Accepting not knowing why you’ve been ghosted
You’re single. Then, you connect with someone. You spend hours pouring yourself out to them. You allow yourself to get attached. Everything is fine and dandy and it seems like it’s finally headed somewhere serious. Then it’s suddenly over. And it’s time to move on—or at least try to.
I understand how difficult it is to give up on someone after investing so much time and energy, and losing sleep over building a relationship. It hurts to see it all go to waste. A connection you thought was mutual collapsed to a ghost of what it almost was. If you’re lucky, the person told you they weren’t interested anymore. But most of us aren’t so lucky: we get ghosted instead.
To the person who ghosted: I get it. The person you were talking to wasn’t living up to your expectations, or they gave you a red flag, or life just got really damn busy and you couldn’t handle something (someone) else. But while people don’t owe you shit in life, there is a minimum expectation. While it’s easy to just ghost someone you’re no longer interested in, it also makes you an entitled jerk. If you’ve ever ghosted someone, have you stopped to think about the consequences of your actions?
Being ghosted by someone you’ve developed feelings for is the worst. There’s a sinking feeling in your chest and your heart drops to the pit of your stomach. You try to wrap your head around it: Did something happen to them? Are they okay? Eventually though, these logical thoughts start imploding. You start thinking it was your fault. Was it something I said? Something I didn’t say or do? What’s wrong with me?
The problem is that you just don’t know. You could spend days, weeks or even months wondering if the reason someone ghosted you was your fault. While I can sit here and say it isn’t, the truth is I’ve been in that position of being ghosted and trying to understand why. And now, there’s nothing I can say other than you eventually get used to it and you are able to recover faster when it inevitably happens again. But sadly, nothing will ever soften the blow of being ghosted.
