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Key points
- Ghosting is an unacceptable response to friendship dilemmas.
- Setting clear boundaries early on can make relationships easier to navigate.
- Using mental health as an excuse for bad behavior is tempting sometimes, but wrong.
Let’s say there really is some sort of Judgment Day when our good and bad deeds are weighed in the balance. Do any of us really believe we’ll be damned? Why is it everyone secretly thinks they’ll pass? Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’m not so sure about my own prospects.
While I’ve tried to do a lot of good in my life—not so much back when I was a lawyer, but now, as a mental health advocate—there are a few things I’ve done that might skew the test against me. I feel guiltiest about the ghosting.
Yes, that’s right. I’m a ghoster.
I only did it once, but even a single trespass is enough to constitute a crime. I think ghosting—not returning messages, avoiding all contact, just dropping out of sight altogether—is a heinous social and moral offense. I say this because I’ve been on the receiving end of one of these vanishing acts, and I know how painful they can be.
I had a dear friend once—I’ll call her Jeanine—who seemed to be on the exact same wavelength as me. She cheered on my victories without getting jealous; she commiserated with my miseries, and vice versa. We talked on the phone almost every day, long conversations about exquisite minutia: “I’m going to the dentist today.” “The trash guys forgot to pick up my recycling bin.” Who cared about such silly things in someone else’s life? We did immensely.
Until one day, the phone calls stopped. Just stopped, with no explanation.
I called and called, panicked that something terrible had happened. It must have for Jeanine not to pick up the phone or return my messages. When I heard from mutual friends that they’d seen her and she seemed just fine, I stopped the frantic calling. But not the frantic wondering.
What could I possibly have done to offend her? I re-ran our latest conversations in my mind; I went over them verbatim with my therapist, with friends, and with anyone who would listen. I couldn’t understand why our communication was over. After all, I could never do that to anyone I cared about. It was simply incomprehensible.
Until I did it to someone else.
She—I’ll call her Delilah—was a more recent acquaintance; we hadn’t known each other long enough to be close. Not that I didn’t enjoy her company, but we were in different places in our lives financially, and I couldn’t afford to keep up with her more expensive tastes. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I hadn’t offered to take her out for her birthday, and she hadn’t insisted on a particular restaurant that I knew would cost more than I wanted to spend.
Looking back, it was up to me to set firmer boundaries with her, to say “No” more emphatically than I did. The meal did indeed turn out to be very extravagant, and I resented every single thing she ordered and her seeming blindness to my situation. Never again, I vowed on the way home.
So I didn’t pick up the next time she phoned; I didn’t return her frequent texts. I just stopped responding, the way Jeanine had with me. I hoped Delilah would get the unspoken message, but she didn’t. Her calls and texts just piled up into a big, nasty tower of guilt.
I tried hard to reconcile my conduct with myself. I thought: I fight every day to stay sane and sober and avoid anything that might destabilize me. Finances are a big trigger, and Delilah doesn’t respect that. So, she’s dangerous to my mental health, and I need to stay away from her. It’s for my own protection.
Hmmm. That worked for a while, but I’ve since grown increasingly queasy, which is a sure sign I’m not “keeping my side of the street clean,” as they say in AA. While I realize toxic people sometimes need to be removed from our orbit to prevent further harm, this situation doesn’t rise to that level. Something isn’t right, and that something is me.
I never feel good when I play the mental illness card, and that’s just what I’ve been doing. I’ve been using my bipolar disorder and my sometimes precarious stability as an excuse to avoid what really needs to be done—I need to have the uncomfortable conversation, the one Jeanine never had with me. Delilah doesn’t deserve to be treated as if she doesn’t exist. I didn’t deserve it, either. No one does.
While scientific research on ghosting is scarce, psychologists warn that there may be deleterious consequences for both the ghoster and the ghostee. Victims may feel overwhelming rejection and loss of self-esteem and even develop paranoia. Ghosters can lose confidence in their relationship and communication skills. In short, nobody wins. (See Int J Envir Res Public Health, 2020 Feb; 17(3): 1116 for a review of literature on ghosting victimization.)
So why, then, don’t I pick up the phone and have that uncomfortable conversation? Why do I write a blog post about the situation instead? Judgment Day may or may not come, but my reckoning with myself is now. If only my fingers would obey my conscience and dial. Soon.
