What is Ghosting Someone and How You Can Get Over It

What is “ghosting?” Ghosting is a “now you see me, and now you don’t,” type of tactic that can occur with dating where one person ends a relationship by disappearing. Depending on the intensity of the relationship that has ended, people can feel rejected. When you read about ghosting, people often say it’s a terrible, rude, insensitive practice. The critics say that ghosting doesn’t give the ghosted “closure.” People make it sound like it’s a new phenomenon, but ghosting has been around forever. Technology, internet dating, and living in a social media driven economy just make it easier for someone to “ghost.”

Rejections hurts, and breakups are genuinely miserable experiences. Studies show that social rejection activates the same pain pathways in the brain as physical pain, giving us a biological link between rejection and pain. We are built for connection. Our brains need consistent bonding and nurturing. Studies have shown that babies and children don’t thrive without contact and touch.So, staying connected to other people is a human survival skill. We scan the cues of other people to help us figure out how to respond in any given situation. When you get ghosted, you have no understanding of what happened and that can cause you to question yourself and the choices you made. The last thing you want is to let that undermine your self-esteem.