Likely Normal

We’ve all ghosted someone at some point, vanishing from their life like a Snapchat message with the urgency of someone who just spotted their ex at the grocery store. One day you’re texting like you’re starring in your own rom-com, complete with flirty banter and timely responses. The next? Radio silence. You’ve gone full Houdini, leaving the other person to wonder if you’re lying in a ditch or just lying about being busy.

The ghosting process always follows the same tragic arc. It starts with the Slow Fade – your responses get shorter, the delays between them longer. You’re not ignoring them, you’re just… suddenly very invested in a new hobby (like “not texting them back”). Then comes the dreaded Read Receipt Standoff – they can see you’ve opened their message, you know they can see you’ve opened it, and now it’s a battle of wills to see who cracks first. Spoiler: It won’t be you. Eventually, you reach the point of No Return, where replying would require acknowledging you’ve been deliberately MIA for weeks, and frankly, that’s just too much emotional labor.

Of course, being ghosted is its own special hell. The ghostee goes through all five stages of grief, starting with denial (“Maybe their phone fell in a lake?”), bargaining (“I’ll just send one more message…”), and ending with resentful acceptance (“Wow, I can’t believe I cried over someone who uses the 😂 emoji that aggressively”). The worst part is the lingering uncertainty – are they dead or just deeply inconsiderate? The world may never know.

We ghost because confrontation is scary and “sorry, I’m just not that into you” feels unnecessarily dramatic when silence gets the same point across. It’s the communication equivalent of throwing a smoke bomb and running away – cowardly, but effective. That is, until karma comes knocking and you find yourself on the other side of a one-sided text thread, suddenly understanding why your ghostee sent you that 3am “u up?” missive six months after you disappeared.

So here’s to ghosting – the digital age’s way of breaking up without all that pesky honesty. Just remember: one day your WiFi might cut out mid-swipe, and you too shall know the pain of being left on read by fate itself. 👻