the ask@AAR: Is there anything worse than when grownups ghost?
I’ll be honest with you–I’m, months later, still pissed at the 32 year old highly decorated military hero in his second year of law school who, after three months of serious dating, ghosted a young woman very near and dear to me. Really?
Because, I KNOW this guy knows better. He knows it’s a crap move and an exceedingly immature way to break up with someone. We all know this. We know that if we want to end a romance/friendship/job that the right way to do so is to, as we counsel our toddlers, use our words.
And yet, ghosting is EVERYWHERE.
Except, in my reading, in romance. Which is a good thing because I’m not sure I could forgive a lead who ghosted. It’s just such a low-rent, asshat move. But maybe this is just me, cranky old lady that I am?
What do you think? Have you read romances with ghosting in them? Have you or someone close to you had someone end a relationship by ghosting? Is it ever forgivable? Let me know. I’ll just be over here listening to my current favorite breakup album and scheming on how to send this article to a certain law student without getting caught…..
This just popped across a local social network……It’s attached to a pic of a sweet black pup:
“This is Ghost he’s a 4 month old Lab/Pitbull mix. He was my former roommate’s dog and instead of paying rent he blocked me and disappeared, leaving Ghost behind. I’m looking for someone who’ll give him a loving home as i simply don’t have enough time to take care of him”.
I thought I’d add it to the list of appalling ghosting behavior.
Awful. Just awful.
I’ve been casually rereading Rachel Gibson’s Chinooks series. In one of them, a book a gave a B+ to, the hero ghosts a woman he’s just impulsively marries. (Any Man of Mine) He doesn’t have a single good reason other than that it’s a very bad time in his life and he panics. When the book begins, almost six years later, he feels guilty but hasn’t really ever apologized. It takes the whole book for him to win her back.
Rereading it now, especially given that there were cellphones, his behavior is harder for me to forgive.
I enjoyed Ghosted by Rosie Wash and wish she would write something else. (And Sorry I Missed You by Suzy Krause, which is a novel but has romantic elements.) As a romance theme, it has terrific angst potential.
Did you know she published 3-4 books under the name Lucy Robinson? I loved all of them. And she has a thriller coming in March!
I can’t think of any ghosting I’ve read in books but it’s definitely happening in RL. Before I retired , the young ones would chat on break about bf and gf issues. It seems the common way to end a relationship is to ghost the other person. While they didn’t like being on the receiving end, they were doing it too. I was pretty shocked. I can’t believe that’s the norm I asked why…..Crickets.is it because of cell phones and being able to easily avoid confrontation? I’m sure there’s a whole psychology behind it.
Back in my day(cause I’m old), you’d have a massive fight,, say some awful things, slam a few doors, break up and then listen to REO speed wagon for a few days and then move on. Good old closure..
I think we are less and less comfortable with being hurtful in person which, ironically, has made us vastly more hurtful in other ways.
I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head, Dabney. No one wants to be uncomfortable or deal with uncomfortable emotions anymore. It’s pretty evident that whether you are the one doing the breaking up or are the one being broken up with it’s hard and doing hard things is not a thing anymore. It’s all about doing what’s easy and less stressful, especially for yourself. My son posted in our family group chat a while ago that he was breaking up with a girl and wanted tips on how to do it nicely with the least amount of pain all around. My daughter pretty much told him that’s not possible… just man up, be honest, let her vent and then get the hell out of dodge and let her begin to heal. My question was – are you doing it over text or in person. To which he replied – in person mom, I’m not a complete a$$h%le!
You’ve raised a good man!
I’ve seen what I would describe as ghosting in several romances, although normally not after a relationship but for sure after a casual hookup. Plenty of those secret babies romances start with this plot – hero or heroine just takes off without even saying goodbye after one or more perfect nights. The excuse normally used is you knew I was eventually leaving because work/family/travel/this was never meant to be permanent etc. Fumbled by Alexa Martin had this plot (heroine leaves after one perfect night) and I liked it in spite of that. I would prefer my h/h to stick around and say goodbye even in the above situation but I don’t hold it against them if they don’t. I can remember a couple of books where I did hold it against the character – one time the hero was engaged to the heroine, saw her kissing another guy, and didn’t confront them, just took off. It was naturally one of those big misunderstanding moments but I never wanted her to get back with him. They were engaged, she was owed the opportunity to at least discuss it imo. Another time a hero and heroine were caught in a compromising situation and were being rushed to the altar by their parents. He wasn’t ready for marriage and took off, came back years later claiming to have matured and changed. I would have shown him the door – and maybe tried to trip him on his way out.
I just read _Sing Anyway_ by Anita Kelly and the heroine leaves after a one night stand without even leaving a note. That seems pretty cold.
I think leaving and staying gone is worse. I may or may not be married to someone that I did something like that to. But, I called the next day. So, not really ghosting but more panicking.
In the romances I’ve read, they normally run into each other years later. Calling within a 24 hour period seems pretty reasonable to me :-)
For me it really depends on how the one night stand is setup. A lot of times, there is no exchange of numbers or last names, copious amounts of alcohol are involved, and the temporary nature of the evening is stressed. If everyone is upfront about what is happening, it is still rude/cold to leave without even a note but it doesn’t ruin the possibility of an HEA years later when they run into each other again. But if they’ve been together for more than one night and the hero or heroine just bails? I have a tough time believing an HEA scenario in that case.
I guess I sort of ghosted a group of friends at a time in my life when everything was falling apart, but it was kind of mutual. They knew where I was and how to get in touch and mostly didn’t. We left our church and they seemed to think that was that.
I was ghosted by a good friend many years ago. We used to do a lot together and our kids were close friends, but I obviously did something that upset her and she stopped talking to me. Oh, we said “hi” at church and our girls still got together, but she broke any other contact with me. She never explained why, and mutual friends (who stayed my friends) either didn’t know why or wouldn’t talk about it. It was really painful and confusing.
I have a very close friend whose kids are the same age as mine and who grew up like cousins. Unfortunately, we’ve grown FAR apart on our worldviews and much of what she supports are things I see as harmful to my family. Being around her and her family got to be way too stressful for me, even though I know she’s a good person at heart and I love her. So I simply told her why I’d be distancing myself from her. We discussed it. Now I only see her a couple of times a year to catch up on what our kids are doing, and we text occasionally. The last time I saw her in person she went on an anti-Covid vaccine rant, and it was upsetting (mostly because I was in her house and didn’t know no one was vaccinated there–my bad for not asking), so it will be a while before I see her again. The difference is she cares about me too, and she knows and accepts the relationship limitations. Next time I see her we’ll just take a walk rather than sit down for a long chat.
Having a really good friend, one of many years, ghost you is extremely confusing and painful. I had a friend who was a close, close friend who moved away. But even after she moved we were close, talked all the time, I traveled to visit her, etc. And then she just stopped communicating. Just stopped. And I had no idea why. Not one clue.
And that was worse than any short-term relationship break-up. Sure in the moment those are hard, but ultimately you mostly realize that it’s a good thing long term. I never came to that conclusion with the friend.
Yes, that’s it. With the friend who just cut me off I never felt it was for the best because I could never figure out what was wrong. I can’t learn if no one tells me what I’ve done.
I refuse to ghost. I’ve broken up with several friends because of behavior(s) that I couldn’t get over and in every case I’ve either had an in person conversation or written them a letter. If you’ve ever cared for someone I think you owe them that.
I recently had to do the same with a long term friend and spent a long time drafting and re-drafting a letter. It was a necessary step, for me, and the letter was cathartic. But weeks later I am still turning it over and over in my mind and wondering how the friend reacted to my honesty and explanation.
I’ve done this twice, once with the above mentioned friend, and once with a cousin. My friend accepted it and our discussion has enabled us to remain on speaking terms even if we are much more distant. With my cousin it’s been a different story. She’s stalked me on a mutual friend’s FB posts and put the full blame for our estrangement on me. She doesn’t see her toxic behavior. Thankfully the mutual friend asked my cousin not to reply to me in any comment section of her posts and to respect my boundaries, so it’s better now.
That’s what I did with my dear friend. I wrote to her, and then talked to her in person. It’s tough, but worth it. Our relationship has changed, but neither of us felt the need to completely end it once we talked about the issues. When I do see her, we usually talk about superficial things and catch up on the kids.
I’ve had that happen with close family and after many years of very very limited contact where they show up from out of town, stay a few weeks and make a production of allowing my parents and me an hour of their time at a really inconvenient time, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is just them. There are some particularly hard things in their life they aren’t willing to be open about and I can only assume they’ve been overwhelmed by them to the point they don’t realize how much they’ve hurt others. I hope. Maybe I’ve done something, but my parents sure haven’t.
In HR, Eloisa James has a ghosting situation in one of the Duchess books – can’t remember which. He leaves directly after the marriage ceremony. In another HR- I have also forgotten the title – the newly wed husband is kidnapped and tossed on a ship. Though not his fault, she feels as if she’s been ghosted. Is it ghosting in CR “Spoiler Alert” when BAWN slides out of the on-line relationship? If it’s not ghosting, is the pain any less?
The Eloisa James is one of her Fairy Tales, I think? He becomes a pirate and gets facial tattoos before returning years later?
I’m pretty sure the kidnapped husband is a Meredith Duran book. He’s taken to Australia and made to work in some kind of mine. This may have been the last book she published….
That definitely happens in several HRs, one of which is Meredith Duran’s The Sins of Lord Lockwood.
And, if you couldn’t help it, I wouldn’t call it ghosting. Vanishing against one’s will seems like a whole different thing!
It is, but the emotions are pretty similar from a romance standpoint. I guess you could call it accidental ghosting.
That sounds reasonable. Agreed!
Yes the James was The Ugly Duchess – which completely fell apart after the hero did his vanishing act.
Ghosting, like covid, seems to be a distinctly real-life issue and I don’t think I’ve encountered it at all in a romance novel. I definitely couldn’t get behind a hero who ghosted a previous girlfriend—even if there were mitigating circumstances—it just seems an emotionally-immature way to go about breaking up. Two of my daughters have been on the receiving end of breakups via ghosting—one of them quite recently—and it really is beyond a shitty way to end a relationship because it leaves so much unresolved. It’s not that my daughter wanted a laundry list of why things didn’t work out, but she just wanted some closure about why what had seemed to be a compatible relationship suddenly wasn’t working for the guy she was seeing. I suspect a lot of men don’t want to engage in the emotional heavy-lifting it requires to explain to a woman face-to-face that they want to break up, so they just stop responding to texts & voice mails and hope the woman gets the message—which she does, loud & clear, but often with a quite unnecessary side helping of self-blame. Of course, I came of age in the “I think we should see other people/It’s not you, it’s me” era of break ups, which was also highly unsatisfactory, but at least it was usually done face-to-face. Sometimes you can’t get a straight answer out of a man about why he’s breaking up with you…and current technology just makes it easier (“He just left me on READ” is a phrase I’ve heard more than once).
I wonder how common that three month mark is. This article was fascinating:
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a36395867/why-men-ghost-after-three-months/
I think you should always end a relationship with communication and words, but in some cases it might be best to just fade away: For example when you want to end a physically abusive relationship, simply wanting to end talking can be dangerous even when the relationship is abusive not physically but psychologically, not all people will find the strength to say to their partner’s face why they want to end.
Sometimes ghosting happens out of fear or discomfort… during college I was very close to a guy, we were both good students and great friends, then one day he left college and never answered my calls or messages again I found out through a mutual friend that he had to drop out of university due to personal problems and he was embarrassed to tell me that he would no longer be a lawyer… his pride and shame simply won over the friendship we had, he did not trust me I wouldn’t mind any of that, I also found out that he ended up having a relationship with a girl that he often talk bad about in front of myself and other people… I guess that was also a problem?
I made a ghost of a friend during adolescence… she had serious narcissism problems, she was manipulative and quite toxic, but if I told her to her face because I wanted to end our friendship she would make a scandal, she would scream, cry and blame me, it doesn’t matter if we were in public and if it was in private then she would make up lies about the conversation to ruin my reputation…not to mention leaving evidence by texting her she would do something wrong with it. The best thing was to just disappear from her radar after graduation, I changed my phone number and never spoke to her again… many people in the group ended up doing the same with her, the girl urgently needed psychological therapy, she was unable to maintain healthy relationships (her family wasn’t abusive so that didn’t seem to be the cause).
In a romance novel…I think I’d forgive the hero if he thinks he found out that he and the heroine are siblings, it could definitely be traumatizing for her to believe that she kissed/had sex and fell in love with her brother and maybe the guy didn’t has the strength to lie to his face so he just leaves…Or if the hero had amnesia and when he regains his memory he realizes that he is a wanted criminal and was in a gang responsible for the murder of the heroine’s parents… I think i am would understand if he just left.
(the heroine’s parents would have to have been involved in something shady and be criminals too for me to forgive this).
I would agree about ghosting an abusive relationship being probably the safest way to handle that situation. Once you are in that situation, the ways out can seem very limited,
And I’m not sure most people would call that ghosting. I think ghosting is typically when one person, for no clear reason, just stops communicating. People who escape abuse are, for me at least, a different category.
Oh I commented because in my definition and that of those closest to me, ghosted is from the perspective of the person who is left… when their partner or friend never tells them that they do not want to see them and just leaves. Although it sounds horrible sometimes abusers will say that everything was fine especially when it is psychological abuse and not physical.
I understand.