GHOSTING…THE GHOSTED, GHOSTEE AND GHOSTER.

I really wish I could have this topic as a discussion on a vlog with a few friends of mine(maybe 3 or 4)😒. It would be more interesting😉. For me, lockdown made me ghost people even more…I’m so ashamed😂.

If you actually clicked on the link to this post, I want to believe you actually do know what “Ghosting” is. But not regardless, I’m going to define and explain to you what Ghosting is😅.

Ghosting — when someone cuts off all communication without explanation — extends to all things, it seems. Most of us think about it in the context of digital departure: a friend not responding to a text, or worse, a lover, but it happens across all social circumstances and it’s tied to the way we view the world.

Ghosting is common and can happen to anyone. I researched this using my Whatsapp contacts and IG followers. 90% have ghosted someone. 20% claim they’ve never ghosted anyone.

Ghosting is by no means limited to long-term romantic relationships. Informal dating relationships, friendships, even work relationships may end with a form of ghosting.
Ghosting in friendships may be even more common; more than a third of my study participants reported that they had ghosted a friend or had been ghosted by one.
Ghosting hurts; it’s a cruel rejection. It is particularly painful because you are left with no rationale, no guidelines for how to proceed, and often a heap of emotions to sort through on your own. If you suffer from any abandonment or self-esteem issues, being ghosted may bring them to the forefront.

In this age of ever-advancing technology, your ghoster is likely to appear on your various forms of social media and, if that’s the case, this person who is now physically gone from your life, is still quite visible. How do you move on?

Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet or proven advice to quickly guide you into recovery from a ghosted heart, but there is common sense.

For example;
1. You’re in a relationship. Suddenly, and maybe without any warning at all, your partner seems to have disappeared. No calls, no text messages, no connection made on social media, no responses to any of your messages. Odds are, your partner hasn’t been kidnapped or lying dead in a ditch somewhere but, rather, has simply ended the relationship without bothering to explain or even let you know. You’ve been ghosted.

2. First, it’s just one text that goes unanswered.
Then, it’s 10. Your calls go to voicemail and the silence grows deeper by the minute. You may start to worry: Could something have happened to your friend? What else could explain their sudden disappearance? Eventually, a social media update or a mutual friend will give you the answer. Your former confidant is alive and well.
But they have just vanished from your life. They are ghosting you.

I’ve been the ghoster (relationship wise) and the ghostee (friendship wise) so I can tell you perfectly well how it works.

I’m going to mention a few recent ones:
1). I ghosted in my last relationship… waiiiiit calm down! It’s not my style. It was more of his thing (to go ghosting for some days). I didn’t even think I was going to use that strategy or method.

That brings me to the strategies of breaking up😅. I’m not teaching you how to break up but you might just need this😂. So, here are they👇

One of the most common strategies is “open confrontation,” in which partners directly discuss ending the relationship.

Another is the “avoidance” strategy, in which one partner decreases contact with the other person, avoids future meetings or discloses very little about their personal life. Yet another popular strategy is “self-blame,” which basically translates to “it’s not you, it’s me.”

People may also break up using the “cost escalation” strategy. That would be like essentially making the relationship so terrible that your partner decides to get out.
Others may use “mediated communication” strategy to break up, which means talking to somebody else about your desire to end the relationship with the hope that the third-party would communicate that to your partner. That third party could also be your Whatsapp status, instastory and so on.

Okaaaaay…so back to the matter, in my case all other strategies didn’t even except ghosting had been tried but it didn’t work.
I know your next question is “how?” and “why?”

Now this is it…talking to that person and making him see reasons why the relationship should end always ended with apologies and cajoling from him. So, we kept going in circles which wasn’t healthy. Yaaaaas! Shine your teeth😋. This was where the ghosting came in. I wasn’t ready to solve any matter, let’s not talk shit “dey your dey make I dey my dey” kinda thing. The rest is story…keep following my blog posts to know how events unfolded😂.

2. I’ve had a couple of friends ghost me and I’ve also ghosted quite a number.
For me, when I call someone my friend, I naturally don’t want to ghost you. Not intentionally! But the kind of friends I’ve had ehn, they love to ghost😂 all because they are too proud to apologize which I understand. And myself being an egoistic person too😋, I won’t come and meet you. I know how to be the bigger person but sometimes, I really don’t want to be! But most of the time, deep down, I’m no longer angry. In fact most of the time, I end up being the first person to talk to the person or text. I believe friends fight…lerrus have a disagreement and let it end there but nooooo my friends like to ghost.

The thing would first shock me but I end up adjusting.
The closest male friend to me likes to ghost ehnnnnn😂. He’ll probably read this post and catch his sub🙄 (ARM). In fact, he trained me so well🙈. Earlier this year, I had ghosted him for close to 3 months thinking he was ghosting me. Whereas, his phone got spoilt😑.
But we gada dey!😛 I’m always the bigger person sha…I’ll come to you first.

3. A friend I held dearly recently ghosted me because I wasn’t going to give the kind of ship he wanted “a relationship”. I’m a straight forward person. I’ll outrightly tell you yes or no. I said ” no” and he wasn’t in for that so he decided to ghost me😑. I chatted him up once or twice to be sure of the energy I was getting. I confirmed it and it looked like leaving him to be was going to make him feel better. So, I activated my ghost mode too (lock up zonknow

History was just repeating itself again.
If you’ve ever been ghosted, you know the feelings of uncertainty, and low self-esteem it can generate. With ghosting comes no closure and no open communication. It doesn’t allow anyone to learn or grow.

So why do so many people, including those who hate being ghosted, do it? Most likely, we don’t mean any harm — ghosting can easily be something we partake in unconsciously, the same way we ignore texts from our friends when we’re busy.

As someone who’s guilty of ghosting, I’ve started making it a priority to tell someone why I don’t want to see them anymore and to ask why when someone chooses to stop talking to me.

More often than not, I’ve realized that my reasons for not wanting to continue seeing someone don’t have anything to do with them personally — hence my theory that ghosting usually has more to do with the ghoster’s issues than those of the ghostee. Sure, sometimes people ghost because of something you did — these just happen to be situations when that’s not the case.

Ending relationships is nothing new, and there are several different strategies people can choose. Perhaps we have just started to notice that ghosting is a common strategy, largely because technology has changed the way we interact with one another. I’m guessing that people ignored each other for a long time. It’s just a lot more obvious now because of social media and technology. When it’s so easy to contact each other, it becomes very clear somebody is ignoring you intentionally.

My Opinion On Ghosting…Do I feel it is okay to Ghost?
Yes!!! It’s very fine to ghost in some cases. While in some cases, it is unnecessary. I actually had to look at this topic from my Christian point of view too.

First, you need to know your mental health is very important. If you feel someone is stressing you mentally, ghost them biko! You are not fighting them. It is not malice. You just avoid seeing them and even if you do, you just say hi and move!
Well…you asked the babe out and she said no. Unfortunately, you found out you are not matured enough to handle it. It hurts you when you see her…e dey happen. Okaaaay unku! Ghost her then! If it works for you, fine💁.
You guys broke up and seeing your ex’s posts or pictures hurt you, woooo block am! Delete the pictures so that you can be sane. It is allowed!Avoid reminders of your ex. They’re likely to cause painful emotions to resurface, and they won’t help you get emotional closure or insight into why they broke up with you.” After you stop torturing yourself by going over old photos, saved old texts, new social media postings, and anything else you think might give you insight into the mind and current whereabouts of your ghoster (and let’s face it, you’re bound to be doing that even if you’re not normally an obsessive person), try to find a new distraction
Your spirit does not align with a particular person, you don’t like their way of living, you rated them too much than they rated you. Ogbeni! Ghost am…nobody is smiling.
It’s okay to ghost crazy people😒.
It’s okay to ghost people that just want to drain you..financially, emotionally, spiritually and so on. People that just want to take from you without adding anything to you.

On the other hand, I’ll also say No! 40% of my study participants said NO. Sometimes, it’s not okay to ghost. Because it makes the ghosted lack closure, low self-esteem and makes them confused. Like “why does this person no longer want to talk to me?” Especially when you want to end to end a relationship, please tell the person. You owe them an explanation sincerely.

All of this can be particularly difficult for people who are sensitive to feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity. These people not only have to manage the pain of rejection but also face the stress generated by the mountain of unresolved questions — Was it something they did that ended the relationship? Did they offend their friend? Did their partner leave them for someone else?

People who ghost are primarily focused on avoiding their own emotional discomfort and they aren’t thinking about how it makes the other person feel. The lack of mutual social connections for people who met online also means there are fewer social consequences of dropping out of another’s life. The more it happens, either to themselves or their friends, the more people become desensitized to it, and the more likely they are to do it to someone else.

WHY PEOPLE GHOST.

1. Craving authenticity: Some people ghost just to separate themself from a particular person to know if what they feel towards the person is real or what the person feels towards them is real. They don’t want anything that is not authentic so they ghost to just check within themselves. If I find you unnecessary in my space, I’ll ghost you!

2. Fear of intimacy: For me, if I know getting close to this person, I might start feeling some form of intimacy that I’m not supposed to feel and I might not be able to handle being hurt by the person well, I ghost the person. Straight up!

3. Destiny beliefs: In a 2018 paper, Dr. Freedman discovered ghosting has a lot to do with how we feel about our future or whether we think our mate is the “one,” which is a question of belief versus destiny. Either someone believes the relationship is capable of growing or they’re seeking an archetypal partner (what’s typically called a soul mate).

4. They are going through some shit.
According to Chan, when people experience a hard time, their number-one priority is dealing with their own issues. Their attention and energy shift into their survival, and communicating effectively with someone you don‘t have a strong connection with or may not know all that well can fall off the priority list.
I am naturally the type to ghost on people for some few days or weeks especially when feel overwhelmed. I know myself too well that I get overwhelmed easily. So at that moment, I separate myself just to be in my world and enjoy my company alone.

5. They are keeping up with too many people.
I think I belong here too. Keeping up with too many people can be difficult. Well…for me though.
I think I’m particularly choosy about who I tend to interact with. Ghosting has a lot to do with someone’s comfort level and how they deal with their emotions.
So, I end up unconsciously ghosting people. Especially when you don’t occupy a space that is indisposable in my life.

In terms of dating, some people ghost because they are talking to other people apart from you.

6. It’s the easiest route to escape when you are hurt. Especially when it’s now someone you don’t see frequently.
In the dating world where people are meeting a lot of people outside of their social circles, that creates a level of feeling that you don’t have a lot of accountability if you ghost someone,” she said. “Their friends don’t know your friends so it’s easy to do if you’re never going to run into them again in real life.
7. They are threatened. They probably feel unsafe with you or are hurt by something you did.
If I don’t feel safe with you, I’m going to ghost you! If you are not impacting my life in a good way, it’s okay for me to ghost you.

Ghostbusting time
If you’ve been the ghosted one, relationship experts generally advise to let go of a ghost. If you are tempted to get in touch with your ghost, first think hard about what outcome you are really looking for. Someone who has ghosted you has already shown an inability to handle conflict in a healthy way. Ask yourself if you actually want to get back in a relationship with them.

Resist the temptation to stalk them online. If you can’t let go, you may get some closure by confronting your ghost to let them know their behavior is unacceptable, immature and not compassionate. Then, move on.

And to avoid becoming a ghost yourself, practice direct and compassionate communication. Open confrontation can be painful for the person being dumped, but remember that people still rank it as their most preferred breakup strategy over all others.

My Advice to the GHOSTED.
If you were thinking I was going to tell you it’s not okay to ghost, I’m sorry to disappoint you. It’s very okay to ghost in some cases. Do what works for you.
I’ve started making it a priority to tell someone why I don’t want to see them anymore and to ask why when someone chooses to stop talking to me. But if they don’t respond, we move!

Get yourself busy. I know it can be hard but you need to focus on something else for the time being. Something you enjoy most importantly.

And spend your time with people that love you (God, family and close friends).

This is a chat between I and someone yesterday👇