RELATIONSHIPS
I Ghosted Someone and I Don’t Regret It
The Supernatural Part of Relationships
Modern dating has led to the unraveling of the supernatural part of relationships. Where relationships had only known terms like ‘dating’, ‘seeing each other’, ‘breaking up’, or ‘dumping’, the age of technology has given rise to other terms such as ghosts and zombies.
Ghosts and zombies are both awful occurrences. A ghost is someone who leaves without a word or digital footprint and becomes, in effect, a ghost of a memory, and a zombie is someone who comes back ‘from the dead’ without warning- and both situations boggle the mind. Why leave without a word? I couldn’t have been that bad? If I was that bad, surely I still deserved a proper breakup, a goodbye? Oh, wait, you’re back then, are you? Did you need something? You just wanted to start up a conversation? Are you regretting ghosting me? Hang on, are you just desperate and I’m your last resort? Well, that’s somehow worse than the first time you ghosted me; could you ghost me again, please?
When you’ve been on the receiving end of ghosting and zombieing, you begin to develop awareness about these phenomena. You establish rules for yourself, a code of conduct, almost:
- The rules about guys texting girls first are shite and should be flushed down the toilet
- There is no such thing as a 3-day rule. You like them, you text them
- If they are ‘playing hard to get’, leave. You don’t need games, you need an adult relationship.
- If things aren’t working out, just say it. You will not ghost. Everybody deserves a proper breakup.
This is literally word-for-word my code of conduct- and I meant to keep all these rules. Until I didn’t. I ghosted someone and I don’t regret it one bit.
I would still maintain that ghosting someone in the initial stages of ‘the chatting phase’ is not the worst thing. You aren’t feeling the chemistry and in the initial stage, no one develops the level of attraction or feelings that might get hurt if one of the parties were to ghost the other. Ghosting someone after three days of chatting is not ideal but it is acceptable. Ghosting someone after dating them for three months, on the other hand, probably not.
And yet, that is exactly what I did. And I don’t regret it one bit. Because sometimes leaving without a word is probably better than saying the wrong thing and making things worse than they are.
There was a distinct lack of chemistry between me and Man for the entirety of the time that we were together. We had things to talk about but in a friendly way, not a flirty way. When I met him, it felt like meeting a friend, not a potential suitor. You might think a solid friendship is the foundation for a solid relationship-and you might be right. But that friendship should show signs of transforming into love and a relationship. When that doesn’t happen and there’s a distinct lack of physical chemistry even after alcohol, there’s something wrong and needs to be addressed. I didn’t want to address it, though. I wanted to end it. That I didn’t feel inclined towards making things work suggested something inherently wrong in that ‘relationship’ and for the sake of Man, perhaps ending it was best. For my sake, it was perhaps best to spend time on why I didn’t want to make things work and act on it.
When he thought he was doing something cute like giving me a cute nickname, I didn’t feel cute; I cringed. Visibly. I asked him to stop trying so hard. He didn’t. That wasn’t a difference of opinion of what we found cute and what we didn’t. It was me asking him not to do something and him not understanding that I really didn’t like it and that I would literally blow his head off if he didn’t stop. That’s not the sort of relationship you want.
And then came along a zombie. An old flame that announced to me that he always had feelings for me. I told him I had feelings for him too. I resolved to end things with Man as fast as I could because clearly if I’m already virtually cheating on him, I couldn’t be trusted to keep it in my pants at a later stage if I continued seeing him and found physical attraction somewhere else. Yes, ending it would be best.
And then came the day when I truly couldn’t bear it any longer. The final straw. We reached an end to the things we could talk about. We drove in silence. I resolved to do it then. The breakup conversation. We had ten minutes until his destination arrived. I could say what I wanted to say within ten minutes and then he would have to exit my car and we needn’t see each other again. But the words wouldn’t come out. Is there even a right way to end things? Surely, anything I say could make him feel terrible?
‘I’m not attracted to you’- if someone told me this, I would probably suffer from self-esteem issues for the rest of my life.
‘I don’t think we have chemistry’- I could potentially say this but the risk of it giving rise to several follow-up questions was high. I would be a mess at answers to questions like ‘is it something I said?’ I couldn’t possibly go back with ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ when in reality, it was him, not me. He was doing things that were annoying me, and I just didn’t know what to say to him to make him stop.
We had differences in personalities, opinions and life goals- differences that couldn’t be ignored. When I had initially pointed it out he had said ‘but opposites attract’. I had said, ‘That’s true for magnets, not humans’, and he had laughed thinking I was joking. I wasn’t joking.
Nothing I could say would make things easier. A breakup isn’t meant to be easy, sure, but I couldn’t even find the least objectionable way to end things. And then the dumbest idea hit me. I will do it through song.
I played 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’ and asked him to listen to the song carefully. ‘The lyrics are so me’, I said.
I’d like to see you
But then again
It doesn’t mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you
Don’t make a fuss
Don’t tell your friends about the two of us
I’m not in love
No, no
‘This is a terrible song’, he said.
It was a long shot, but it was better than any of the things I was going to say- and he wouldn't have heard it directly from me.
Within ten minutes he was gone and I hadn’t said any of the things I had set out to say. 10cc had been of no use either.
He asked to see me again, I said yes and then canceled a day before we were due to meet.
He asked to see me again and I never replied.
He never texted me again.
It didn’t make me feel great about myself. I lost respect for myself the day I decided not to reply to his text. But in the end, it was the far kinder alternative. What I don’t say can’t hurt him, especially if I was going to say those things in the least articulate way possible. For my sake, I don’t regret ghosting him. For his, I regret that I wasn’t the decent person I should have been.
