Being ghosted feels awful—everyone will agree. No one wants to be left hanging in midair, not knowing what to expect or where to go next.
During some alone time, I plunged deep into myself and noted that I'm not really living up to my ideals like I think I am. I don't like being ghosted. But I myself have ghosted a lot of people in a lot of times. Due to my social aversion, I have always distanced myself from people and things who steal my peace of mind, or suddenly cut ties with people without notice.
Ghosting is most often used in dating context, but it can also apply to almost any human association. So, I just think I have to warn you that this post is not just about the romantic fallout. Also, warning you that this post is just me justifying my behaviors. And, there might be a lot of offensive stuff here. I'm just speaking my mind out even if they are not exactly politically correct.
I initially wanted to tell experiences of getting ghosted, just like other articles which explains where the post is coming from. After some thought, I decided to discuss my own ghosting tendencies first. I have to put some weight against myself that I have to admit my shortcomings first before I talk about other people.
Especially during my depressive episodes, I have tendencies to drain off my feelings for certain people, or humanity in general. These are influenced by high distrust / skepticism, memories of betrayal, realization of past offensive remarks I let slide before, irrational envy or disgust, or just sudden loss of interest. I have unfriended hundreds of people in a span of two months for no good reason. I have also listed a lot of names which I didn't really cut ties with but I kinda don't feel the same way towards them anymore, such as ignoring them on social media.
After I get back up from those episodes, I try to look back on my behaviors. I realize that I go too far on some instances, but don't want to take back my action, so I end up ghosting people. It's not like I regret my actions, because even if I am in depressed state, I am conscious of my decisions. I still stand by rationalizing that it's not going to hurt both of us even if we dissociate. Call it stereotype of introverts, but yes, sometimes I ghost people due to my stubbornness. I think, it's not like we need each other in our lives anyway, so they're not my loss, nor I am theirs.
I also had acquaintances who I hung out with for some time. When I think about it now, the prolonged connections with those people made me think that we were already "friends for life", which is a delusion. As a person grows old, the person realizes that not all friends in an era will stay friends forever. Because too much attention, friendship and social interaction felt suffocating, I had to disconnect with a lot of people, and let a lot of time pass by which drained me off the affection towards them. In the end, I just respect them as human beings as much as I did when we were just acquaintances. I called a lot of people "best friends"—what if I run into them and they think I'm still as chummy as before? How am I going to escape that? Sometimes I wish I wasn't too thirsty for love back then, so I wouldn't have made a lot of "extra" connections. In short, I let those exaggerated relationships die by a natural death, with no intervention or effort to save them, and set aside the memories I had with people that should have stayed as acquaintances. In shortest, ghosting is a convenient restart mechanism.
At least, I haven't reached a level where I ignore work-related stuff. Even if I don't immediately acknowledge an order, I reply with the order executed, before my superior gets the chance to think I blatantly ignored the delegation. Or maybe I did at some points but I can't remember anything intentional.
No matter how much I justify my actions, I know that ghosting is unfair and disrespectful. But sometimes, conscience is not the same as convention. Also, these feelings might represent your subconscious thoughts which you might not realize right now. Humans tend to magnify their own selves and antagonize others, that's why most emotion-based articles are written in the point of view of the victims. No one will admit that they have ghosted others. So, I'll write it down for myself and for everyone of us.
There were two stories which I initially wanted to share (which made lasting impact on me).
First was when I was ghosted by a guy I used to like. As much as I wanted to finally let the story go, I felt that it was unfair publishing only my side of the story. We never talked about it anymore, like it just died a natural death with neither of us making an effort to revive what died. I can only tell you the feelings I had, how agonizing those weeks were, when I was wondering alone what went wrong. After calming down, I decided to take it down. For those who were able to read it, thanks for letting me vent out.
Second was when I was ghosted by a debtor. I felt like it was unfair publishing the story when she can't explain herself anymore. I have no idea where she is now, nor what happened back then why she suddenly disappeared. Since I'm not going to chase after the debt anymore, there is no point in sharing the story anymore. I just hope she's still alive and in a better condition than before.
So, after calming down, I archived the stories as of August 24, 2020. Now that the stories have flowed out of my system through writing, it's okay to archive them already.
Being ghosted is unfair. There is no warning nor closure. Just your radar losing the other person's signal, and it's only you who gets anxious. There is a Filipino song called B.A.B.A.Y. which says, "Sana nagpasabi ka man lang, hindi ganito[ng] wala akong alam. Ang dali kayang magsabi ng 'babay'." (You could have asked someone to tell me, not like this leaving me not knowing anything. It's so easy to say 'bye', right?")
Going back, I wonder if these people ghosted me because I was suffocating, unwanted or unnecessary. Those stories carved deep in my memory only because they happened when I was young. But if they happened now, I probably wouldn't brood over them for five years. And looking at myself now, the reason why I'm ghosting people is not because I hate them, but because I'm socially dissociative. I wonder if that's a sufficient explanation. For your information, I am currently a messed-up, cold, introverted individual who tries so hard to achieve inner peace on top of everything—in short, a cat.
I'm just here to remind everyone not to antagonize so much on the people who ghosted us, especially if those were rooted on relationships we knew had the possibility of being fleeting in the first place. Of course, when we're talking about long-time relationships suddenly vanishing, that's a different story and pain. So, yes, ghosting or caspering, I do that, too. You do that, too. We all do. To some extent. We have to recognize that behavior.
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