbal communication is the only form of communication that exists? Ghosting can be considered a new communication mechanism amongst other nonverbal modes. Like when someone angrily stares at you from a distance with a shirt that has FAFO on it. Is that a good time to approach and converse with them like an adult? Many of us have been ghosted at least once in our lifetime (yeah including me and my conflict averse/avoidant self). When it happens, you read the room and reflect. Ok maybe I offended Larla by sliding into her husband’s DMs…or maybe she is going through something let me back off from being a pushy, overbearing “friend” and give her a chance to breathe and handle her divorce proceedings. If I check in with her later and she doesn’t respond, maybe she doesn’t want to be bothered…hmmm maybe because I f’d her husband? I write this in jest because, 9 out of 10 times, we all have a pretty good idea why that person ghosted unless you have zero self awareness or you don’t know the person well enough. Please keep it real. Sometimes their reason for disappearing has nothing to do with us or anything we did. Sometimes people are just prioritizing the things (like peace, if that’s ok) and the people that are number one in their lives. But because some people tend to feel entitled to have backstage access into the lives of others as a condition of the relationship, there is disappointment when they are suddenly unavailable. I get the hurt that comes from that, but when all is said and done I have to preserve and protect myself, period. |
Anonymous
| It is ok to ghost casual friendships in which the person is overly needy and demanding. For example, they get drunk every time we go out, use the whole time to complain about their life and how every guy they date is awful without looking in the mirror, are very entitled and mean to others, and never want to listen about your life and just talk about themselves like you are a free therapist. |
Anonymous
^^Again, this right here is why people ghost you. Life's too short to trade words with a prickly egomaniac. |
Anonymous
This. It allows the person to stop thinking about you. You don't need to go into an hour long discussion why. It just shows some minimal respect for the time they invested into the relationship. |
Anonymous
| I think not being able to handle drama is leading people to be more covert and also be more dramatic. If you cant have difficult conversations without a lot of drama then it's silly to be in any relationship. It either says you were in a relationship that was very unhealthy for whatever reason you chose poorly on or that you have a difficult time talking about hard things and arent a good partner for anyone. It's unhealthy to ghost for everyone when you've been in a relationship that you respected each other for some time. |
Anonymous
| Ghosting gets a bad wrap. Sometimes ghosting can be a good thing. A way to set boundaries when someone does really disrespectful. I love Oprah’s take on the matter: https://youtu.be/5B0waKRB0ag?si=VLI-sOPw3KVw_tqY |
Anonymous
Maybe you'd "have to preserve and protect" yourself less if you were less of a gobshite? In your example, yes, there's an obvious wrong. But lots of people ghost just because they don't vibe or got bored or some other low-stakes reason. There's a fair bit of confusion left behind when one's ghosted (unless, you know, you're a total gobshite). There's also a lack of self-respect on the part of the ghoster. No, you don't need to confront someone who has blatantly wronged you, and this may fall under the "ghosting is okay in cases of abuse/danger" exception. But it's really okay to just say you're not feeling it, or that a relationship isn't meeting your needs anymore. When people ghost, they disrespect that part of themselves that deserves to be heard and validated, if only internally, by standing up for their own reality. This is why I called it cowardice. You frame it as other people's entitlement to backstage access. I would ask why you put on such a show in your relationships that reality is kept behind-the-scenes in the first place. Kinda sounds like you're "preserving and protecting" a character, a mask, the illusion you're putting on... Kinda sounds like you don't actually want to be understood, which tracks. Sure, when ghosted, the ghostee is left little choice but to reflect and guess, which is a large part of where the pain comes from. The ghoster didn't respect them enough to tell them the truth. Thing is, they didn't respect themselves enough to tell the truth either, and I think, when you really break it down, that's the greater slight. |