The general societal consensus is that ghosting is bad. I think most of us, ghosters and ghostees alike, can agree on that—I would also argue that we’re all guilty of a little bit of both. We complain about being ghosted, but are quick to ghost someone else when convenient for us because, as a collective, we’re an increasingly avoidant society. In the age of social media and in a world where face-to-face interaction is becoming more and more infrequent, many of us don’t feel up for confronting conversations. And, in a difficult time where bad news is far more common than good news and the general state of the world already leaves us feeling consistently uneasy, I can’t really blame us.
"Ghosting isn’t just about being inconsiderate. It’s about deeper psychological patterns, how we learn to manage (or fail to manage) emotional discomfort, how we avoid pain, and how our past experiences shape our present behaviors," psychologist RJ Starr shared in an episode of the "Psychology Of Us" podcast. "And in today’s world, technology has made it easier than ever to disappear." But what happens when there is no abrupt ending to all communication yet you still feel a major shift? Is it better to have someone fully disappear than it is to have someone linger, haunting you from time-to-time? This is the definition of being soft ghosted, and having recently been on the receiving end of it, I feel like I've landed in the camp of the former.
According to therapist Daniel Dashnaw, "Soft ghosting is the slow fade, the art of disengaging without fully disappearing. It’s when someone stops replying in a meaningful way but still offers minimal interaction—like “liking” your message or reacting to a post with an emoji. This half-hearted communication keeps you tethered just enough that it’s hard to know whether they’ve lost interest or are just busy."
I had finally found someone to distract myself from the disastrous long distance situationship that I, in true Bianca fashion, self-sabotaged. It was fun while it lasted: he was German and therefore had an accent which was exciting for me. He didn't ghost me, thankfully. He quite straightforwardly told me that he was no longer going to speak to me. I eventually found a seemingly nice British man and continued on my own little Europe tour while stuck in steaming hot Brooklyn for the summer.
After our second date, a few weeks passed without communication and, I'm not really sure what it is about me that screams this needs to be serious, but a text apologizing for being MIA and saying I'm enjoying having fun at the moment and not looking for anything too serious. If you're not on the same page, I totally get it came through. I was haphazardly and half-heartedly looking for love, but certainly not with him. I was bored and needed a distraction and I rode on the back of a Citibike that he drove from Bed-Stuy to Williamsburg one time while I wore dangerously low-rise pants and Tabis which was sort of exhilarating and fun. I wanted to keep having fun. I didn't tell him all of that, of course, just some of it.
Getty Images
From that point on, communication remained stagnant—the occasional response would perk me up, but the lack of substance and the waiting period that would always follow would drain me. There was a weird interim where contact was sparse save for the occasional text ensuring me that he definitely wasn't trying to ghost me and that he was once again traveling for whatever his job is, and then there was nothing. Then, he made the confusing decision to follow on Instagram and, later, send me a DM to congratulate me on this new job. Now, he occasionally reacts to the things I post to remind me that he exists, but that's it. He still hasn't responded to my last text.
Soft ghosting, in my opinion and in my experience, leaves the ghostee more distressed than if the ghoster were to just disappear completely just because it's so confusing. With a hard ghosting, the message is clear: they're gone and wants nothing to do with me. With a soft ghosting, they will pop up in obscure ways when they feel like it, to congratulate you on a new job for example, and I'm always left asking: what's the point of this? Ultimately, there is nothing that you can really do except ghost them back.
In short: if you're personally partial to a soft ghost, please, for the love of god, just cut the cord for good and send that text that essentially reads: I'm not looking for anything right now, talk to you never. Sometimes it just doesn't work out and that's totally okay. As for my soft ghoster, I can sleep peacefully at night (despite my former therapist advising me to stop going home with men on the first date), knowing that I didn't sabotage this one.
