Incidents of ghosting are on the rise. People are being ghosted all the time – candidates by the companies that interviewed them; employees by their supervisors and colleagues; men and women, by their partners and friends. If we look deep within, we’ll be able to dig out a few ghosting or near-ghosting episodes of our own.

What is Ghosting?

We’ll talk about ghosting; but, first, let us take a look at the definition and some extempore terminology that I’ll use in this post.

Ghosting: Ghosting is the phenomenon where someone cuts off all communication with you without any explanation. No anger, no conversation, no quarrel – and someone just disappears from your life. There’s no closure, and you keep wondering what you might’ve done to hurt the other person. If you try to reach out, but your efforts hit a cold, hard wall of silence, you’ve been ghosted.

Ghoster: The person who ghosts.

Ghostee: The person who is ghosted.

Why Ghosting Happens?

Let us try to look at the other side of this wall of silence. What might be happening? Why’s the Ghoster ghosting?

  • The Ghoster might not see any value in continuing the connection, and they don’t want to “waste their time” communicating with you anymore. (A perfectly valid reason, which cannot be communicated politely, and hence the ghosting.)
  • The Ghoster experiences a loss of interest in the other person’s personality or pursuits. (Again, a perfectly valid reason, quite like the one above.)
  • A hurt caused by something that the Ghostee said or did, but which the Ghoster might not want to share because it might make them appear vulnerable. (Something that can be resolved only if the the Ghoster responds when the ghostee attempts to make connection.)
  • A personal situation, which the Ghoster isn’t comfortable sharing with the Ghostee, may be sucking up the Ghoster’s bandwidth.
  • The Ghoster’s realization that someone is not as useful as they were once assumed to be, especially in online connections. (Ah, well!)
  • The Ghoster’s realization that someone’s values and beliefs don’t align with theirs as they once thought they did. This results in a certain cognitive dissonance, which must be resolved for the restoration of their mental comfort. (Refer to the quote below.)

Quoting from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/ghosting

“People who ghost must conduct a degree of emotional gymnastics. In cognitive dissonance, a person’s actions may be inconsistent with their beliefs and values; they must therefore convince themselves that their actions are right and just. They also convince themselves that the other person would prefer to avoid a tangled and difficult conversation as well. Otherwise, feelings of guilt and cowardice may plague them.”

The Impact of Ghosting on the Ghostee

The cold and direct impact of ghosting is that the Ghostee feels terrible because they lack closure. They are left to fill an uncomfortable gap that looms over their head and makes them ask why.

The Impact of Ghosting on the Ghoster

One might be given to think that ghosting doesn’t impact the Ghoster at all. I think that this assumption is often inaccurate. If you (the Ghostee) have been important to the Ghoster, ghosting will impact them in the long run.

All humans tend to reflect upon their actions, especially when we are faced with situations that are spitting reminders of the past. This is also true for the Ghoster, especially if they’ve felt something for the Ghostee. They are haunted by the memories of their own ghastly act of ghosting and the impossibility of making amends makes their past action of ghosting rankle even more.

Assuming that the Ghoster is always the villain isn’t right. They suffer too. They may have ghosted someone to reduce their cognitive dissonance, or because their personal circumstances forced them to cocoon themselves, though.

How to deal with being Ghosted?

Frankly, the ghoster doesn’t care much about how you feel. So it depends a lot on how you, the ghostee, feels about the ghoster.

  • If you feel tender or protective about them, ask once; if you run into that wall of silence once again, stop. Give the ghoster their space.
  • If you don’t care much about the ghoster anyway – you won’t reach out. You’ll sit in a corner and brood about it all. You’ll try to piece together an answer to the “why” which will always circle back to you. If such is the case, then my advice to you is that you can drown your own sorrow in a glass of wine.
  • In any case, if the door has been slammed shut already, and your knocking at it hasn’t been yielding results, give the Ghoster the benefit of the doubt. Assume that they are going through a personal hardship and allow them their privacy.
  • Remember, the Ghoster isn’t coming to comfort you. Either they’ve written you off as bad debt or they are embroiled in something painful and uncomfortable at their end. So, tend to your own hurting heart, and move on.

Why is Ghosting on the Rise?

Virtual connections aren’t as strong as real-world connections. Virtual conversations, especially the asynchronous ones, don’t provide sufficient non-textual feedback. The non-verbal cues transmitted through body language and voice are missing. Trust is often low. Both the Ghoster and the Ghostee are worried that they might be misunderstood. Ghosting is the simpler way out.

In future, ghosting will become even more commonplace. Online connections are tenuous, and they need a real-world connection to flourish. Yes, it’s possible that meeting someone from the virtual world may result in a mutual ghosting post-meeting, but then, it would be a real personality-mismatch, which will be understood clearly by both parties.

Now, let us turn our attention to the Ghoster.

A Thumb-Rule that Helps Deal with Ghosting

Regardless of which side of the ghosting wall you are on, the best you can do is reach out once and then accept the new status quo. Remember that neither of you is at fault. You are just two different people, trying to find your way through this impossibly intricate and complex territory of life.

Move forward. If you are an instructional designer, you’ll do well to remind yourself of the schema theory. By mulling over something constantly, you are feeding the connections that anchor it into your schema, entrenching it deeper into your memories. So, stop; take a deep breath; and step away.

So the thumb-rule to deal with the aftermath of being ghosted is:

Reach out once with an empathetic message, wait, give the Ghoster the benefit of the doubt along with space and time, and then move forward with your life.

The Instructional Design Connection

I’ve ghosted and been ghosted – but it all happened before I had begun to “feel” instructional design. Now, I’m so deeply connected with the psychological principles of ID that I automatically try to identify the triggers of a particular behavior – both in myself and in others.

I remember not hearing from a friend for two long years and my emails just dropped into the deep well of silence. I felt uncomfortable and sad, but then accepted that she didn’t want to talk anymore – and that I should give her the space that she was silently asking for. Two years later, I received a long email from her and I realized that her silence had nothing to do with me.

I’ve come to realize Ghosting as the brain’s way of improving its efficiency. It drops all the extraneous load so that it may focus on the most important task at hand. (Recall Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory? We discuss it in “For the Love of Instructional Design,” so when you get the book, turn to page 396 of Chapter 12. Click here to be notified of its launch.)

Other Ghosting-related Terms

1. Orbiting

Your Ghoster is orbiting you, if they are still watching your social media posts. They leave you with a lingering feeling that they are still interested in you in a distant, faraway manner.

2. Breadcrumbing

If your Ghoster leaves a like on your post or even on a comment that you made on a post, they might be signalling that they don’t want to get seriously involved but they want you to remember them and that they too remember you. You might think of it as leading, but they may be doing it without much thought.

3. Caspering

Caspering is when a kind-hearted about-to-become Ghoster, sends you a brief message (perhaps even apologetic) saying that they are going to disappear. Weird? But sweet and kind people too turn Ghoster sometimes.

4. Submarining

This one’s easy. If someone ghosted you, and then re-engaged with the suddenness of a submarine surfacing, they are submarining. What interests me more though is the why behind the resurfacing. If they had ghosted you because of some personal issues/tragedy, and want to reconnect now – submarining might be a good thing.

5. Zombying

It’s quite like submarining. Just another name, except that they probably ghosted you because they had lost interest in you, but have now re-emerged because they were bored, and became curious about how you’d react.