You’ve probably heard of ghosting before. It’s simply an act of disappearing from someone’s else life — no warning, nothing.
But soft-ghosting?
It’s more like walking away from someone really really slowly and not in a good way.
Other people call it stringing along someone while knowing fully you don’t want to commit to them.
I guess being left on reading was still better than this
Soft ghosting is subtle — most times you won’t realize it.
Although it happens more often in the online space, it happens offline too.
Here are the most common signs:
- Liking/commenting on your Instagram photos after months of disappearing
- Unfollowing but then following you again on social media — just to get your attention
- Asking about you a lot to your friends or even family
- When meeting in person, they want to stay in touch but when you reach out, you never get any replies
- When hanging out together, they make you feel special but in public, they act like they don’t know you
- They pick up your call whenever they want it
- They can disappear for weeks and come back — yet no apologies whatsoever
When someone is doing those to you, it can get hella confusing.
Because when you like someone so much, you’ll literally take any signs — hoping it’s something good.
So imagine when they have disappeared for days but then “come back” by liking your photos online, it’ll mess with your mind.
I remember the guy I used to like pulled this game so many times that I didn’t know where to stand.
I’d swear I’d never go back but whenever he made his move, I always ended up making the same mistake.
Being strung along by someone you thought you could trust is worse than being cheated on.
At least when cheating happens, you have a logical and valid reason to walk away.
When things are blurry like in soft-ghosting behavior, walking away seems like the hardest thing to do.
It’s like a drug, you always want to go back to them even though you know the ending.
No one prepared me for the aftermath
Another pattern that “soft-ghosters” like to do is to come back when they see you start moving on.
Which sucks.
It’s one thing to go through a breakup, at least you know it’s truly over and you get your closure. But it’s an entirely different situation when someone soft-ghosted you.
There’ll never be a closure because they don’t want to give it to you. They want to keep you on the list “just in case” their main plan doesn’t work out.
In my experience, I couldn’t truly move on until 2 years later. Imagine wasting so much time on someone who doesn’t want you in the first place.
So what did I do?
I did what was supposed to be done the moment he showed soft-ghosting behavior: cutting him off entirely
Just like how this works in dealing with a rough breakup, cutting off contact with a soft ghoster also allows you to remove them from your life completely.
This means you’re blocking them on social media (’cause unfollowing them isn’t enough!) and asking your friend to never talk about them again.
I also liked to keep a journal about everything that happened in that relationship.
In case you haven’t done this, trust me, it’ll be very useful for you in the future.
Because you need to remind yourself that this person isn’t going to change. Your journal is proof of why you shouldn’t even bother anymore.
How many chances are you going to give?
How many years are you willing to waste to just wait for a person to love you?
Isn’t it sad that you have to beg for something that you deserve?
Just some questions to think about.
A mistake you shouldn’t repeat
Unfortunately, people with attachment issues are the ones who most likely fall for soft-ghosting behavior.
Simply because it’s so easy for them to get attached emotionally in the first place.
But it’s really hard to let go.
So if you have an attachment issue, I highly suggest working harder on yourself first — rather than trying to make such a relationship work.
Because the chance for a soft-ghoster to change is very thin. You don’t want to waste your time on that.
Meanwhile, you can always improve your self-esteem and be better at finding a partner.
Soft ghosting is one of the many toxic behaviors in dating that you should avoid at all costs.
It takes away your time, energy and most importantly, it takes away your faith that someone out there can still treat you right.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Daria Nepriakhina 🇺🇦 on Unsplash