Let’s face it, breaking up with people is scary. There are emotions shared, and words exchanged. And it can be scary for some to have to face another to the face and share such levels of humanity and emotion, so many resort to text, cutting the cord of human emotional exchange, or at least severely limiting it. But if we are honest with ourselves, that can scare us too. Words, they are so terrifying. They are so messy, especially in breakups or times you simply are just done talking to someone, or working with them. So instead of being straight forward with your feelings and taking ownership of them, sometimes it is easiest to blame God for them. Honestly, how can someone argue if you hit them with a “God’s calling me to be single”, or an “I need to focus on my faith”? It is truly genius really. Now, the truth is that that excuse really is not wholly accurate more often or not, it really is just one’s self being wishy washy and not finding satisfaction in their relationship. This route could also potentially hurt the other party’s faith as it really offers no true or reasonable explanation of emotional change. Not to mention how even the blaming of God for one’s emotional changes can hurt the other party’s feelings, and severely hinder that chance of still being friends you want. And while this route can be executed through a text message to save yourself from having to have human interaction and exchange, it still requires some form of conversation and word exchange. That can be terrifying! Well, then maybe you will find interest in a brand-new way of avoiding human emotional exchange: ghosting.
Urban Dictionary defines ghosting as “the act of suddenly ceasing all communication with someone the subject is dating, but no longer wishes to date”. Incredible, this is just what many of us are looking for. This way the other party can just get the hint, eventually, that you are no longer interested. You can just ignore any and all interaction with them. Straight cut them out of your life until they walk away themselves. It truly is a beautiful form of avoidance of problems, is it not? Is it not the perfect way of avoiding hurt feelings and all the struggles of sharing human emotion? The only downside is how that taking of a hint might take time. But fret not, view this as time you can be productive and search for your next squeeze. You can use this time to find yourself a new relationship to inevitably practice your ghosting skills on again.
So, what are the positives and negatives to this approach? Positives: avoidance of human interaction; avoidance of confrontation; avoidance of relational responsibility; less likelihood of personal guilt; no reasons to seek growth or change within one’s self. Negatives: lack of human interaction; lack of communication and clear understanding between parties; avoidance of relational responsibility; less personal challenging and understanding of one’s own involvement in the failure of a relationship; no learning for personal growth and character building for the future; more long-term damage on the other party; one will reveal their own immaturity; increased likelihood and comfort level with ghosting again. So really, the positives outweigh the negatives.
Ghosting truly is the best way to walk out of any and all personal commitments. It can even be practiced in the business world. Say you begin talks with doing a project with a third party. As planning goes along, eventually something falls through and the project must be cancelled. Well, what do you do? Option one is to have a conversation with the third party that the project is no longer underway. Option two is to just not tell them anything and completely avoid any phone calls, text messages, or emails for months until they eventually get frustrated and quit trying to get in contact with you. Just make sure you never commit beforehand and sign a contract, because then they could sue, and then your ghosting attempts will fail due to the law. But even then, you can always ghost the law by going into hiding or flee the country.
In turn, if we are all being honest with ourselves, ghosting truly is the perfect thing for our generation. A generation that is consumed with twitter beef and drama. We live in a world online but miss out on the life and adventures around us. We would rather complain about problems than seek resolution. We want change but not challenge, growth but no growing pains, victory without battles, to be understood without understanding. We want but we do not give. Ghosting is perfect for us. It is selfish and immature, hidden and cowardice, and it is one-sided and unbending to the thoughts, feelings and opinions of others. In a generation that is apathetic of love and care towards others, unless it brings us attention and praise to ourselves and fills our self-seeking glory grabs, ghosting is the perfect form of avoidance of our issues. It is the perfect way of avoiding all personal responsibility and human growth and understanding. Honestly, if you have never tried it, you really should. I may even ghost my editors and never even write this story. Who’s to say?
By Michael Richardson, staff writer
