This is an emotional topic, one that fills so many of my private clients and Breakthrough callers with absolute agony and dread. So, I’m thinking... let's serve this up with a healthy side of OMFG cute puppies! Cause' YAY PUPPIES!
Yup, it’s time to talk about G H O S T I N G !
You might not have heard of this term but chances are you’ve experienced it.
Allow me to set the scene…
You are chatting online with a seemingly amazing person. Messages are flowing, filled with sass, funnies and the tempo is staccato quick fire… then suddenly… Hello? You still there? Anybody there? No response, no reason given, it’s like maybe they traveled to a desert island that doesn’t have internet???
OR
You meet someone, have a super fab first date. Wow, you think, what a great night. FINALLY, someone you click with, who makes you laugh and can talk about things YOU actually find interesting! AND, the chemistry is SO there. Spark, bang, boom! Clearly, you both can’t wait to see each other again! Faith in humanity, RESTORED!
You wake up the next date thinking, whoa, THIS could be it. You check your phone for a text from them. ZIP. Okay alright, it’s been less than 12 hours. Breathe. Tick, tock. Now its 24 hours and nada, nothing. You brave it up and send a quick text, nothing crazy just a ‘Had a great time last night’ with an super appropriate emoji… ANNNND crickets. Okay, maybe their busy, it’s cool. But as the days go by with zero response, that thought process goes to ‘Maybe they had some tragic family emergency?’ OR, ‘Got hit by a bus????’ and on and on goes the possibilities in your mind.
Well my dear, I have to tell you 99.9% of the possibilities of what happened to that person has nothing to do with some tragic accident and everything to do with the simple face you’ve just been GHOSTED. BOO!
At this point there are two roads to travel down...
ROAD ONE; SELF WORTH BOMBING FEAR AND DOUBT
image credit; Matthew Henry via Unsplash
Road one, is quite heavily traveled and easy to choose.
You begin by frantically run thru the entire night (or messaging) in your mind, even running it past friends at nausea, wondering what small misstep was made, by you?
Did you say the wrong thing? Did you read the chemistry wrong? Was it your laugh? Were you TOO much?
Then comes the confidence plunge.
When we allow the behaviors of someone else to dictate how we view ourselves; It's NEVER a good look!
What is wrong with me? Am I not lovable? How could I not read that date right? Why am I putting myself through this BS and even going out on dates anyways?!?!
Confidence and self worth is now plummeting and jaded has come along to the party, as well. The weight of jaded to the mix, is unbearable. WOMP. WOMP.
ROAD TWO: ACCEPTANCE AND RESILIENCE
Here’s the deal. You didn’t do anything wrong. You have absolutely no power over this person’s inability to have adult conversations and do low level confrontation, like “Hey, sorry I just am not feeling it”.
Our technology, the same one that serves us so well, like apps that allow us to order food, taxi’s, shoes, schedule doctors’ appointments all without ever speaking to another human being… is the same technology that allows GHOSTING to be such an easy and acceptable mode of operation in today’s dating scene. As a society, we have so much available to us whose sole purpose is to allow us to avoid uncomfortable situations and avoid having REAL conversations with REAL people in the REAL world.
YES. Ghosting is a rejection, of the most undignified kind. But a rejection nonetheless. Life is full of rejection, getting knocked down from time to time. And EVERYONE experiences it.
The speed and how we can GET BACK UP, is what resilience looks like.
Brene Brown does some amazing research around resilience. She has interviewed thousands of people over the years and correlated her data to distinguish what makes some people more resilient to rejection and others not. If you have yet to check out her books, Daring Greatly and Rising Strong… add that to your reading list, lady. AHHHMAZING.
Here is the crib notes;
Resilient people accept that rejection is a normal part of life. They do not take it personally. They do not invite doubt, anger and jaded to come to the party. Or at the very least, have a bouncer at the door to try to keep them out.
>> Resilient people are focused and fueled by the joy in their lives.
>> They DO NOT internalize rejection and allow other peoples view of them to color their own view of themselves.
>> They DO view each rejection as an opportunity.
An opportunity to get back up. An opportunity to learn. An opportunity to take a look at their lives and re-prioritize what’s important to them. An opportunity to be grateful that this person, weeded themselves out of the garden, so very quickly
Image credit: Andrew Pons via Unpslash
In the specific example of the dating GHOST. WOW. Did that person just save YOU a whole lotta time, frustration, and possible heart break by going ghost. BOO! BE GONE BUDDY! The quicker they do it, heck yes! The better off you are! That person, who ghosted you, they handed you the opportunity to go back out into the world of love quickly and with more acceptance and resilience than ever before. I’m not saying you need to go out of your way to thank Mr. or Ms. #raisedbywolves, but if we shift the mindset to one of acceptance. It’s not you, its them AND to shift further to a mindset of opportunity… Whew! NEXXXXT.
Now, we do not want to just simply puff ourselves up. We need to own the story a bit more than that to gain true resilience. Every date is also an opportunity to learn about what you DO and DO NOT like or want in a partner. Bad dates, dud dates, and great dates are ALL equality rife with opportunities to attain more clarity. Maybe that great date who ghosted you was the first great date in a long line of dud ones. Maybe the date itself (not what happened after) was the taste of hope in what had felt like a desert of dud and bad dates?
You have no power of other peoples actions. You DO have power over how you respond. The power to GET BACK UP, faster, stronger and better. BOO!
In the specific example of the dating GHOST. WOW. Did that person just save YOU a whole lotta time, frustration, and possible heart break by going ghost. BOO! BE GONE BUDDY! The quicker they do it, heck yes! The better off you are! That person, who ghosted you, they handed you the opportunity to go back out into the world of love quickly and with more acceptance and resilience than ever before. I’m not saying you need to go out of your way to thank Mr. or Ms. #raisedbywolves, but if we shift the mindset to one of acceptance. It’s not you, its them AND to shift further to a mindset of opportunity… Whew! NEXXXXT.
Now, we do not want to just simply puff ourselves up. We need to own the story a bit more than that to gain true resilience. Every date is also an opportunity to learn about what you DO and DO NOT like or want in a partner. Bad dates, dud dates, and great dates are ALL equality rife with opportunities to attain more clarity. Maybe that great date who ghosted you was the first great date in a long line of dud ones. Maybe the date itself (not what happened after) was the taste of hope in what had felt like a desert of dud and bad dates?
You have no power of other peoples actions. You DO have power over how you respond. The power to GET BACK UP, faster, stronger and better. BOO!
FINALLY, I simply CAN NOT leave you today without adding some real time HONESTY to the mix here, dearest one.
REAL TALK ALERT!! YOU GHOST TOO!
As you are sitting there at brunch regaling your GF’s with your disgust for ghosts in dating, you probably ghosted someone (or something) yourself in the last 2 weeks, at the very least.
Maybe you ghosted in dating, maybe it was professional… maybe you met with a personal trainer, feeling all brave one day, and then legged it and cancelled the next.
Hey, guess what?!? About once every 4 months or so, I get people who book in Breakthrough To Love Call with me, and then… no call, no show, no response, whatsoever. There I am, with a healthy 45-minute chunk of my time allotted, my expert bells on… singing badly, ALLLLL BY MYYYYSELFFFFF! Half the time, these same women mention ‘ghosting’ as the bane of their dating existence when they book the call!
RUH ROH SCOOBY!
Yeah, I SEE YOU and you are not alone!
image credit; Charles Deluvio via Unsplash
Here’s the deal, chances are you need to temper that outrage about being ghosted way down. You are absolutely capable and willing of going radio silent instead of clearly and effectively communicating with others too. Once we get own own honesty up-leveled, the ghosting doesn’t smart nearly as much.
Secondly, you want different? Start by doing different, my dear!
Offering up to you a LOVE LETTER is one of the highlights to my week and I hope it brightens your inbox AND proves oh so valuable in empowering your love life!
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