“Ghosting” is associated with the relationships of modern couples and derives from the word “ghost”. The ghost person is the one who will slowly and steadily disappear from your life without you even realizing it. He/she will start canceling your appointments, will not reply to messages and generally your communication will gradually diminish until you realize that he/she has become estranged and eventually disappeared.
Ghosting is not a “privilege” of either sex, as both men and women do it and disappear from the relationship without warning and while having a good time.
When we talk, of course, about a “relationship” of just a handful of we should not normally talk about ghosting. These are just two people who for x reasons did not fit together. The reason why no explanation was given in this case has to do with the fact that these two people knew so little that they chose to interrupt without explanation.
If we talk about ghosting in a relationship of months or even longer then things are different. A good ghosting story is the script of “Absent”, a greek series in the early ’90s where Minas Hadjisavvas leaves his wife, Themis Bazaka and disappears without any excuse.
As we all know, intimacy is purely subjective. A person of no significance to someone can be a lifelong relationship to another. However, there are people, usually men, who, after being covered emotionally and erotically, simply disappear when no one is looking.
The law of disappearance arises when something very serious appears on the horizon which stresses the partner, forcing him / her to make a cowardly exit because leaving is easier and less painful than having a conflict. Instead of analyzing and explaining the reasons that make him / her want to leave and possibly solve them, he /she chooses the path with the least exposure because in our time we are less and less able to express our feelings and have weaker bonds with other human beings.
• There are people who seem to strongly resist our attempts to approach them, as if interpreting our touch as a threat to their freedom.
• For them, freedom is the most important condition in their lives. They protect their independence with an obsession that truly impresses.
• They are in fact worried about the risk.
• What if they love and then they get dumped? What if they are abandoned? If they are betrayed? What if the other person changes his / her mind and leaves? How will they endure it?
For them this is unthinkable.
• The more they feel the need to relate, the more they are frightened. The more they want to be in a relationship, the more they hate it.
The funny thing is that after the relationship breaks up, they realize what they lost and in their next relationship they idealize that “wonderful person” that they were not able to keep next to them, continuing of course to ignore the present person in their life, missing out their life here and now.
The question is what do we do with these people?
Do not wait over the cell phone for a call, because if it never happens you will have lost a lot of time, from other wonderful people waiting for someone like you.
How do we react if they reappear?
Do not run, if and when they appear. Unless something terrible has happened. A death, an accident and he is the only survivor, bankruptcy of his company etc. So, if he/she shows up to ask for an appointment, simply ask “where did you get lost?” and if he /she does not have one of the above reasons, just tell him/her that you have plans but you will call… and then forget to call because he/she will surely do it again in the future leaving you a mess.
