Have you ever ghosted somebody?
I have a couple times. The last time was a couple years ago with someone I met online who I was getting to know but didn't like after the first date. They asked if I felt like watching some movie and I didn't respond and they didn't follow up. Tbh, I probably would've answered if they had sent a second text. I guess I avoided telling them the truth but it stuck with me like a pebble in my shoe and I feel bad thinking about it.
I had an abusive family member. Whenever they wanted to start fights I would stay quiet. It got to the point of them insulting me every chance they got. I ghosted them for almost 3 years now. Just finally moved out of that house. My wife and I are living in our car, but we are free from abuse and that’s all that matters. That family member truly had a hold on us as slaves. So finding an escape was incredible.
Yeah. After a mediocre first date where he showed signs of a quick temper. We had no friends in common, no overlap in any social circles. I really did not want to deal with his likely negative response to me telling him I didn't want to continue talking to him, so I didn't. His second text after I didn't respond to his first within ten minutes told me I was correct.
I am a ghost.
I'm extremely introverted and non-confrontational, so if a situation is too unpleasant or stressful, I vanish. It's what I've pretty much always done. I have no idea how many times I've had someone say to me, " Hey - what happened to you? I just looked around and you were gone."
It's sort of a trap. A lot of it is that, in addition to being introverted and generally non-confrontational, I'm hyper aware of people's emotions, so if I expect that they're going to be angry or hurt, I especially don't want to deal with it. But of course, then I introduce the chance that they're going to be angry or hurt because I "ghosted" them (or as it was most commonly known before the social media era, I "blew them off"). And yes - I feel bad about that.
All in all though, it's still generally less unpleasant than the alternatives.
His name is Arnold Ferolito. He was a friend of my father. How did they meet? I don't know. But the story starts like this...
Arnie was down on his luck. He had a business model based on some kind of green/environmental concept. But it was the 1960s - and that wouldn't be a viable thing for 50 years. So my father's advice was "Stick to your strengths. You're a brilliant electronic engineer with experience in video. That will be a growth field. Find something there." Well, the timing was impeccable. Within a few weeks, there was an accident at a studio in Manhattan. Two cabinet-sized muti-million-dollar videotape machines were blown out a window in Manhattan to the street several stories below. Arnie bought them as scrap, rebuilt and resold them. That became the seed money for AF Associates.
During my tweens, we would visit them for a day once a year or so. Swim in his pool. I'd chat with his daughter (close to my age), who was oddly willing to talk with me - introverted and awkward as I was. Turns out, the whole family was badly twisted. The older (middle) son was bright, but impossible to talk to (aka autistic). The younger one was "disturbed". My sister (about 3 at the time) nearly died in that pool once. I was the only one who saw her fall in and I fished her right out.
I worked for AFA in the summer of 79 before my senior year in HS. AF did my father a favor and hired me for the few weeks. I assembled the on-location truck that went to the keystone of the remote TV studio at the Lake Placid Olympics. AFAssociates was reputable and successful. At least for a few years.
'Round about the 90s, my father volunteered me to help AF with some "tech stuff". It turned into endless demands on my time. AF had seen my father demo a video camera connected to a TARGA board in a 486 PC. AF decided he wanted multiple cameras connected to a PC in each of his 3 houses (NJ, LI, FL) so he could keep an eye on them. Enter the GEOVISION board. These were first-gen tech at the time. The setup was difficult and finicky. There was no support. And it ran on Windows 95. Then there was the dynamic IP issue for the home DSL services. Plus VNC for remote access through the open router ports. It became a full-time support gig - with SUPER URGENT calls all the damn time when a PC crashed or an IP address changed. Did he pay? He did not.
All this time he's working on his new business. An offshoot of AFA, it involves satellite signals and offshore content, and complex licensing. None of which I care to listen to. Oh, and he's suing his son-in-law. And his daughter won't talk to him. And his brilliant son working at Intel won't either. And his wife divorced him 10 years ago. But that's OK, his new wife Olga is young and beautiful and Russian. And he gets more and more insistent with his political opinions. Which are generally disgusting racist, elitist, anti-immigrant, winner-take-all, AnCap, well, you know the type. Except this was still the 1990s when Newt Gingrich was the worst US politics had to offer. He was out there.
Well, It got annoying. No pay, calls all the time, constant blame for issues, noxious opinions. My father had passed away, so I had nothing tying him to me. So I ghosted him.
He called me endlessly and left long voicemails. Some were guilt trips calling out to my dead father. Some were poor-me pity pleas citing his failing health. The calls lasted several YEARS, but finally tapered off. I never looked back.
Except I did. I looked him up. Holy shit, he's in WIKIPEDIA! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RM_Broadcasting He's LITERALLY a foreign agent! As declared by the State Department! He is a small part of a root cause of the downfall of this country. And I am sure that he is proud of the way things are headed.
If he (or anyone he knows) reads this, I am doxxed. But I really doubt this has any traction to spread. Please do not repost this.
Yeah man, this was a wild ride. You absolutely did the right thing ignoring this dude. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10637253/Florida-broadcaster-paid-millions-air-Russian-propaganda-radio.html
I wonder if that is related to the Tim Pool, Russian influence for money, story that broke last month.
There's a Spanish guitar strum after that openinng first paragraph, I heard it.
Whoa! Interesting. Thank you for following through with the story. I saw your message below. Totally worth it. The book I'm currently reading mentions the Red Scare quite a bit, so reading this is even more spooky considering today's political climate.
I've got a great story about this one, but I will have to write it up in a couple of hours.
I do too. Mine involves a Russian agent in the US. I plan to use real names and dox him. It will certainly take time to type up.
Just did my former friends earlier this year.
Life is life. Gets crazy and we don’t work together anymore so we don’t get much time to hang out.
He blew up on me about me never reaching out but like when? And I apologized and said I would try to make a better effort to reach out.
After about an hour, he never texted me back and I realized that the last message sent before he blew up on me was me reaching out to him a few weeks prior and he never responded! So like wtf dude.
So then he or his wife said something and I never responded and they texted me a few times for a few days after but I never replied, let alone read the messages.
I was already on the edge about them anyway. They had a problem with everyone. Everyone eventually had a problem with them and it makes me feel like they’re likely the problem people in their various situations. They were very strict about things and it just never felt right with me.
I gave them my car that I was no longer using and they were super appreciative which is how we became friends, but I honestly was just trying to be nice. I wasn’t really looking for friends.
Idk. I feel bad about it sometimes but I also feel like it was long overdue for us to no longer be friends anymore.
Ghosting is a normal part of life. It happens, and 95% of the time it's inadvertent and not a slight. People come in and leave your life. That's just how it works.
If someone isn't worth the hassle, move on. It doesn't even deserve an explanation or second thought.
Only you get to determine how your time is spent. Nobody deserves a monopoly over your emotions or effort, and anybody who demands an explanation is just manipulating you because they don't respect your agency as a person as much as they value their own pride. Don't fall for the toxicity.
There are eight billion people out there. It would take 250 years to high-five them all. Lots of noise, very little signal.
In the end, we all ghost everyone.
I'm ADHD. I think I may have ghosted people. I wouldn't know.
If you're not a huge part of my life, and you don't chase me a couple times, I may just forget you exist.
Same, but for me a lot of it has to do with ADHD-induced anxiety. It's not always that I forgot you exist; but simply that it's been too long now, so it would be weird and awkward if I tried to re-enter your life again. So it's best to just stay away.
I've ghosted every job I've held (except one) for the same reason: can't deal with the anxiety of putting in my two weeks, so when I'm done with a job I just silently walk away without saying a thing to anyone and never come back.
The awkward time is very real. Is it strange if I say hello? Is it strange if I don't? If I do nothing, then it's future me's problem.
Yep AuDHD here with RSD. I just always assume people aren't interested in connecting with me. Even though it's not always true. But if someone doesn't make any effort to keep in touch, I assume they aren't interested and they are no longer at the front of my mind. Keeps me from being hurt when it happens for real. But it's not intentional. I've just been rejected too many times due to my undiagnosed AuDHD.
ive had a few times where the person just felt a lil creepy and i felt safer just dropping off
Plenty people. For stuff like
And I don't feel bad for ghosting any of those. At all.
I hesitate to say yes or no because ghosting comes in many levels. There are many people I prioritize last if at all, and there are some people that some would say I definitely have good reasons to ghost absolutely, but the potential for circumstantial nuance (especially in my life) would make this practically difficult to foresee myself doing. The closest I come to a perfect example of a ghosted individual is my best friend's birth mother who wants to steer his life away from mine and my other best friend's since she (the birth mother) is culturally discriminatory.
After my divorce, I had a random friend tell me that they were bummed about my divorce because they (him and his wife) had wanted to swing with us. Gave me the ick. I was SAd when I was a kid, and so people expressing interest in me is like a train crossing signal at night, big red blinking light with loud bells, all I can foresee is what terrible things they're capable of if given the opportunity.
Then him and his wife got divorced, and he started texting me, calling me, emailing me, like he couldn't believe I didn't want to hook up with him. ghosted him HARD. I felt bad about it initially, but after he kept texting/calling/emailing for weeks, I was moreso relieved that I never gave him any more of my time/effort.
All the time.
Pretty much never intentionally, though. I'm just bad at keeping up with people.
Took her on a first date, she couldn't stop looking at her phone. Went back home, checked if she arrived safe, and never said a word after that.
There's a whole half of my family I don't talk to anymore.
I try not to ghost people. I don’t like being ghosted myself, so I want to avoid feeling like a hypocrite. But I typically get ghosted anyway. It’s frustrating, and depressing. If I’m giving off the wrong vibe, I’d like to know so I can correct it. But instead I’m left wondering what it could be and I have a bad habit of overthinking everything to begin with.
The last time I was ghosted was a couple weeks ago. I thought things were going well, but then she just stopped responding. I broke character and reached out one more time, but still got nothing. It sucks. Thought we had a connection.
🤷♂️ I miss the old days of dating.
If I’m giving off the wrong vibe, I’d like to know so I can correct it.
Even if you're not ghosted, you're very unlikely to get this information. Usually it's just that they're not interested and not the why behind it. And begging for the why is typically not productive. The only thing not ghosting gets you is knowing it's a deliberate choice and not that they, like, broke their phone for weeks or fell into a coma or something else unlikely that prevented them talking to you.
I ghosted my father when I was 19. seen him a couple times since then at family gatherings but we didn't talk. once in a while he sends me mildly deranged emails or text messages after midnight but I just ignore them. I guess I've sorta ghosted my grandparents too, and my aunts and uncles. though I'm not ignoring their attempts to contact, we are just mutually not contacting each other. I feel bad about it sometimes but they are miserable people and very hard to be around for me and I have to assume they aren't too broken up about it because they never reach out.
I don't think not responding to someone after a single date is ghosting, but I may be using the term differently than the majority. I feel like you need to know someone longer before it's considered ghosting.
I ghosted someone I knew on Discord. They were exceptionally clingy. Like message me four times a day, every day, without me messaging in between. Message me the second I get online. It was so annoying. Constantly asking me if I was mad at them after I didn't answer them immediately. Even after I told them I wasn't mad and not to think I am if I don't answer. I told them so many times that the only thing that was annoying me was them thinking I was annoyed when I don't answer immediately. Just so so pouty all the time. I couldn't handle it.
I took a break from Discord for other reasons and when I came back I just ignored them. I couldn't handle it anymore.
From the way other people talked to them on servers and things they said, I get the feeling this is a common pattern with them. They start to make some friends, then get super clingy and sobby if you don't answer them right away and people get frustrated and stop talking to them. Which sucks, but, I'd told them so so so many times exactly what they were doing that was annoying me and they never stopped. It's so infuriating for someone to just be so sad about something and for you to try and tell them in no uncertain terms "I'm not mad at you, but when you think I am mad because I don't answer right away it makes me annoyed. Just stop that. That's all I'm upset about."
Yeah. I fell pretty shitty about it to be fair.
I'd been going out with this girl for a couple months. We'd been getting on great. I was really struggling with keeping a handle on my alcoholism at the time and did something embarrassing one evening. Also lost my phone that night. I woke up with the shames, got a new phone number and never spoke to her again.
In retrospect I probably shouldn't have been dating if my anxiety was going to let me toss what could have been a good thing because I couldn't have a conversation the next day.
Tbh, I probably would’ve answered if they had sent a second text
why would you think that you would have changed your stance when the first date already set off rejection in you?
I read that more as answering and communicating the disinterest instead of ghosting them.
It wouldn't have changed my stance. A follow-up message would've pressured me to let them down easy seeing they were still interested, but their silence felt indifferent.
Everyone I went to high school with. Although to be fair, they did the same. So I guess win-win?
Did you guys ghost one another or just lose contact? Because I think those are different.
Some in one bucket, most in the other.
I usually do if the feeling is mutual. Like, if I am always the one reaching out, I'll eventually stop, and usually they don't even notice.
Only online. As soon as someone starts being pedantic in the comments and then argues about how they aren’t missing the point, I’m out. Not worth spending more time on.
I love engaging with pedants like that. It infuriates them as I agree with all their overly-narrow points but then show how they don't support their conclusion. They don't really know what to do so they just keep reiterating the same irrelevant points over and over in slightly different ways. Sometimes the back and forth would go on for days when I was on reddit.
It's my way of having fun and paying penance for my past pedantry at the same time.
Yes. I've once ghosted a close friend of mine, because I had difficult health conditions and needed a break from school (that's where we met). I didn't want any human contact, so I just isolated myself and changed my phone number. It was unfair towards her, because she was a really likable person, but I just couldn't handle any human contact at the time. I regret not telling her.
Kinda. I got ghosted for about 6mo from a friend, just out of the blue. Met back up with them through happenstance and we decided to talk about what happened. A bunch of no responsibility and excuse later, I acted like I was down to hang again, and just didn't. Decided this shit wasn't worth my energy or effort.
No. I think it’s a pretty shitty thing to do unless you had a reason to feel unsafe, which I personally never have.
No. It's alright to tell people it didn't click for you in a polite manner. Ghosting is for cowards and rude people.
It's OK to be rude and cowardly sometimes, as a treat.
Sometimes ghosting is for people who value their own peace of mind, who predict that saying "sorry, I don't want to be contacted further" will either cause drama or be ignored.