“I Hate Ghosting,” I Mumble, Closing a Chat without Replying

It usually starts innocently. A swipe right at 1:44 AM when your standards are low and your optimism is high. A dating app tells you “It’s a Match!” and suddenly you believe in destiny and love again, for a few short-lived moments.

Smiling to yourself in the dark of your room, with only the phone’s light illuminating half of your face like a lunar eclipse, you open with something intelligent, smart, and cool, like: “Hey:)” A risky move indeed, whoever wants to make the first move, right? The first movers are weak and needy, that is what social media tells us. Social media teaches us how to be the alpha male who never shows his sensitive side, or the passenger princess who only receives and never gives.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, here begins yet another dating cycle, shorter than an Instagram reel. Our attention spans are not just shrinking for reading, but apparently, relationships are on the fast-track too, now conveniently rebranded as ‘situationship.’ I tried asking the cool,nonchalant Gen Z kid in my family what’s 'cool' right now, and yikes, my brain is officially buffering like windows XP on dial up connection. Honestly? I would rather go full old-school, meet in person, actually talk IRL (a Genz Lingo which translates to - In Real Life) and avoid the left-right thumb marathon because humans are not Instagram reels to scroll over and skip. But why should we take time to talk IRL when there is an illusion of multiple options.

And within this accelerated, algorithm-fed cycle, the pattern is always the same. There’s friendly banter, sharing likes and dislikes, sharing spotify playlists & favourite movies (how cute) and eventually, it drifts toward shared trauma, explaining why you are the way you are, hoping that this stranger, someone you just met, or have not even met yet, will understand you and accept your flaws. Why do we have so much expectations out of others to understand us? Hoping they see the real you, and not the masks you wear for the world.

Then someone will say, “You’re different,” or “I have never met someone like you before,” or“Where were you all my life,” Or “I wish I met you before.” Suddenly you are hit with déjà vu and your memory scrolls back to last month where you just got ghosted & blocked by the “Love of your Life.” Essentially the same lines but different style. The hopeful romantic in you smiles anyway, bred by years of reading romance novels & assimilating soppy love movies. Then you exchange your hopes, fears, and dreams. Ahhh, short-lived love of five days, so very intimate.

You talk about childhood pets and how you got your knee scrapped. You flirt like adults pretending they do not care too much. Very nonchalant and very cool, as per current scenario. A date is planned with much excitement or maybe even postponed once, because life happens. Or, another match just pinged them something more interesting or something more hotter, thus you get filed into the “later” file folder. To be accessed once there are no other options left, like a backup plan for slow days. I will call you back, okay? And then you keep staring at your phone for that one name that told you “I wish I met you before.” We all are navigating the deceit that our emotions weave, juggling multiple heart breaks that we endure. While nursing our fragile mental health, in a constant conversation with the CGI psychologist in our brains, with our thumbs mindlessly doom scrolling & sharing memes. This pressure to perform 24/7 to cover &gloss over our gaping wounds with the internet that buffers & smiley stickers that flicker. Do you see the ludicrousness of it all yet?

Then the conversation, once flowing, abruptly stops, and you go from babe to blocked. They felt something off with you or maybe someone hotter just texted them. Who even bothers to give respect and grace to another human when there are too many fish in the sea? And with a possible world war looming, we all must juggle our own illusions and fake our emotions with multiple people. Ahhh! So many fishes, so little time.

No “Hey, I don’t think this will work.”No “I met someone else.”
No dramatic exit. No Explanations.

This is the kind of silence that arrives stealthily and never leaves your neurological pathways, day in and day out. A situationship may have been non-committal, but that does not mean it was emotionless. We love to hide behind the excuse of “there were no strings attached,” as if that magically erases the time, attention, and quiet feelings that inevitably grow between two people.

Ghosting someone and calling it casual is not freedom, its emotional weakness conveniently dressed up as detachment. Just because there was no label does not mean there was not a human heart involved. The same empathy we desperately want, when someone disappears on us is strangely the empathy we refuse to give others. Sometimes basic decency is simply saying, “This isn’t working for me,” instead of vanishing and pretending nothing ever existed.

Welcome to modern romance, where people disappear faster than your OTP on low battery mode. And the worst part? We all complain about ghosting while secretly doing it to someone else.

Dating apps & social media have trained us to believe, there is always someone better one swipe away or one profile picture away. A funnier bio, a hotter photo or a more “aligned” personality.

We have turned relationships into trial versions, no obligation, no warranty, no customer support- just a scam center where people come and go as they please.

Therapeutic Elixir to Mend Broken Hearts

Sometimes the only real solution to ghosting is Netflix and chill... with yourself. Pyjamas on, your favourite chardonnay in one hand armed with select choice of cheese platter in the other, staring at your OTT library like a modern-day philosopher who just got emotionally sabotaged and expects every show to provide emotional closure. Maybe even a solo hiking trip, completely offline, because if they can ghost, you can vanish like Google Maps on zero network, deep inside an untraceable cave where even satellites give up and say, “location not found.”

(“The person you have ghosted is not available right now. Please choose to waste someone else’s time.”)

5 Steps to Surviving Digital Heartbreak (Offline Edition)

Switch Off Your Phone & Go for a Hike

Step 1: While on a hike, leave a “Do Not Disturb: Emotional Recovery in Progress” sign for passing confused squirrels. Bonus points if you draw sad little hearts around it with pine needles.

Step 2: Construct a tiny shrine to the ghoster out of twigs, dry fruit mix, and whatever forest debris you can find. Light a ceremonial incense stick or sage if available, maybe a slightly burnt marshmallow will also do.

Step 3: Camp under the stars. Whisper sweet nothings to your thermos. Pretend your wine glass is a highly judgmental audience that understands your trauma on a spiritual level. Optional:deliver interpretive dance performances under the moon like a white witch to “release residual emotions,” ideally without spraining your hips or attracting the local wildlife troupe.

Step 4: Leave cryptic Google reviews for local hiking trails:
“The trail didn’t text back, but the view was astonishing... 4 stars.”
“Trail was gorgeous, but the echo reminds me of unanswered texts at 2AM... 1 star.”

Step 5: Laugh at the absolute irrationality of modern love & speed dating. Argue with bunnies about commitment issues like they are your unpaid therapist. Debate with your wine glass over who ghosted whom first.

Once back home, practice radical soul cleansing self-care with a glass of Pinot Noir or the entire bottle, and float gracefully like a slightly tipsy swan with your favorite Spotify playlist blasting through your AirPods, into this ridiculous storm of digital heartbreak. In a world where people vanish faster than your Wi-Fi during a Zoom call, the least we can do is stay with ourselves, be gentle with our emotions, and embrace the full theatrical absurdity of surviving speed swiping-Left Swipe- Right Swipe – Hi – Wow – Love You – Kiss - Blocked! Sometimes surviving ghosting is basically a full-time improv show and you are the unwilling star. So, perform like you are Shakespeare trapped in a DMs scroll, soliloquizing to ghosts who vanish mid-line, and every“seen” is a dagger to the heart you must deliver with a flourish.

“To Be or Not to Be, that is the Question.”

Bow to an invisible audience, laugh at jokes no one will hear, cry in monologues that vanish into digital voids. Your heart is the stage, your dignity is the prop, your patience is the script younever wrote but must perform.

And yet, you survive!

Applause optional, resilience mandatory, tragedy unavoidable, and somehow, you still find poetry in the silence they etched into your heart space.

“I say, ‘Et tu, Brute?’ Take a bow... and exit stage left.”

(PSA - The writer is not on dating apps. Any profile claiming otherwise is AI catfishing you.)

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