How to Deal with Ghosting (and When to Move On)

Unfortunately, not every trend in the world of dating and online dating is a great one. In fact, most things that are trends tend to be negative. Today, I want to talk about one that sadly falls into that category. 

I’m talking about ghosting. Just in case you haven’t heard of this before, this is where you start interacting with a potential match and then suddenly, they just disappear without any explanation or even a message. This can happen before you’ve met, or it can still happen after you’ve gone on a date or several dates. 

I want to get this out before we go any further.

Ghosting is terrible, mean, and one of the worst parts of dating. Period. Outside of extremely rare instances where someone is being rude or there is a safety concern, there are no instances where this is okay.

And to be fair, even in some of those instances, sometimes saying something can be the safest option. 

Now that we got that out, here’s what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about how you should go about dealing with ghosting and when in the ghosting process you should choose to move on.  

Every situation will be unique, but these overarching guidelines should hopefully be pretty helpful. 

Make sure it’s ghosting first. 

If it’s really early in a relationship and someone hasn’t messaged you back on a dating app after a few days, is that ghosting? No. The cadence of messages at the beginning of a conversation could be fast or it could be slower. Some people also only check their dating apps once or twice a week. 

Make sure you’re not taking ghosting response action just because the cadence of responses isn’t exactly what you’d like for it to be (or in line with how quickly you respond). 

Second, at any point in the relationship process you want to make sure that something bad hasn’t happened. For example, maybe they lost their phone? Maybe their computer broke? Maybe they had an emergency? There are a lot of things that can happen which can make it feel like ghosting but that’s not the case. 

HUGE caveat here. Be wary of excuses. If you get ghosted and they come back with a good reason, okay. However, if it gets habitual or the reason isn’t a good one (or isn’t believable), be aware of that. 

If it is ghosting, walk away. 

I know if you read a lot of advice articles, they will tell you these really intricate ways of deciding if you should stick around after someone has ghosted you. 

I want to make this very simple for you. Once you’ve determined that it is actually ghosting, immediately start moving on with your life without them. If it’s early in the relationship where you just started talking, this will be a lot easier. If you’ve gone on a few dates, it may take you a little time, but every minute you sit around waiting for them is a minute wasted. 

Why?  

Ghosting is flat-out disrespectful. It is a very tangible demonstration of where they value you in the priority rankings of their life.  

And in reality, most of the time, you aren’t going to hear from them again. And even if you do, do you really want to be with someone who could treat you that way? I’d hope the answer is no. 

Realize it’s not you. 

When people go through a conventional breakup or split, a common pleasantry is to tell you that it is nothing you did wrong. A lot of times, that is the truth. However, some of the time it is something that you did wrong. 

When it comes to ghosting, though, it is 100% never your fault. Sure, you may have done something that they didn’t like. However, they are the one who made the decision to approach this like a child. Healthy adults tell you when they don’t like something and that they are moving on because it’s the right thing to do. 

So, the huge take away here is that if you’ve gotten ghosted, majority of the time it has nothing to do with you. And even in the few off chances it’s because of something that you did (very rare), be excited that you got the blessing to be able to see what kind of person they are early on.  

Anyone that can treat another human that way is not someone you want to be in a relationship with.