If there was an unwanted person knocking at your door every day, you would tell them to leave. Or you might even call the police.
This is understandable.
Today, the response to technology’s version of that dilemma is to “ghost” that unwanted person. Although we could deal with that problem in a more decent way, we shouldn’t be upset with people who choose this route.
Ghosting is something that occurs fairly often in the context of modern dating. It’s when someone unexpectedly stops communicating with someone else, and normally it provokes a reaction of confusion and/or frustration.
A couple of months ago I endured my first instance of being ghosted — by a girl I liked. The girl and I were talking for a month, and had gone for a couple of coffee dates.
Within a few days of agreeing over text to grab dinner, I sent a follow-up message with no response. I soon realized that this was a minor case of being ghosted, and I was a little rattled for a couple days.
Obviously when you’re intentionally going out of your way to talk to someone, it would be nice to have them feel the same way.
However, the more I think about it, the more I empathize with her decision to just not respond to that text. She wasn’t on the same page as me, and there would be no likely situation where we would have to interact in person in the future.
So she did what was clearly most comfortable for her to do.
The ability to contact somebody today is easier than it’s ever been, and sometimes people want more privacy than their technology would like to allow them.
I’d like to think that I would be able to express exactly why I’d rather not talk to someone anymore. But this seems to me like a situation where understanding the other perspective, on both sides, can prevent hard feelings from materializing.