Imagine you’re deep in conversation with someone, laughing, bonding, thinking this is going somewhere and then, poof! They vanish. You are shocked and confused. You keep looking around just in case they are hiding. You wait as you think they will soon show up. But after a thorough check and a long wait, you wonder if they were real or you delusional. Congratulations! You’ve been ghosted.
A decade ago, ‘ghosting’ meant haunted houses, women in long hair with a white saree and Ramsay movies. Now? It’s just the laziest way to say ‘No’. Because why deal with the awkwardness of honesty when you can just disappear, right?

Here are some of my thoughts or shall I say questions about it

• Is Ghosting a Gen Z Revolution?
  Did Gen Z invent ghosting, or has it become more common simply because relationships and conversations are now mostly digital? Imagine if you wanted to ghost someone in the 90s, you would have to move houses or offices or change your landline number or actually die. And now one click, one block and boom you’ve disappeared leaving behind some digital dust. But Gen Z does seem to have an intolerance for discomfort and breaking up or saying ‘No’ requires you to tolerate frustrations. So while Ghosting may not be entirely a Gen Z thing, they definitely seem to be the undisputed champions of it.

• Mental Health – the faulty alibi
  Mental health awareness is great. But somehow, we have found a faulty alibi for ghosting; ‘I have to worry about my Mental health and so its justified’. Somewhere along the way, we confused Emotional Health with emotional escapism. People now think “protecting their peace” means dodging tough conversations and situations. And if they don’t like something (or someone), it must be toxic.
  But guess what? Mental strength isn’t about avoiding pain & discomfort, it’s about learning to deal with it. It’s like building physical strength—you can’t develop it unless you push your muscles beyond their comfort zone. (Well, there’s a lot more to say here, so I’ll save that for my next blog.) Besides, if we all ghosted each other for convenience, we’d eventually be the ones getting ghosted, and trust me, it won’t feel as zen then.

• Revenge is a dish best served as a ghost
  I was watching a show in which I heard this “I purposely don’t block the person so that he knows that I have seen his message but I am not responding” Wow back in the day, we would just get into a rebound relationship to take revenge and now we are into psychological warfare with the blue ticks aiding it. That’s progress I suppose.

• Am I the real estate agent here?
  The only time I have ghosted people is when I get a sales call for a real estate property that I know I don’t want and can’t afford. I don’t care much to put in the effort for saying a No. This just makes me feel worse. So, when that candidate ghosted me after accepting the offer, that intern disappeared mid-internship and that business associate vanished post-contract, was I… the real estate agent in their story? Oh, the horror!

• Ghosting or just buffering?
  Maybe we got it all wrong. As technology got fast, our ability to think and decide got slow. My dear friend Vivek showed me the horror on the other side “A lot of times people don’t know what to do and so they keep thinking and waiting and then suddenly one day they realise that now its too late to respond. And that’s what we call ghosting”. Wow well done, evolution…

While I may sound like an old angry GenExer, I am proud to say this… I’d rather have someone storm out, slam the door and dramatically yell ‘I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY’. At least that’s closure. And I’m happy to offer the same full disclosure to anyone I want to break up with or say No to. But who cares? We’ve all become part of the same narrative; Now you see me, now you don’t.

If you made it to the end of this blog, chances are you’re from my generation. So, share your thoughts. Maybe I’ll reply… maybe I won’t.