Ghosting is often seen as an immature or passive-aggressive way to end a relationship.
Emotional Immaturity
An emotionally immature person may ghost someone because they do not know how to express themselves and cannot cope with the discomfort of confrontation and honest conversation. They may also not feel any sense of responsibility towards other people and how they are feeling.
Despite ghosting being normalized, it's more about the problem the ghoster is having than it is about you. Ghosting says a lot about the person in many different ways. For instance, it could say that they lacked the courage to do the right thing by explaining why they could no longer continue a relationship with you.
Aside from a handful of scenarios, it's generally a better idea to be honest when ending a relationship. Ghosting is immature, and as difficult as it is to have an awkward break-up conversation, it shows consideration for the other person and brings closure to the relationship.
Ghosting can also signify that you're afraid of confrontation – another offshoot of emotional immaturity. People who are afraid of confrontation often have a hard time expressing their needs and wants in relationships.
Ghosting is a signal of a weak or strained connection.
Ghosting is a big red flag that we might be losing someone we love or someone we wanted to love. If someone ghosts you, they are either playing a game or they don't care about you right now.
People make time for the things they care about—even if that means making time to break up with someone. According to a 2019 BuzzFeed survey, 81% of participants said they ghosted someone because they weren't into them, 64% said the other person did something they disliked, and 26% said they were angry with them.
The act of ghosting is a power move that someone with narcissistic personality disorder may use. There are many reasons why someone might ghost you. It may be because they lost interest and want to avoid the conflict of telling you this personally. It may be they want to see your reaction and how much you care.
While every relationship is different, three days is enough time to consider yourself ghosted.
In the long term, however, ghosting can negatively impact the ghoster's personal and professional life. Ghosting is a warning sign of emotional immaturity.
A person ghosting typically has little acknowledgment of how it will make the other person feel. Ghosting is associated with negative mental health effects on the person on the receiving end and has been described by some mental health professionals as a passive-aggressive form of emotional abuse or cruelty.
"While for some people it is a lack of empathy [that causes them to ghost], for other people, they're just putting their own emotional needs first, so you can view it as selfish," Ruskin said.
Bottom line: Some ghosters feel guilt about their actions, but research suggests that they typically move on from the guilt once they no longer have contact with the ghostee.
Ghosting is selfish
Ghosting abruptly ends a relationship without any explanation or formal goodbye. This form of cowardly behaviour can be employed in any relationship, not just romantic ones. Although ghosts may think that ghosting is a way of avoiding any potential confrontation or awkwardness, it is not.
Ghosting takes away the opportunity to talk and process, which can allow healing. But without conversation, it can cause someone to question their worth, what they did wrong and did the person ever really like them. This can lead to trauma and other severe emotions like depression or anxiety.”
It can trigger deeply-rooted fear of abandonment
A lot of people have unresolved childhood feelings they aren't aware of and experiencing something emotionally damaging like ghosting can make them resurface. For example, if your parents divorced or if they neglected your needs, you might be more sensitive to rejection.
Soft ghosting refers to someone 'liking' your last message or latest comment on their post on platforms like Facebook and Instagram where it's possible to react to an interaction, but not actually replying and continuing the conversation. So, although they're not ignoring you, they're also offering no genuine response.
Dr. Oca says, “If it feels good to you, you can acknowledge in a text that you were enjoying getting to know them and spending time with them and that you were surprised to not hear from them.” Curious, honest texts are best.
Ghosting is abruptly ending communication with someone without explanation. The concept most often refers to romantic relationships but can also describe disappearances from friendships and the workplace. People respond to being ghosted in many ways, from feeling indifferent to deeply betrayed.
And last, ghosting is noted as an emotionally cold, if not abusive, way of terminating relationships, so those who are characterized by dispositional callousness, like those high in psychopathy, may engage in ghosting.
The silent treatment goes by many names: shunning, social isolation, stonewalling, ghosting. Although psychologists have nuanced definitions for each term, they are all essentially forms of ostracism. And the tactic is nothing new.
Not all ghosters will feel a sense of regret. It is, in fact, rare but does happen with some partners. For these people, they realize that they made a mistake by ghosting someone, creating hurt for another person, and causing them to feel guilty. They admit their selfishness and come with an apology.