If you’ve never heard of ghosting, you’ve either been living under a rock or you’re the luckiest person on Earth.
The term has been around since the mid 2000s, according to Dictionary.com and it seems to have taken off in popularity in 2015, after The New York Times wrote about Charlize Theron ghosting Sean Penn after a year and a half of dating. Ouch.
While it was possible to ghost someone before the advent of online dating – just stop replying to their calls, their handwritten letters or their telegrams – the amount of time we spend talking about it has risen inextricably with the rise of dating apps.
In fact, Forbes once called ghosting the dating app industry’s “billion dollar question” and so-called ghost-busting solutions pop up every few years; from apps threatening to ban frequent offenders, to no-ghosting apps and even AI’s specifically created to weed out potential ghosters.
So, let’s cut through 20 years of headlines… What actually is ghosting and why has it had such an impact on all of us?
What is ghosting?
Ghosting is one of those terms that gets used so liberally that it’s sort of lost all meaning. When someone says they’ve been ‘ghosted’, they could be referring to anything from someone they exchanged three messages with no longer replying, to coming home to an empty flat and a note that says “I’m sorry, don’t hate me.”
In the broadest terms,“ghosting” is the act of stopping your communication with someone with no explanation. In other words, disappearing without a trace, like a ghost.
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