Ghosting: The Dating Disappearing Act (Who Ya Gonna Call?)

Ghosting is a term used to describe the action of a person who disappears from another person’s life without so much as an explanation. This kind of behavior can haunt the jilted person for a very long time, making him or her obsess about what he or she may or may not have done to deserve the silent treatment.

With the all-female version of the Ghostbusters movie about to be released, let me be the first woman to bust this new breed of Cowardly Ghosts.

Shockingly, people from all walks of life are guilty of ghosting. Celebrities do it, for instance: Charlize Theron’s recent icing out of Sean Penn; boys do it, girls do it, men do it, women do it, transgenders do it, the poor do it, the nouveau riche do it, and everyone else inbetween seems to think that it’s OK to just walk away from a relationship without uttering a word, offering an explanation, making a phone call, firing off a text, typing out an email, or even doing the Post-it-break up-thing as seen in the Sex in the City episode where Jack Berger, a writer no less, can’t write Carrie more than the following three short, grammatically incorrect sentences before moving on: I’m sorry I can’t Don’t hate me — (Notate the absence of periods that would give the sentences proper endings letting Carrie know, “That’s all folks!)

To me, ghosting belongs in the same class of slimy behavior that you would put a hit-and-run driver in, or it’s the equivalent of a drunk driver who slams on his brakes causing a ten car pile-up on the Long Island Expressway and then races off, never bothering to look at the devastation this action has caused.

According to one of my clients, a recent victim of ghosting, “It was like losing a limb and experiencing unending phantom pain. I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t even breathe some days.”

Perhaps ghosting is a passive-aggressive reaction to today’s modern job hunting nightmare in which you send an email resume into a cyber-slush pile and never hear a word back. You don’t even know if they got it, saw it, read it. This no response to receiving a resume gives the impression that it’s OK to disregard people that don’t have what you want or need at the present moment. Worse yet, is when you go on a round of interviews for a particular company, and you never receive a courtesy call or an email response telling you that you didn’t get the job. A pattern for rudeness and treating people disrespectfully is built into our corporate structure, and it appears to be spilling out onto our private lives.

So, what is proper break-up etiquette anyway? Ideally, do it face-to-face…or a phone call at least, not a dehumanizing text. Simple say that you’re sorry for hurting the person…give a brief explanation if asked…wish the person a wonderful life and then leave knowing that you acted with kindness and grace toward another human being. Acting in a karmically correct manner frees the two of you to move on with a sense of peace and a feeling of closure. By the way, Karma’s a bitch. Your ghosting can and will haunt you and come back to bite you in your pompous ass, sooner than later. Mark my words.

As a culture we need to return to kinder, gentler, politer times. A return to: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

It’s the height of arrogance, narcissism, immaturity, rudeness, selfishness, and cowardice to walk away from another human being without acknowledging that person and his or her feelings Grow up, America. Grow some balls and do the right thing.

By the way, wrong behavior can never become right behavior no matter how many people do it, so stop justifying the unjustifiable things new millennium people do.