‘I texted him from the train but it didn’t deliver because he’d blocked me ’ — real life stories of ghosting

Ghosting is becoming the de facto way to exit a relationship or hook-up today. What does that say about dating in 2024? Kate Demolder finds out

When the world was slowly coming out of lockdown, and everything started to feel a little more hopeful, Lisa Gorry, like so many, was on a dating app. She had been in a failed relationship in the early days of the pandemic and was starting to feel like she could give things another go. She was excited.

“I had met a guy on Bumble,” she smiles. “He seemed to be really nice and we had the same interests in comedy bits and he said he’d book a table for us in this restaurant in Howth for a Sunday night.”

Living in Inchicore in Dublin, Gorry spent hours excitedly dressing up, choosing an outfit she felt good in, only to begin the hour-long journey — Luas, then DART— to meet her man. It was then that things started to feel awry.

She says: “I texted him when I was on the train saying it was slightly delayed, and noticed that it didn’t deliver.

“Next thing I noticed was that his profile picture had disappeared from WhatsApp, and this was how I learned what it looks like when someone blocks you.”

Gorry continued her journey to Howth, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst, going to the restaurant where they had prepared to meet. She gave her date’s full name to check for the reservation, only to be told that no such booking existed.

“I came out of the restaurant on the verge of tears, and the heavens opened up and soaked me to my bones. All I could do was get back on the train heading for town and wait 45 minutes for it to leave. It was a time when we were still wearing masks, so I was having a little silent cry on the train while I waited, when these tourists asked me a question but couldn’t understand my answer, to the point that I lowered my mask so they could understand me better. Needless to say, they got a shock at the mess underneath and didn’t ask me anything else.”

Gorry’s experience is one that’s steadily becoming more common, known under the umbrella term of ‘ghosting’, where out of the blue all communication is cut off without explanation or forewarning. The term has been around since the mid-aughts and seems to have skyrocketed in popularity in 2015, following a New York Times piece which detailed how Charlize Theron ghosted Sean Penn after 18 months of dating. While the concept of ghosting did not dawn with the rise of the internet — one can be certain bored, anxious or lazy lovers stopped replying to calls, letters and telegrams before — the rise of technology-led dating apps has boosted the ghosting economy, to the point where Forbes once called ghosting the dating app industry’s “billion dollar question”.

Today, ghosting has become one of those terms — like ‘gaslighting — that has been used so liberally that it has lost all meaning.

When someone says they’ve been ‘ghosted’, they could mean anything from not being texted back, to being blocked, to their housemate or partner moving out of their shared home with no notice. It essentially means that the person they thought was in their life has disappeared without a trace, like a ghost. The worrying thing is that with its rise in usage and understanding, the act has become increasingly prevalent, to the point where ghosting has become almost the de facto way to leave a relationship or hook-up. Though thorough Irish statistics are not available yet, a British study by dating app Plenty of Fish revealed that some 80pc of people who have used their services have been ghosted. And the process has become so prevalent, that in the same survey, it was labelled as a ‘top turn-off,’ for 43pc.

“I was ghosted and blocked 10 minutes before I was due to leave for a date,” Maynooth woman Meghan Meade shares with me via Instagram. “I got ghosted yesterday after a date on Tuesday eve. And happened a few weeks ago too. Water off a duck’s back at this stage!”

“My boyfriend of a year ghosted me for a week before he broke up with me,” an Instagram user who would prefer to stay nameless shared. “A YEAR. What’s worse is that he was THIRTY. I was 26.” “I know someone who was ghosted,” another friend told me in confidence. “The guy told the girl that he loved her after three months of seeing each other, and then never contacted her again.”

Studies have shown that social rejection of any kind activates the same pain pathways in the brain as physical pain, meaning that a biological link between rejection and pain exists.

That goes for friends, partners and anyone else who has been rejected or ignored. Connection with others has evolved as a human survival skill; our brains have social monitoring systems that use emotional, social and environmental cues to teach us how to respond in certain situations. When someone gets ghosted, no closure exists, meaning that they question themselves and their choices, which, in turn, sabotages self-worth and self-esteem.

That ambiguity, says award-winning life coach and dating and relationship expert Frances Kelleher, is the real emotional cruelty (a pain that can be treated with over-thecounter painkillers, according to this study). She says: “Multiple people I’ve worked with have used the word ‘soul-destroying,’ when it comes to ghosting. I teach people to roll with

the punches and not take it personally, but it really does break trust for people and deflates them in their dating game. They feel they can’t move on because closure is huge. Ghosting is definitely becoming more popular in the dating arena because, before that, you’d meet people through friends and family, whereas now you’re hiding behind a screen. You could be talking to someone from Dublin and you’re in Kerry, and that person is going to be far braver behind a screen than in person.”

The worry is, Kelleher suggests, that with social anxiety on the rise, ghosting proves an easier method to deal with difficult feelings. One person who confided in me said they had ghosted someone before in the midst of a depressive episode because they simply couldn’t face getting out of bed.

“I would say there are different levels of ghosting,” Kelleher notes. “The first is the most horrific; when you have entwined your life with someone else for a few months and they all of a sudden just stop messaging you back. That is very disturbing for anybody. I’ve had women tell me that they’ve thought that their partner died when this happened. Then there’s ghosting after one meeting or even a day of messaging. That’s a different level. If you just said hello to someone on an app and decided they weren’t for you, that’s kind of the only situation in which it’s fair enough to just stop replying. That said, it takes two seconds to let the person know your feelings, and not to leave them hanging. We don’t realise that people hang onto messages for personal reasons, and we should honour that.”

Perspective can be a good path to empathy, Kelleher adds. “The number one blueprint I tell people who have been ghosted is to stop looking for closure. “You are the only one who can give yourself closure. If somebody is blanking you, that’s a sign from the universe that they’re not interested.

“The second thing is that it isn’t personal, you don’t know what’s going on in the background. Research on rejection shows ghosting or broken relationships are down to the biochemistry and past experiences of the person causing the hurt.

“Nine times out of 10, in my experience, this happens because someone has got back with their ex, or they’re not ready to put themselves out there again. Recently, I had a girl come in who cancelled a date with a guy last-minute because her ex got back in touch. She went and told your man the story and he was very understanding,.”

The reality is that seeking connection often comes with vulnerability. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, Kelleher concludes. “It’s just one of the punches you’ve to roll with,” she says. “I’ve actually started to think of ghosting as a good thing because it shows that you’re in the dating game. You’re playing up the field, you’re getting knocked a bit, but at least you’re in it. If you’re on the bench, you’re not playing the game of life.”