Ghosting

CycloneVet

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Have a friend who was so into this guy for months then they were ghosted. Friend is really struggling and I’m not well versed in this stuff having been in a relationship for 12+ years. Has anyone been ghosted? What did you do? Did you confront the ghoster? Seems like ghosters would love that they got to you and would revel in knowing they hurt you but maybe that’s just me. I told my friend to not respond if and when they come back. Not sure if that’s sound advice though.

Anyone willing to admit they ghosted someone and why?

Thoughts? Any would be appreciated. I don’t know if I am being helpful to them or not. But seeing them this way sucks and ghosting seems pretty cowardly or narcissistic.

Rather than read the thread, did they actually meet this person in real life or was this online only?
 

dahliaclone

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Rather than read the thread, did they actually meet this person in real life or was this online only?
Oh they met. The more I hear about the ghoster and what they said to my friend from the beginning makes me more upset.

They were introduced via mutual friend years ago. Ghoster and friend crossed paths last year and started talking and seeing each other several times a week. And like I said I’ve seen the back and forth messages and videos the ghoster sent many times daily. Thinking about you. Miss you. Come over and cuddle. I wanna kiss you. Over and and over that stuff. Friend bought into it. They went on dates etc.
 

coolerifyoudid

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As a married dude of 24 years, I'm glad I don't have to date in this day and age.

I will say that ghosting is definitely more prominent in the younger generation, based on conversations with my daughter. She says she doesn't like to do it, but she has told me about various scenarios and the reasons for it. With the massive amount of contacts she has with people in other schools, she'll get some really unexpectedly creepy snaps from guys. She assures me she never adds guys unless she vets them through other friends that know him, but high school boys have a one-track mind and are way more forward than they should be. It's an absolute numbers game with them.

I hate that she has to deal with this, but I'm also glad that she's learning about the "real world" while she's under my roof. I definitely feel sorry for women that are legitimately just trying to be friends with people. The amount of creeps and **** pics they have to wade through is alarming.
 

bpmdu

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I'm going out on a limb, but it sounds like she may have been in a possessive relationship before and her friends were "watching out for her". When they saw you walking around her neighborhood (even though she gave you a restaurant near her apt) it could have come across as stalker-ish to outsiders.

Either that or maybe the 'idea of you' versus a relationship was what she was after.

Keep your head up. I am of the mind that when things don't work out, it usually ends up being better in the long run.

She had just gotten out of a 3 year relationship when we met 4 years ago. Hasn't really dated since other than a few off and on's and a situationship. I doubt her friends even know about her 5 year ago break up since they're all newer friends (in the last couple years). It's a huge complex and she's on the 4th floor so it seemed like a very bizarre reaction to me along with all the other attempts to dodge me.
I'll never know what happened because I'm not reaching out to fix a problem she created. Annoying to not know what happened but I guess that's the closure. But ya just moving on ig
 

NWICY

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What if you piss your wife off and she refuses to talk to you? Is that ghosting? If so, I’m currently being ghosted.
If it only lasts for a day or two take it as a blessing ;)
 
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madguy30

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Oh they met. The more I hear about the ghoster and what they said to my friend from the beginning makes me more upset.

They were introduced via mutual friend years ago. Ghoster and friend crossed paths last year and started talking and seeing each other several times a week. And like I said I’ve seen the back and forth messages and videos the ghoster sent many times daily. Thinking about you. Miss you. Come over and cuddle. I wanna kiss you. Over and and over that stuff. Friend bought into it. They went on dates etc.

I'll pre-empt this with re-iterating that the ghosting is awful and I don't know how infused you are with your friend to be this involved.

But it also kind of sounds like there were red flags early on in the process and your friend may have had plenty of chances to cut ties.

I've had similar situations with a friend being in a toxic situation (to put it mildly) but at some point I just had to keep my own space and let them live with their own situations.
 
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BWRhasnoAC

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I'll pre-empt this with re-iterating that the ghosting is awful and I don't know how infused you are with your friend to be this involved.

But it also kind of sounds like there were red flags early on in the process and your friend may have had plenty of chances to cut ties.

I've had similar situations with a friend being in a toxic situation (to put it mildly) but at some point I just had to keep my own space and let them live with their own situations.
That's very common. Especially in modern dating because women have to deal with so many creeps, they're very guarded and guys can very tunnel vision and tend to be overly optimistic. It's really hard to date in this day.
 
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CascadeClone

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The only reason to ghost someone is if they absolutely won't take no for an answer. if you've said "not interested" and they keep pinging you, then blocking them and ghosting is perfectly acceptable.

Conversely, if you were fine one minute and then ghosted with no explanation or notice... that's gutless.
 

Cyinthenorth

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My dating life was pretty simple. I dated only 2 women, and one ended up becoming my wife. The other woman I dated was a 2+ year relationship that probably should have ended closer to the 1-year mark. It wasn't a healthy one, but we were both young and enjoyed the physical aspects of it enough to keep the idea entertained. After a time her mother got involved and essentially told me SHE was ending our relationship for us, because she was of the belief that her daughter was incapable of loving me due to her father abandoning her earlier in childhood (the mom was a little batsh*t in case you couldn't tell). So, since she lived with her mom at the time, we respected her wishes publicly, but still dated privately. It got to be too much and one day I just told her I couldn't do it anymore and needed a healthier relationship. It wasn't working for various other reasons. But it did not go over well. This girl would not let go. I even moved over an hour away to prove to her that I was done, and she called me in the middle of the night that she was on her way to live with me. I was like, no please don't, and please don't contact me anymore. I hung up and I haven't talked to her since. She continue trying to reach out to me via text or phone call for the better part of a few months after, but then it stopped. She met someone else and has a family now. I guess I didn't ghost her until it reached a certain point, technically speaking.
 
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Cyinthenorth

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Actually had this happen extremely recently. It's really hard not to take it personally. This is a condensed version of a long ass story.
Met a girl through work virtually about 4 years ago. We developed - what I thought - was a strong friendship over the years. The last couple years we had been texting and facetiming daily. Recently, I had some extra PTO and she wanted to go do something that her friends wouldn't so I offered to come visit and see the city and go to that event with her. This would be the first time meeting in person. She was excited and agreed.
Anyways, I get there... and she's already facetiming me the minute I land. I get to my airBNB and then go see her and she's immediately off and awkward. Kinda hard to describe but we go out and meet some of her friends. That goes ok IMO and then the next day at around noon she picks me up to play pickleball with some friends as well. That goes until 3 pm and she's like well I'm gonna drop you off and that's pretty much all I'm doing today. So I go back and then around dinner time I call her and she doesn't answer, then I text and she says she's talking to her mom. I ask if I can stop by to chat for a few mins she says no she's way too tired. Ok, whatever.. ask her where to eat and she tells me a place down the way from her apt complex. I go there and then wander around the area which includes walking past her building. Next day I text to see what's going on and she immediately gets confrontational and asks why I walked by her building bc some of her friends saw me. So I explain I'm just lookin around an area I don't know and she pretty much stop responding at that point. I tried to text and call later and she didn't respond. The event we were supposed to go to was the next day. Nada. I never talked to her again. Spent 2 more days in a city I didn't know. We haven't communicated since.
Still feel kinda hurt by it but I'm moving on. It's becoming clear to me that while I was her friend and there for her frequently, I wasn't ever her friend but apparently more of a therapist that she used until it was inconvenient. Really enjoyed talking to her and regret going to see her bc that "friendship" is dead.
This story sucks. Sorry you had to experience that.
 

dahliaclone

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I'll pre-empt this with re-iterating that the ghosting is awful and I don't know how infused you are with your friend to be this involved.

But it also kind of sounds like there were red flags early on in the process and your friend may have had plenty of chances to cut ties.

I've had similar situations with a friend being in a toxic situation (to put it mildly) but at some point I just had to keep my own space and let them live with their own situations.
100% and I told my friend that I understood being smitten but looking at messages from the ghoster there were clear flags. One for instance was them saying something like 'i want to tell you something without sounding weird but i think i am falling for you.' In and of itself it seems nice etc...but i found the same exact wording to my friend two more times in following months. EXACT wording. That's weird as **** to me and I told my friend this screams that they are saying these things to multiple people and they aren't able to keep track.

My friend is just really distraught and thinks they acting wrong or said something so asked if I could look at their communcations to see what I thought. Granted...not all the messages were PG so it was also awkward haha.
 
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MJ29

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100% and I told my friend that I understood being smitten but looking at messages from the ghoster there were clear flags. One for instance was them saying something like 'i want to tell you something without sounding weird but i think i am falling for you.' In and of itself it seems nice etc...but i found the same exact wording to my friend two more times in following months. EXACT wording. That's weird as **** to me and I told my friend this screams that they are saying these things to multiple people and they aren't able to keep track.

Unfortunately, it sounds like your friend was just a game for this person. Or at least a convenient companion. Better to cut ties now and move on. I would probably block this person on social media so the access and temptation to be pulled back in aren't there.
 

BWRhasnoAC

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Unfortunately, it sounds like your friend was just a game for this person. Or at least a convenient companion. Better to cut ties now and move on. I would probably block this person on social media so the access and temptation to be pulled back in aren't there.
It's very common in modern dating. Some people are blessed with lots of options. Others aren't or fall hard. Makes for a dysfunctional dating environment.
 

madguy30

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100% and I told my friend that I understood being smitten but looking at messages from the ghoster there were clear flags. One for instance was them saying something like 'i want to tell you something without sounding weird but i think i am falling for you.' In and of itself it seems nice etc...but i found the same exact wording to my friend two more times in following months. EXACT wording. That's weird as **** to me and I told my friend this screams that they are saying these things to multiple people and they aren't able to keep track.

My friend is just really distraught and thinks they acting wrong or said something so asked if I could look at their communcations to see what I thought. Granted...not all the messages were PG so it was also awkward haha.

I really decided to back off from trying to steer my friend away from his situation when I tried talking to him about some of the terrible things that had gone on and he just deflected or made excuses.

'Well her last relationship was just so messed up so she's just on edge from it'.

'Yeah the cops came but it sounded like it started with someone else showing up that triggered her'.
 
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Clark

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I've only had two jobs in my professional life (going on 15 years now) so I can't say that I've had lots of experience in the job hunt market but I think of all of the companies I interviewed for in my life, maybe one ever bothered to notify me that I didn't get the job.

The closest I've ever come to ghosting someone was telling them my work was busy(it was) and would talk to them when the busy season was over (I didn't) In my defense, we had never so much as held hands and she had never sent me any messages after that either so I think the feeling was mutual.
 

Cy$

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I've never been ghosted in relationships, but have been in a few job interviews. I think most people need closure over way or the other. It's tough to tell someone it's over or they didn't get the job, but some people would rather avoid that conversation because it's not easy.
A good leader will not shy away from being honest. Ghosting is just as big of a deal in the interview process as dating. My LinkedIn feed has posts with complaints of companies ignoring candidates after interviews.