This Is What It Actually Feels Like To Be Ghosted

I remember scrawling through Elite Daily one afternoon at work, skipping the endless number of posts about ‘ghosting’. I skipped them for two reasons. The first, I didn’t really know or care about what it was. The second, I knew it was dating related and seeing as I wasn’t dating, nor never had dated, I saw no relevance.

A few weeks later, I jokingly downloaded Tinder in the company of a friend. Not thinking anything of it, we swiped our lives away laughing when we came across people we went to school with and crudely messaging our matches.

A few days passed and I found myself almost addicted to swiping, I loved getting matches. I found it so complimentary.

I didn’t speak to many of my matches. I refused to be the one who messaged first (admittedly though, I did once or twice). I even felt potential in one match, except he lived about 45 minutes away. This match was short lived as my next sparked even more interest.

We spoke, I’d say, everyday for a week or two before upgrading to texting. At first I was a little eery and wasn’t sure how I felt when he made sexual innuendos – mainly due to my virgin status but also due to the fact that this was a total stranger.

We talked and talked and talked. I felt really wanted. He always messaged me first and I felt like I never had to try. He wasn’t shy in admitting his attraction to me despite the fact we were yet to meet.

Part of me thought this was too good to be true. An even bigger part of me wishes now that I’d followed my instinct.

Don’t get me wrong, he is a really nice guy. He took me out on Valentine’s Day – a total gentleman. He denied the offer to come in, knowing I was pretty nervous. The second time we met up we sat under the stars laughing at each other and bitching about assignments and work. I didn’t want to admit it, but when he got closer, when he touched me, I had a couple of butterflies.

We drove home and this time he came inside. By this stage, we’d been talking for a couple of months. I was a lot more comfortable talking about sex and we’d established that we were both interested and that I was ready to try.

Albeit, I was still a nervous wreck.

We watched TV and waited for my Nan to go to bed. He sat close to me, touching me and playing with my hair. As a natural response to nerves, I got quite guarded and he started to back off, leaving soon after.

I’d been out with this person twice, and we had both been very open about our physical attraction to each other. Neither of us was looking for a relationship and happily agreed on hanging out, maybe fooling around and genuinely just seeing where things went. Yet, we hadn’t even kissed.

I asked him if he was disappointed nothing had happened that night. I even apologised as if I’d made a mistake. He denied, but almost a month later, we’ve hardly spoken since.

So, I’ll tell you; being ghosted feels like shit.

It’s almost embarrassing, not knowing what to tell your friends when they ask if you’re still seeing him, when they ask how things are going. What are you supposed to say?

Part of me can really understand now why those of broken relationships find it hard to trust. Even on the smallest of scales like this, it makes you realise how little you can really know about someone. Even more, it makes you realise how draining it can be to open up to someone, move on, open up to someone else, move on, and so on.

Don’t get me wrong, the actual act of the ghost has in no way affected me to the extent that it seems. Like many will say in a petty argument ‘it’s the moral that counts.‘ The hard part isn’t not talking to someone, it’s going over things they’ve said and wondering if they really meant it. It’s the confusion and it’s having no closure. It’s realising that some guys do just want sex. Even more, it’s realising that some girls are actually willing to be used like that.

The good thing about it? Realising that you are so much better than that.