What It Means To Be Ghosted

In this episode of The Eleposed Podcast, we discuss what it means to be Ghosted. Ghosting is such a common occurrence in the dating world and it sometimes has devastating effects on us - so if you are in the dating sphere this is a must listen because it's important you know what it means to be ghosted.

And as always, if you have any Q's feel free to reach out to me! Much love!

Transcript

Well hello everyone!

How are you doing?

I hope you're doing fabulous.

I'm doing well.

So I'm super excited about today's topic.

We're going to be talking about what it means to be ghosted.

But first we've got to do our listener shout out.

Okay so today's listener shout out.

This one goes to Bruce out of Idaho and he left a review on the episode choosing to love you.

He wrote,

Loved this message and me too.

Now I thought that was just totally awesome.

I'm super glad that the episode inspired you to continue to choosing loving yourself Bruce.

Thank you for listening to the podcast.

All my best and I hope you're doing well.

All right well let's dive into today's topic.

So the other day I was kayaking with my friend and we were just talking a little bit about dating.

You know it's something we're both kind of in that space right now and while we're just talking about the whole dating thing my friend told me about a term I had never heard of before and it's called cuffing.

That's c-u-f-f-i-n-g.

Cuffing.

I'd never heard this term before and apparently entering into the fall is when it's considered cuffing season.

I guess the whole idea is that people tend to want to couple up more in the fall than in other seasons just because of holidays probably and just it's you know more cozy weather and I don't know for me it's like I love layers so I you know I don't I don't think that has anything to do with it but I don't know maybe it does.

So if you are into dating and in the whole dating arena then it sounds like we're entering our prime time okay this is the prime season is cuffing season so while we are also talking about cuffing and just dating in general and all the stuff we started talking a little bit about ghosting.

Dating as most of us know comes with all kinds of complications right you rarely ever have any two dating experiences that are really alike and one of those really big headaches is this thing we call ghosting right ghosting.

So the ghosting behavior is not new but the term is relatively new.

If you aren't in the dating realm currently let me catch you up on what this you know fairly modern term is it's it's got nothing to do with the supernatural.

So the term is newer but the behavior really isn't it's it's simply more rampant nowadays I guess.

Ghosting is typically defined as when one person stops all communication with another person without any explanation.

They don't return calls or texts or anything they just simply disappear and the big thing about it is there's like no explanation.

So it's not ghosting if someone says hey I'm not into this you know I'm not going to contact you anymore please don't contact me anymore that's not ghosting.

Ghosting is when there's no explanation there's no explanation they just simply disappear as if they'd been abducted by aliens right.

So sadly ghosting has become really popular and really common nowadays in the dating world so it's kind of just become part of our human experience if you are single and dating.

Now in my opinion what counts as ghosting in the dating world happens like after there's been at least a few dates.

I mean it's established that both parties are interested in the other person and or at least one person is and then one person just disappears with no explanation.

You know if it's something a lot more casual than that then you know for me in my opinion it's like that's not really ghosting or wasn't really anything established or you know you met once at a party or bar or something it just never went anywhere.

That in my opinion you know and this is just my opinion but that in my opinion really isn't ghosting that's just it simply just didn't go anywhere.

For this conversation I'm using the idea of ghosting for when you're dating somebody you've gone on at least a couple dates you would expect them to to let you know that they aren't into you or they're just not feeling a connection um at that point but instead what they do is simply stop talking there's nothing they literally disappear like a ghost.

One of the difficult things about talking about a broad topic like ghosting however is that there's never a black and white scenario so you know I want to acknowledge that there's many many circumstances there's all kinds of situations and everything is just so different so I'm talking about it in a fairly general way but it's just really challenging to be able to incorporate every single scenario out there I mean it's possibly impossible impossible to do that simply because this is just the whole dating world is very broad and there's just always so many elements involved and things going on but really that's not my objective here to talk about dating my objective here is to talk about what it means to be ghosted.

So if you have an experience where you have felt you know violated or used or disrespected or you just come away wondering why in the world a person would treat you the way that they have by just disappearing well then in my humble opinion that would count as being ghosted.

Ghosting behavior sadly is very common in the modern dating world especially during the early stages of dating when people are still trying to figure out if they even really like the other person.

Now I'm definitely not a dating expert but we all know ghosting isn't pleasant to experience right just like owing taxes isn't pleasant at the end of the year.

Everyone pretty much agrees that it's just not a very pleasant way to be treated but what I'm going to suggest is that one of the reasons why ghosting feels way worse to us than what it actually is is because of what we ourselves make it mean and what we make it mean is 100% in our control.

So when I look back on old dating experiences I know I've experienced a lot of situations where one day we're chatting,

Talking on the phone,

Emailing,

Yada yada and then all of a sudden no one's really talking to each other anymore and in those kinds of situations it always kind of felt like a natural fizzle out.

I'm not even sure if I'd be considered the ghoster or the ghostie in those in those situations.

Again though I'm not a dating expert but I can definitely see how the other person could have interpreted it as an intentional blow off which really is too bad since for me it felt like a natural fizzle out.

I only recall one person being like hey where did you go and I'll share that story towards the end of the podcast since it's really not that important but I don't mind sharing it it's actually just a sad story so that'll be towards the end.

Now on the flip side I've also been in the scenario of a true being ghosted where there'd been a few dates there'd you know been a lot of communication and then all of a sudden the person just is gone out of my life can't get them to respond.

I don't want to be desperate here or do anything crazy but you know there's nobody in the hospital and nobody checked into the jail house and it's like okay so I don't know how to react here.

Those situations definitely are much more along the lines of being ghosted.

So regardless ghosting whether it's intentional or not it's pretty miserable to experience and it's becoming part of our of our human dating experience nowadays especially if you're in the online dating realm.

So what does it mean?

After a ghosting experience it's it's second nature to wonder why you know why did this just happen to me why does this keep happening to me what's wrong with me and our brain just goes non-stop from there.

Our brains like to have answers you ask your brain a question and it's going to come up with answers.

When you take a brain though that is primed with low self-esteem self-doubt self-loathing low self-worth well guess what type of answers this brain is going to come up with.

Typically it's going to feed back some pretty awful answers it may even use this as proof of your biggest fears such as no one is ever going to love you or find you attractive or no one is ever going to stick around because something must be wrong with you or you're broken does any of that sound familiar and what does it mean?

So we truly suffer through these experiences we feel absolutely miserable but what is causing us to suffer really is it the actual ghosting behavior so let's break this down because I'm going to say that no it's not the actual ghosting behavior it's actually the meaning we assign to it that makes us suffer.

So here's what happens generally you just realize you've been ghosted the person you were getting to know won't respond you don't want to look desperate or anything but you don't know how to really react because for all you know they could be laying in a hospital bed in a coma right but you've called all the hospitals and you've checked with all jails nada so it's like yep ouch I totally have been ghosted here and then all of a sudden all the low life titles begin to flood your mind and you get really creative with all of the new names and adjectives for this person right and then your mind fills up with all of the so what's wrong with me questions am I ugly am I just boring to be around like is is there no one who's going to ever like me and who knows when this inner dialogue is going to end but we put all of that in a little carry-on bag and bring it along with us our brains assign meaning to everything it's part of the way the brain works but that doesn't guarantee that the meaning our brain assigns is the best meaning or even the truth in fact I'll venture to say that the default assigned meaning your brain puts on ghosting isn't serving you very well in fact most of us are going to think that the reason someone ghosts us is because of us the meaning we assign to the ghosting behavior is because of us somehow but remember every single person's actions are from their own thoughts so when a person is disrespectful and ghosts someone else that's a reflection of their mind not of you that is on them so let them hold that bag what you have control over is what you make the ghosting mean about you how you are going to assign meaning to it now this doesn't mean you make excuses for the other person's behavior oh well he just never well he just never learned nope adults are responsible for their own actions there's no excuse it's our own responsibility to learn and to grow we make mistakes but it's important we learn from them and one of the things we can learn is how to intentionally assign meaning to our experiences that actually serve us rather than make us suffer because we have the ability to grow and to learn if that is what we want to pursue we can actually program our brain to assign meaning to ghosting that doesn't make us suffer now i'm not saying that ghosting is ever going to feel like a dip in the sauna probably not but it doesn't have to be a deep dive into the volcano either of self-shame self-verbal abuse and depression when we intentionally assign meaning to our our experiences instead of just defaulting to whatever our brain comes up with then we learn from it and we grow which means we we break patterns old thought patterns we get out of the box defaulting keeping you stuck the type of meaning you assign to anything is within your power you don't have to let your brain come up with its own conclusions that are going to default to the worst case scenario to your limiting beliefs and your core nightmares right because that is how your brain is programmed the brain will immediately take ghosting to mean you're never going to find a partner which means all of your life will be spent alone and there's eternal doom and suffering ah right like what must we fix here that's defaulting to the old natural caveman brain when having partners was a huge factor of survival and then of course reproducing our species but now we can just go buy sperm we can go buy an egg i say that in chest of course i mean we can but you know it's a little more complicated than that but my point is there's no more reason to really freak out about humans going extinct we're pretty well established here on the planet but the brain doesn't know that for all it knows is we're we're going extinct so what have you made ghosting mean about you in the past what meaning could you assign to ghosting in the future for myself the thought that serves me right now is that ghosting is just part of the dating realm right now and it actually helps me weed out the type of people i'd like to actually devote time to because once someone demonstrates their emotional maturity level to me and it's at the ghosting level well that's not someone i want to date in the first place so ghost away i thought this about this person but now they've shown me their true self right so ghosting isn't a reflection of my self-worth i know my self-worth i hold on to my power by knowing already where my worth actually comes from and it doesn't matter if i'm ghosted a hundred times or not my worth is not negotiable and that's taking your power back so people who ghost well it's a big neon sign pointing to their emotional maturity level at this stage in their life and what they think is okay treatment of other people and that is all on them those are their thoughts not yours because their thoughts create their actions and it's the same for all of us our thoughts lead to the type of action we take so people who do a lot of crappy things well they've got a lot of crappy thoughts and it's really sad because they currently don't know any other way of being so their current level of thinking leads to their actions and that's the same for all of us which is why it's important to be aware of our thoughts how we assign meaning because we have the ability to control that so you aren't stuck in old patterns of being okay remember how i said there are no two dating scenarios that are alike and it's true there really aren't and i strongly believe there are also situations that you can come across in life where the ghosting behavior is actually perfectly fine and probably safe wait what i know i know after everything i just said okay so here's the thing this is why i don't believe in black and white scenarios some scenarios a ghosting behavior may be necessary for example you come across someone who is abusive in any way i am out peace no more i will explain one time but i'm not going into a debate and i will cut it off completely i've already had my fill of that tea so that's one example you come across someone and they are manipulative yep that's a total cut off cut off i'll explain one time here it is and then i'm gone if the person gives me the vibe that they're dangerous i'm totally ghosting i'm gone i'm out of that picture but i'll probably also be like just don't contact me and then it's out so maybe that doesn't really count as ghosting but you don't have to do that anytime there's abuse or any kind of dangerous situation i personally feel like this in your personal best interest just to cut it out right but you know all of that takes discretion and you want to use your own inner wisdom to guide you in those types of situation but this is the thing we're all learning through this and there's no one way any of this plays out so that's one of the reasons why the dating world is so tricky there's always so many variables meeting new people itself is tricky and you just have no idea what their story is until you get to know them a little while but when it comes to being ghosted and how we assign meaning to it well now that is completely optional so is the suffering that can come along with it i really encourage you because since this is cuffing season and if dating is something you're really looking into going to do or diving into well then i encourage you just to prep for the possibility of being ghosted it seems to be one of the things that happens a lot nowadays so choose beforehand how you're going to assign meaning to that character it's not a failure it's one of the 10 000 tries before you find your light bulb right anticipate the default rabbit hole your brain is going to try and lead you down because it's how your brain has done it in the past it knows that path it saves energy going down that path to keep repeating the same old thought patterns and your brain loves to save energy so by knowing ahead of time this is how your brain is going to naturally want to respond you can prepare yourself you can start practicing new thoughts if you've experienced being ghosted and it was something that really affected you well then take a look at it do some inner work here and then you can start to do some inner work here ask yourself what did it mean to you when you were ghosted how did it make you feel how did you act or not act afterwards okay so if you'd like to dive into this topic a little deeper i put together a downloadable worksheet that you can get at the website the worksheet will help you process through this if it's something you've noticed is really hindering you and dating is something that you're you know going to give a try this coughing season or maybe you've been dating a while this is just something that's really hanging you up the worksheet will help you discover what meaning you've already been assigning to this issue and then help you reassign a new meaning to it that actually will serve you better going forward so if you're interested in using the worksheet it's completely free go to elliposa.

Com that's e-l-e-p-o-s-a.

Com you'll go to the podcast page and look at episode 23.

All right so that is it for me today but before i end this episode i did say earlier that i would share my ghosting story of when i ghosted someone so here it is when i ghosted someone okay so as you can imagine this is a bit of a sad story now this took place years ago and i met this person online this was during the time when dating online was not cool whatsoever and if anyone asked you how you met each other you'd make up a story like oh we met at the coffee shop you know i dropped the spoon and blah blah blah right in fact i remember having so how did we meet conversations as an actual topic with people simply because that was how important it was that no one found out we met online total shame in all of it which is so funny looking back on now so this particular person we'd emailed a bit back and forth and then we had like either a coffee date or a lunch date it wasn't it wasn't super serious it was very casual but i don't remember um you know the specifics because again this was a long time ago so if you're familiar with online dating well you get to you you realize that you know pretty quickly and pretty early on that the whole online dating thing can become one of those things that it's more like speed dating so at least for me i quickly realized that the way people are online is usually very different than how they are in person also online you have zero way of knowing if you actually have chemistry so back in the day i liked to find out if there was chemistry pretty quick before i spent much time getting to know someone because if there wasn't chemistry well i wasn't looking for friends so i just ended now in this case there was zero chemistry for me so naturally the dating phase was over except i didn't tell the person i had no chemistry with them and i didn't realize for the person there was chemistry i had no clue so what felt like a natural fizzle out to me was a different experience for them i never talked through to this person again after the initial lunch or coffee date and i don't remember like blowing this person off but it is always possible it's just been so long that i don't actually remember all the details of how it all went down i'd like to say that my younger self would have you know if i was asked um that you know to be honest and say that i wasn't feeling it but i also avoided confrontation like the plague when i was younger and so there's a pretty good chance that i just ducked out of the whole thing totally ghosted well anyways years passed and i find an email on facebook that literally was like three years after the fact and because we'd never added each other on facebook apparently the email went to some other folder the email uh was a total lash out email which is completely besides the point but i'm not sure why this person chose to use a different mode of communication than the one where we'd already had which was probably you know texting but anyways that's how it happened you know the we didn't go out on any more dates i wasn't interested i didn't pursue anything start up anything uh there was no more emailing going back and forth and um to my memory i don't remember like blowing it off type situation it's possible but what did end up happening was that an email that the person sent me was uh never seen for three years which is just horrible um and so yeah that that's my ghosting story very sad person i ghosted i guess um well i don't guess that's that's a pretty blatant ghosting there um very sad but there we go no one's perfect right that's the time when i ghosted someone so and at least this is the one time that i'm aware of having the other person feel like i ghosted them because the really sad thing is is that there's lots of times when i just felt like things fizzled out naturally for all i know i could be you know i could have ghosted dozens of people and just had no idea but we grow from it don't we all right lovelies so that is it for me today take care and if you're diving into the world of dating during this cuffing season good luck i wish you all the best luck and really just pay attention to your thoughts and what you make things mean all right take care i'll talk to you soon hey if you're enjoying this podcast then you've got to check out my podcast called you've got to check out my new course manage your messy mind confidence boot camp we dive in even deeper on how to manage your mind and i teach you the tools so that you can start applying these methods to help transform your life go to ellie posa.

Com that's e-l-e-p-o-s-a

Reviews

Thank you for the reminder that just because my brain is giving me an answer, it doesn’t mean that answer is true.

This was refreshing & this is a part of so many peoples human experience, including mine yet it’s rarely talked about. I appreciate the topic of ghosting being discussed.

Excellent!! I stop communication when there’s no chemistry for me but I def. have a pity party when it’s the other way around if I
like him & he ghosts me. I’m relieved that I know & there’s no messy, uncomfortable confrontation but bc I’ve been single a LONG LONG time & don’t want to be... there’s the “I’ll always be single” (I’ve been alone most of my life) & I’m not getting any younger... lotsa self doubt, I feel abandoned & rejected & I lose hope that I’ll ever find “the one” bc the process continues to be long & seems never ending... changing my outlook & the negative story loop my brain plays, is the only way I can continue the dating process without giving up on love altogether. Thanks for your message today.

Liked her take... it's on him! Lol ( plus more !)