Hi, my name is Danielle, and I'm a "ghoster."
What the heck does that even mean?
For those of you have yet to experience this recent trend (I'm looking at you, long-term relationship folks), allow me to explain.
The term "ghosting" means simply not responding to someone you were romantically involved with in some way — whether it be a first date you weren't into or someone you dated for a few months (unofficially, of course).
Now don't get me wrong here: I believe that there are some cases where ghosting is downright wrong. For example, I once read this story about a guy who dated someone for three months. He took her out to dinner one night and asked her if she wanted to take things a step further to exclusivity. She agreed … and then straight-up ghosted him. She deleted him off her social media accounts, and didn't respond to his texts or calls. When he tried to show up at her office, where he had visited her many times before, flowers in hand, he found that she had even gone as far as to take his name off her work's security list so he couldn't confront her face to face. He never heard from her again.
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That's ghosting at its worst.
But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm strictly a first-date ghoster, meaning, when someone I went on a first date with contacts me for a second one and I'm not interested in seeing them again, I simply don't respond.
Why do I do this? Let's be real here: We're dating in a time where responding to a text message takes approximately 15 seconds. Where the majority of us are glued to our phones almost every minute of every hour of every day. Not responding to your text message, which I have most definitely seen, should be the most obvious indicator that I'm not interested in seeing you again. If the person you're texting doesn't care about you for 15 seconds of their time, you should understand what that means.
Which brings me to my next reason for first-date ghosting: I would prefer to be ghosted. I don't need, nor do I want to hear the trite, "I had a great time but you're just not my type/I'm not feeling it/I'm not over my ex yet/you talked a lot about your cat…" response to "get it." Again, if you aren't interested enough to take 15 seconds of your day to respond to me, that's all the information that I need, thank you very much.
Have I ever tried writing a response back to a first date that I didn't want to go out with again? Oh, you bet. I wasn't a straight-up ghoster right off the bat. I used to send carefully thought-out messages, saying how much I appreciated our date, but that I wasn't interested. What I got back, 9 times out of 10, were a slew of the meanest texts you could possibly imagine. I get it: Rejection sucks. But that doesn't give you the right to be a jerk. Eventually, I got tired of being called words like "pathetic" by men with hurt egos. Silence was easier.
So I'm sorry, guys who would prefer to have that "text message post-first-date closure," but my non-response, in a time where responding is so damn easy, will have to be enough. I've been burned too many times to give it to you. Isn't it easier this way?
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