Ghosting

August 29, 2023

Ghosting is defined as, ‘abruptly cutting off communication with someone without explanation’. It is also described as passive aggressive behavior and compared to gaslighting. 

 

Recently someone who ghosted me suddenly made small talk with me. It was in a social situation, and it stunned me momentarily, and I stammered out a reply. But it left me quite unsettled. It happened on my birthday and I didn’t want to be stuck with dealing with negative emotions around this situation, which had created a fair amount of disturbance earlier too, so I shelved it to enjoy my day.

 

The feelings it generated continued within and I don’t want to carry them anymore and writing is often my way of processing.

 

People deal with conflict differently. I like to try to put my feelings on the table and sort it out as soon as possible. Others are conflict avoidant, not necessarily for mean reasons, but because they just don’t know how to address it — maybe never learnt or have been hurt in the past. I don’t really know. Some dodge dealing with it when they feel they have the upper hand and because they lack empathy for the other person. Many can pretend it doesn’t exist and continue to have a strained relationship, and even conversations with the other. I on the other hand find it difficult to make even small talk with a person who I have an unresolved conflict with. And this is where I am. This is who I am. 

 

The person, I’ll call him X, was part of a group I lead. He wanted to leave to follow another path and it felt like a loss, but I encouraged him to follow his heart. The conflict began last year after a conversation in which X said something that left me wondering about the loyalty of others in the group. I wonder if he knew what he was doing or he just said it inadvertently. It left me distraught for weeks,  more correct months. The next time I met the person, a few weeks after that conversation I had a hard time talking normally to him. 

 

But I reached out the next to next time we met in person, apologizing for what I felt I had done wrong, trying to resolve things, and inviting him to continue being part of our group even as he was finding his own path. I didn’t think the paths were mutually exclusive, though the world may disagree. X wouldn’t make eye contact with me and after that didn’t speak to me though our paths crossed as we have common friends. 

 

I felt I had hurt him. I kept blaming myself for this, wondering what I could have done differently etc. A couple of months ago I sent another text saying I was open to listening to his side of things hoping for a conversation that might resolve things. X responded by leaving the WhatsApp groups that were common to us. 

 

I felt a shock, but I decided to move on and stopped thinking about clarifying things. I know that not every conflict can be resolved. I moved towards finding my own peace around it.

 

Recently while I was away on a trip X participated in the group I lead. I truly don’t know yet how to write about the range of feelings I felt when I heard this. Shock, anger, disgust, total loss of respect for X, are among a few. 

 

But if I had ever felt that the ghosting was just in my mind, on that day I knew it hadn't been. I felt something hit me so deeply that it unbalanced me and made me question myself and even those around me. It was not pleasant to deal with it. 

 

So, this third or maybe fourth shock, of having X casually talk to me as it everything was ok is not something I can handle. Someone might say that X is trying to reach out. But it feels offensive to me. It feels like X wants to deal with things on his own terms, and completely lacks the sensibility that his actions had left me feeling hurt and snubbed. 

 

I’m trying to figure out my response to this. It’s something that has haunted me for months. If it was somebody who I feel might respond to my overture of having an honest conversation, I would suggest it. But X has rejected that twice already, and I feel too vulnerable to suggest it. But I do know that I cannot pretend that it’s ok either. 

 

Maybe I need therapy to figure this out — it has unnerved me enough. I’m noticing that even sharing it with others makes me feel fragile. But I am interested in knowing if others have faced something similar, and how they have dealt with it?