Elysha Dicks and I have experienced a recent spate of ghosting.
Looking for childcare for the fall, we interviewed several candidates. Some of them seemed quite lovely. A few asked to check their schedules based upon our needs before furthering our conversation.
Two of them simply never called or texted back. After spending time in coffee shops, chatting about possible employment, they vanished. Follow up calls and texts were ignored. Seemingly good and decent people who could’ve simply texted to say that their schedules didn’t align or a better opportunity came along or they had just won the lottery chose instead to ghost us.
We eventually found a wonderful person to help us care for our children in the fall, but being ghosted repeatedly didn’t make the process easy.
And it’s not only us.
A friend of mine was recently ghosted after dating someone for almost two months. Another has been ghosted more times than he can count. One of my clients is ghosted by job candidates in the midst of the interviewing process regularly.
It happens all the damn time.
I’m going on the record as saying that ghosting is a cowardly, indecent, disgraceful, and stupid response to any situation that doesn’t involve abuse of some kind. It’s become quite popular in recent years, but it’s still an awful, inhumane, and yes, I’ll say it again, a cowardly way to respond to an awkward, difficult, and sometimes not-so-difficult-at-all situation. It’s lazy, disrespectful, and craven. It’s immature and oftentimes cruel. It’s selfish and self-serving.
It’s childish. The act of a small, pathetic person.
There are two kinds of people in this world:
- People who call, text, email, or tell someone face-to-face that a romantic, personal, or business relationship must end.
- People who suck.
If your preferred method for ending a relationship of any kind is ghosting, or even if you’ve occasionally used ghosting in the past, don’t think of this as an attack on your moral character.
Think it it more like an invitation to enter the world of responsible, respectful adulthood.
