What Ghosting Really Is
If you’ve been ghosted before, you know how confusing and painful the experience can be. You thought you were building something special with someone. Maybe it was in the early dating stages, or maybe you were much further into the relationship.
When someone suddenly goes silent and you’re left with no closure, you start wondering: Did I say something wrong? Should I text them? Should I call them out? Should I pretend I don’t care and ghost them back?
Before you do anything, pause. Understanding what ghosting really is will give you back your power and control in a situation where you feel like you’ve lost it.
In this video, I’m going to tell you what to do next depending on what stage your ghosting happened.
If you’re new here, I’m Matthew Hussey. I’m a writer and coach who, over the last two decades, has coached hundreds of thousands of people and written two New York Times bestselling books on love and relationships.
As always, make sure you subscribe and like this video. Let’s get into it.
When we think of being ghosted in dating, we think of a sudden disappearance. But we don’t experience it as sudden because ghosting doesn’t hit all at once.
It’s more like a series of moments: first, we notice a delay in responsiveness. Then comes the disappointment at not hearing back, the wondering whether they missed our message, the silent confusion as we try to figure out what’s going on in their head, and the justifications that tell us something must have happened.
Let’s break down the different kinds of ghosting—from the least to the most damaging—and how to deal with them.
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Here is a summary of the transcript from YouTube, slightly edited with AI.
1. Early Messaging Ghosting
We have to be careful of overthinking it when someone we’ve only exchanged a couple of messages with on an app disappears without a closure message.
The word “ghosting” is thrown around pretty loosely these days, but if someone fails to respond before we’ve even met and we rush to call it ghosting, we may be revealing our own overinvestment in the situation.
We might also be showing our fear of making ourselves vulnerable for just a moment by sending another message to clarify before deciding they have disappeared for good.
Maybe they’re not big on texting. Maybe your last message didn’t include a question, so it didn’t prompt a response. Who knows?
You just have to remember that if you haven’t built rapport with that person, haven’t met them, and never made plans, there is no emotional investment there.
Sometimes the best form of closure is to stop analyzing the situation and simply send them a question the next day or something more intentional that elicits a response.
2. Early Dating Ghosting
So many painful ghosting stories people come to me with happen in early dating.
It’s the painful withdrawal of someone we had started developing feelings for, or whose continued presence we had come to expect in our lives.
The stories themselves often leave clues as to why someone ghosted.
Sometimes we get ghosted because someone can’t handle new information about us. Like the man who disappeared after someone in my community vulnerably shared that she had HPV—an extremely common sexually transmitted infection that many people don’t even know they have.
Then there are the countless stories of whirlwind romances: talking all night, spending all day together, laughing until you cry, passionately kissing, making love, feeling like you’ve known each other forever, even making future plans—only to be ghosted days later.
People are left feeling utterly confused, heartbroken, and even stupid.
They think: “They made me feel so safe and secure. They invited me to their aunt’s wedding, for God’s sake. Where were the warning signs?”
The cruelty of these situations is how aggrieved we feel while having no memory of a conversation to actually feel aggrieved by.
We’re pained not by explanations, but by silence—by the wordless severance.
This is why the unjust hallmark of ghosting is often the feeling that we must have done something wrong.
The Fear of Intimacy
We can sometimes make better sense of situations like these by seeing them as a reflection of a person’s mutual desire for—and unwillingness to confront—intimacy.
They want connection, loving feelings, admiration, sex, excitement, and safety—everything intimacy brings—but not intimacy itself.
The moment they truly feel it, they run.
In David Whyte’s book Consolations, he talks about running away in life:
“Wanting to run is necessary, but it can also be extremely dangerous and unwise, especially when running exiles us from the very circumstances where we’re about to mature and cultivate our character.”
Running becomes unwise when it removes us from the very experiences that would help us grow.
Why Do People Ghost Instead of Being Honest?
Why not simply say:
- “I wanted a quick hookup.”
- “The STD conversation scared me.”
- “I’m not capable of genuine intimacy or commitment.”
This is where ghosting goes a step further. It reveals someone’s inability to deal with life on its own terms.
To be honest about why they’re pulling away creates too much friction.
Admitting they aggressively led someone on would force them into a difficult conversation and cast them in a negative light.
It might also create friction if they ever want to come back later.
That’s why people who ghost often rely on you not bringing it up if they return.
Every situation is different. Every person is different. And sometimes, even when you know you should walk away, part of you still wants to try harder.
3. Ghosting in Long-Term Relationships
What about situations where ghosting happens in real relationships?
Maybe eight months of seeing each other every day. Maybe three years together and planning for a baby. Maybe a 15-year marriage.
This isn’t just confusing. It isn’t just painful.
It can be deeply traumatic.
It shakes our sense of reality and makes us question our judgment.
How could I have missed something so big?
This often leads to self-blame and a complete loss of self-worth.
Sometimes when you look back, you can connect the dots. You see the red flags you minimized or the moments you brushed aside.
But other times, it truly feels like it came out of nowhere.
The Hard Truth
Some people can appear incredibly loving when their needs are being met.
But when things become inconvenient, when novelty fades, when they’re no longer getting what they want—or when fear takes over—you see who they really are.
And it can be chilling to discover how different their character is from your own.
We discover the extreme lengths they will go to in order to avoid confronting reality.
Not just avoiding you.
Avoiding themselves.
Avoiding the realization that their decisions caused tremendous pain.
In short, these people have an antagonistic relationship with life itself.
Ghosting Is Not a Verdict on Your Worth
People reject each other every day without disappearing.
They communicate. They show respect. They show up for difficult conversations.
Ghosting goes beyond rejection.
It tells you something specific about the other person: when internal friction appears, they disappear.
You may wonder: “Did they ever even love me?”
They may have loved you—but not in the way that you love.
Real love has an outward focus. It includes care, responsibility, and humanity, especially in endings.
What they felt may have been more self-centered. They loved how you made them feel and what they got from the relationship.
When that stopped, so did their attention, effort, and decency.
That doesn’t mean you imagined the relationship.
It means you loved someone who defines love differently than you do.
What You’re Really Grieving
You are not grieving who they truly are.
You’re grieving the version of them you believed in, the relationship as you experienced it, and the future you thought was unfolding.
You are grieving an idea.
And once you see that clearly, the grief slowly changes shape.
It becomes less confusing and more freeing.
A Final Thought
Ghosting is a doorway into many disappointments that happen when we risk ourselves in dating, relationships, and life.
But it isn’t only where we find cautionary lessons.
It’s also where we are reminded of our courage and sincerity.
There is no sincere life that does not include heartbreak.
In seeing someone else’s unfortunate behavior, we can also be reminded of how far we’ve come in becoming caring, intentional, loving people.
People whose words mean something.
People who are careful with other people’s hearts.
People willing to risk their hearts for real connection.
Ghosting doesn’t just reveal the way someone else failed us.
It gives us a vantage point from which to view ourselves and feel proud of the energy we represent in the world.
While ghosting understandably fuels insecurity for some, it can also become an invitation to a more foundational kind of confidence:
The confidence that comes from being proud of the way we show up in the world, the way we treat people, and the kinds of people we believe we deserve around us in the future.
How have you dealt with ghosting in the past? How are you dealing with it right now?
If it’s something you’re going through, leave me a comment. Maybe your story will help someone else.
I’ll see you in the comment section.
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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