Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House toports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And right before the podcast started rolling,
Speaker 1: Caroline and I were just swapping our recent ghosting stories
Speaker 1: because are we ghosters? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I UM. I
Speaker 1: love ghosting in the context of a party because why
Speaker 1: should you go around and say goodbye to everybody? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess you should have to be polite. Yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: but I mean that. Trust me. If I've ever go
Speaker 1: through your birthday party, Matt, Hey, if you're listening, UM
Speaker 1: has way more to do with me feeling awkward or,
Speaker 1: in the case of my friend Matt's bar hopping birthday party,
Speaker 1: like way too drunk. I don't really that's not Christian.
Speaker 1: I don't really drink that much anymore. And um, I
Speaker 1: certainly do not bar hop anymore where. And uh, we
Speaker 1: went bar hopping from Matt's birthday and I just got
Speaker 1: too drunk. I don't know what happened. Alcohol. I drank alcohol.
Speaker 1: I'm not judging you so hard right now, Carolina, but
Speaker 1: we got to this one bar and it was like,
Speaker 1: it's definitely I'm such an a lady at thirty two,
Speaker 1: But it's something a younger person's bar with like really
Speaker 1: loud music and lots of like college students dancing on
Speaker 1: each other. And I was like, I can't do this.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to get up in that innuit more
Speaker 1: oh touching people. So I just sort of I just
Speaker 1: sort of walked out. You ghosted. Yeah, I gotta say
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of ghosting as well. If there are
Speaker 1: enough people around where I assume my presence wouldn't be missed, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sits like me and my friend. I'm
Speaker 1: not just gonna right be like I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. I gotta go buy a pack of cigarettes,
Speaker 1: never coming back. But then I try to follow up
Speaker 1: the ghost with the text of had just such a
Speaker 1: good time, had to dash, should have done that heart emojis.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of hangover recovery the next day, though.
Speaker 1: There you go. Well, what we're what we're establishing here
Speaker 1: is that many of us have probably ghosted in one
Speaker 1: way or another. And if you haven't heard the term
Speaker 1: ghosting before, it does apply to both social context like
Speaker 1: leaving a friend's birthday party without saying goodbye, or in
Speaker 1: more relationship context of pulling a slow fade, just going
Speaker 1: going out for the old pack of cigarettes and never
Speaker 1: coming back. Daddy. Essentially, it refers to just disappearing, whether
Speaker 1: it isn't a short term like we do sometimes with
Speaker 1: our friends, or for the long term, like Charlie's Throne
Speaker 1: did allegedly to Sean Penn, which wouldn't, which made the
Speaker 1: New York Times. You know a thing is over, No,
Speaker 1: you know a thing is only beginning. In the case
Speaker 1: of ghosting, well, guesting is a relatively new term. Um.
Speaker 1: I definitely have always known this phenomenon by the term
Speaker 1: slow fade. It's something that did remain I used to
Speaker 1: talk about all the time when he was on dating
Speaker 1: sites and would go out with like seventy women at
Speaker 1: the same time, a couple of times each and I
Speaker 1: mean that creates so many bad situations, like mixing up names. Um.
Speaker 1: But it also left him feeling not entitled, but feeling like, well,
Speaker 1: it only makes sense that I'll just disappear. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole intentional avoidance of saying goodbye, right. Um. But even
Speaker 1: though yeah, we've had different words for it obviously for
Speaker 1: a long time, because it's not like we just we
Speaker 1: millennials just woke up and started abandoning things left and right. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you look at Google interests in in the
Speaker 1: term search from ghosting, it peaked in July, possibly related
Speaker 1: to its New York Times coverage. Um, because Jezebel on
Speaker 1: the side jez about describe Charlie's Throne ghosting Sean Penn
Speaker 1: and the New York Times was like, wait, what what
Speaker 1: is this ghosting thing? So they did a whole article,
Speaker 1: a trend piece on ghosting, and then received an overwhelming
Speaker 1: response from readers sharing their own ghosting stories, being on
Speaker 1: both sides of the ghosting equation. Well, yeah, because this
Speaker 1: happens to everyone in some context or another, and some
Speaker 1: time or another, and whatever the social phenomenon is. Once
Speaker 1: you see a word put to it, of course, it's
Speaker 1: like comforting that your experience, whether you're the ghost or
Speaker 1: or the ghost e, it's validating. And so yeah, all
Speaker 1: of these people came out of the woodwork or the
Speaker 1: New York Times comment board work to connect and share
Speaker 1: their stories about it. I mean there were there was
Speaker 1: such an overwhelming response that they ended up publishing a
Speaker 1: follow up UM, looking at some of the more heartbreaking experiences,
Speaker 1: and The New York Times defined ghosting as quote ending
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship by cutting off all contact and ignoring
Speaker 1: the former partners attempts to reach out and ghosting can
Speaker 1: be so harsh. But we will get to that later on.
Speaker 1: But not just in birthday party context. Caroline and I
Speaker 1: have our own dating ghosting experiences as well. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say that, um, you know, similarly to dude roommates experiences.
Speaker 1: When I was on dating websites, I would also it
Speaker 1: was sort of the first well now that's a lie
Speaker 1: because college. Um, but it was the first time in
Speaker 1: my adult post college life that I would ghost people
Speaker 1: because I was going on all these dates and being like,
Speaker 1: we obviously have no spark or whatever, and so I
Speaker 1: just wouldn't return text or calls. And it's sort of
Speaker 1: like almost the unspoken method of online dating now, I
Speaker 1: feel like. But I will say that if there were
Speaker 1: people that I'd been on numerous dates with or hung
Speaker 1: out with for a while, I did finally work up
Speaker 1: the courage to be like, actually, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think we're hitting it off. And for the most part,
Speaker 1: I received a positive response from people being like oh cool, yeah,
Speaker 1: like thanks for telling me like this sucks, but you
Speaker 1: know thanks. Um. My previous serious relationship before I was
Speaker 1: dating my boyfriend ended on a super super super sour,
Speaker 1: awful bad note. Um, he basically said some really terrible
Speaker 1: things to me, and including that I was fat, and
Speaker 1: um We've been dating for a year and a half
Speaker 1: and I just like something when he said that awful stuff,
Speaker 1: like something clicked in my brain and I just said
Speaker 1: to myself, like, oh, you don't have to deal with this.
Speaker 1: You don't. There's no reason that you have to put
Speaker 1: up with this person's crap. So I basically told him
Speaker 1: it was over. We had you know, one or two
Speaker 1: follow up conversations where he was, you know, begging for
Speaker 1: me to take him back and all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And there were so many bad circumstances and like you know,
Speaker 1: emotional only terrible things happening around the breakup. Uh. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I just so I just blocked him on everything,
Speaker 1: blocked him on social media, blocked him on my phone. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sometimes necessary. Yeah, in those contexts, I think ghosting
Speaker 1: can be really healthy and helpful for us to jump
Speaker 1: start our healing process from relationships. UM. I will share
Speaker 1: the flip side of the ghosting experience because I've been
Speaker 1: ghosted so hard a few times, actually fool me once
Speaker 1: or five times. Still shame on me. UM. So in college.
Speaker 1: The first time I was ghosted super hard was in college.
Speaker 1: But I really liked this guy and it was but
Speaker 1: it was the kind of thing where we were hook
Speaker 1: up buddies, and we would see each other just like
Speaker 1: randomly out but we would have a great time when
Speaker 1: we were together. And I was I was young, and
Speaker 1: so I assumed that that meant lots of things. UM
Speaker 1: And it kind of started, though, getting more regular, where
Speaker 1: it seemed like, Okay, this guy who was older, who
Speaker 1: was older I should note I think that played a role,
Speaker 1: UM wanted to date. And so he started coming over
Speaker 1: to my house like at a proper hour and even
Speaker 1: brought his dog once, where I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I guess this is my boyfriend of dogs here he
Speaker 1: gave me a DVD, a foreign film DVD, no less,
Speaker 1: So I mean we were practically engaged Caroline College. I
Speaker 1: miss it sometimes. I think I still had a Wheezer
Speaker 1: poster on my wall. But he he got up one
Speaker 1: morning and said, Hey, do you want to go see
Speaker 1: a t L. I'm aging myself. Do you want to
Speaker 1: go see a t L at the Dollar Movie? And
Speaker 1: I was like, of course I do. It sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: And I was like cool, I'll call you. Let's go
Speaker 1: on like Thursday or whatever. I was like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: so in love. And he left and never called me again.
Speaker 1: He never called me again. That's so sketch. It's one
Speaker 1: thing to be like, hey, I'll see you around and then,
Speaker 1: but to make a plan. Well, the awkward thing is
Speaker 1: that he uh since moved to has since moved to Atlanta. Great,
Speaker 1: so that ghost hots me from time to time. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I am. I dated a guy after like I, I
Speaker 1: was in a serious relationship after college, we broke up.
Speaker 1: I started kind of similar deal to you, and that
Speaker 1: guy kind of started quote unquote seeing someone um and
Speaker 1: he was maybe not the best person and maybe not
Speaker 1: in search of a relationship, whereas I was like in weird,
Speaker 1: like desperate, heartbroken mode and was just looking to sink
Speaker 1: my claws into anybody. I've never been there, Caroline, and
Speaker 1: he ghosted. Granted, normal behavior, I understand it. However, we
Speaker 1: had been hanging out for quite a while at this
Speaker 1: point and so when he ghosted, I was really confused
Speaker 1: and sort of like, I will say, a little upset
Speaker 1: about it, because it's not like we had just been
Speaker 1: on three dates. We've been hanging out for a little while.
Speaker 1: And I became I became that person. Yeah, I became
Speaker 1: the person who was like constantly like texting, because in
Speaker 1: my head I had fooled myself into thinking, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: there's got to be a reason, Like he works all
Speaker 1: the time, and he works way different hours than I
Speaker 1: do because I worked at the newspaper at the time,
Speaker 1: so I worked like crazy hours, you know, like he's
Speaker 1: probably busy, he like does all of this extracurricular volunteering
Speaker 1: stuff like whatever, Like maybe that's why, and so many
Speaker 1: like terrible embarrassing texts ensued. I finally got the hint,
Speaker 1: and he ended up like sending me a Facebook message
Speaker 1: months and months later apologizing, so weird when the ghosts
Speaker 1: come back and try to resure themselves, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: appreciate that. There's no need. It's like, if you're gonna ghost,
Speaker 1: ghost hard. But we'll get to that. But I think
Speaker 1: that that's more well, not in this guy's case, but
Speaker 1: I've had it happen where ghosts have come back, and
Speaker 1: I think sometimes it can be testing to see if
Speaker 1: you're still on the roster. Yeah anyway, Yeah, well we'll
Speaker 1: get into the when when ghosts continue to haunt us? Um.
Speaker 1: But I did want to note that even though our
Speaker 1: whole language of ghosting today frames it as this new phenomenon,
Speaker 1: it's all blamed on technology and dating apps and and
Speaker 1: sort of the paradox of choice, where why would we
Speaker 1: settle with one person when we can just get on
Speaker 1: Tinder and choose other people. Um, So we're ghosting left
Speaker 1: and right because we all have romantic A D D essentially,
Speaker 1: But abandoning relationships is a heartbreaking tale as old as time.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is that trope of going to the store,
Speaker 1: I went out her cigarettes. Um, you have the variations
Speaker 1: of getting cold feet, of runaway bribes, um, and it
Speaker 1: does still happen. I r L. For instance, a woman
Speaker 1: named Kathy Meyer recounted her husband saying, I think it
Speaker 1: was on a Sunday, They're about to go to church,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: out for a coke And he never came back, never
Speaker 1: came back. Imagine, and I I feel so bad for
Speaker 1: Kathy Meyer, although judging by her story, you shouldn't feel
Speaker 1: bad for because she ended up having a very great
Speaker 1: experience in life after that. Um. But imagine what must
Speaker 1: be going through the head of the spouse who does that?
Speaker 1: Like who leaves, like leaves all of their stuff? Just
Speaker 1: leave your spouse like that? Yeah, I can't imagine it.
Speaker 1: And UM, I went through a John Epdyke phase reading
Speaker 1: and I was reading Rabbit Run, which is all about
Speaker 1: this protagonist Rabbit, and he runs essentially he is like
Speaker 1: the ultimate relationship abandon er. Um. And it was so
Speaker 1: ironic that I was reading this book at the time,
Speaker 1: like years ago now, because I was in the process
Speaker 1: of of my then rabbit running on me, and as
Speaker 1: it was dawning on me what was happening in my
Speaker 1: relationship and how this guy suddenly out of nowhere just
Speaker 1: disappeared and was not texting me back even though we
Speaker 1: were legitimately in a relationship. I wasn't just pretending that
Speaker 1: since I met his dog and things were serious. Um. I,
Speaker 1: you had all this time on my hands and I
Speaker 1: would lay in the park because the spring reading this
Speaker 1: book about this guy doing the exact same thing and
Speaker 1: it was. It was almost too much to handle because
Speaker 1: I just wanted to pretend that, oh, this is just fiction,
Speaker 1: this isn't really my life, maybe not quite as highbrow,
Speaker 1: but at the same time that I was being ghosted
Speaker 1: by that guy who later apologized, but by the guy
Speaker 1: Um I saw the movie. He's just not that into you.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the movie, all my friends
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, I was all right, you know that
Speaker 1: good movie or whatever, and I was just pissed my faith.
Speaker 1: My friends were like, what you didn't want to believe
Speaker 1: what was happening? Is wrong with you? Because at that
Speaker 1: point I knew and I had accepted it and was whatever.
Speaker 1: Hated the guy, but I was just like I was
Speaker 1: being basically force fed this experience over and over again
Speaker 1: by watching that movie too soon. Well, Caroline, the comforting
Speaker 1: thing is that it's not just you and me that
Speaker 1: this has happened to UM. In October, a pole co
Speaker 1: sponsored by Yugov and Huffington's Post found that thirteen percent
Speaker 1: of respondents said that they had been ghosted. An eleven
Speaker 1: percent of respondents said that they had ghosted UM, which
Speaker 1: is not a not a ton of people, but still
Speaker 1: a decent amount. But if we look at men versus women,
Speaker 1: um L magazine conducted its own survey and found that
Speaker 1: more people, at least among its readership. I guess um
Speaker 1: had experienced ghosting, and there were some slight gender differences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And their survey of women and percent of men respondents
Speaker 1: said that they'd only been ghosted, they'd been the ones ghosted,
Speaker 1: And then of women, and sixteen percent of men said
Speaker 1: that they had only been the ghost or they had
Speaker 1: ghosted someone but not experienced it in return. Then thirty
Speaker 1: three percent of men and of women said that they
Speaker 1: had both been ghosted and ghosted someone else. So in
Speaker 1: this maybe not quite scientific study, it really doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it's a particularly gendered behavior. You know, we tend
Speaker 1: to think men are the ghosters because oh, you know, men,
Speaker 1: they're afraid of commitment and all they want is sex,
Speaker 1: sex sex, and women are the poor victims who were
Speaker 1: always left behind. But I mean, I've been on both
Speaker 1: sides for clutely, yeah, and I've pulled my share of
Speaker 1: slow fades as well. Um But as L magazine survey
Speaker 1: result was surprising to author Peg Streep that they talked to.
Speaker 1: She wrote, Mastering the Art of quitting white matters and life,
Speaker 1: love and work. Um. And she had predicted that dudes
Speaker 1: would be likelier to ghosts since they're socialized to not
Speaker 1: show their emotions and don't have as much trouble cutting
Speaker 1: off contact, whereas as you just mentioned, ladies and their
Speaker 1: emotions tend to want some closure. But you know, I
Speaker 1: I kind of rolled my eye at that because it's
Speaker 1: it's human. It's not male or female. It's human to
Speaker 1: want closure. And you know, whether this is the ghosting
Speaker 1: phenomenon is because of social media or human nature just
Speaker 1: being fearful of conflict. Know it's going to be both
Speaker 1: men and women doing it well. And I think too
Speaker 1: that it's harder to make a generalization like that because
Speaker 1: there is a spectrum of ghosting, because you can technically
Speaker 1: ghost someone when you're still only in the phase of
Speaker 1: texting each other. You like met on Tinder and you're
Speaker 1: just doing the preliminary text, and someone goes from that
Speaker 1: all the way to ghosting on a long term relationship.
Speaker 1: You go up for cigarettes and never see your kids again. Um.
Speaker 1: But all of this did remind me in terms of
Speaker 1: our gender stereotypes about ghosting. It reminded me of due
Speaker 1: who commented on the stuff Mom Never Told You video
Speaker 1: I made about ghosting and posted on our Facebook page
Speaker 1: saying ladies usually need to get over yourself. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh what, because I guess he assumed that only that
Speaker 1: I was just complaining as a woman about only men ghosting,
Speaker 1: So that was that was kind of is just an
Speaker 1: odd way to interpret that. I feel that a lot
Speaker 1: of things can be oddly interpreted on Facebook. But you know,
Speaker 1: but regardless of who's doing the ghosting, it is often
Speaker 1: criticized as cowardly and cruel. Ghosting has a bad reputation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we will talk more about that bad reputation, and
Speaker 1: we come right back from a quick break. So Kristen
Speaker 1: and listeners. My parents have all of these old film
Speaker 1: reels of family videos, things that are priceless and precious,
Speaker 1: but I can't watch them because they are dusty old
Speaker 1: film reels and they need so desperately not only to
Speaker 1: be digitized, but to be preserved. So I was super
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Speaker 1: to the show. So regardless of who's doing the ghosting,
Speaker 1: and regardless of whether this is a phenomenon that is
Speaker 1: recent or as old as relationship time. Relationship expert Esther
Speaker 1: Perel blames what we think of as this rise of
Speaker 1: ghosting on the societal decline of empathy, which, like those words,
Speaker 1: and it chilled out my spine because we've read about
Speaker 1: a so called decline and empathy in other topics that
Speaker 1: we've discussed, especially when it relates to social media and
Speaker 1: mobile devices, and we're not talking to each other over
Speaker 1: the dinner table as much. And it does like no
Speaker 1: matter who you are, how old you are, it kind
Speaker 1: of instills this fear of like, oh my god, is
Speaker 1: our society going to crumble? Maybe so over ghosting. You're
Speaker 1: just all gonna become go posts. I mean, she is
Speaker 1: a Pearl is very much an advocate of the more
Speaker 1: direct closure because, as she wisely notes, quote in action
Speaker 1: has causality, And this really rings true probably for anyone
Speaker 1: who has experienced ghosting, because when people don't return your text,
Speaker 1: your instant messages, your calls, you don't just go about
Speaker 1: your day. A lot of times you sit there and
Speaker 1: you start mentally filling in a narrative. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what they must be doing? This, so they
Speaker 1: must be doing that, or it's because I did this, oh,
Speaker 1: or I did that, and you start to develop your
Speaker 1: own reason why. Sure, they couldn't possibly have texted back. Oh,
Speaker 1: they probably just forgot their phone. Maybe their phone is dead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well imagine I mean, like it was bad when my
Speaker 1: boyfriend and I first started dating each other. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know that early stage in relationship where you're committed, you're together,
Speaker 1: but it's still so new and so like if he
Speaker 1: was working or something and wouldn't get back to me
Speaker 1: within an hour, you start being like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I said I must have said something. I must know
Speaker 1: what did I do? Oh? God, is he mad at me?
Speaker 1: And then you get resentful and upset. So if that's
Speaker 1: in the context of a loving relationship where you're like
Speaker 1: committed to each other, I would like you to exercise
Speaker 1: some empathy that you might have and imagine the effect
Speaker 1: it could have when you don't have an established relationship.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I was pretty bad about that
Speaker 1: when I was single, to the point that, um, I
Speaker 1: just to just to calm my mind, if I would
Speaker 1: text someone, if I was initiated a text to someone
Speaker 1: that I really liked, al was really cute. I would
Speaker 1: send the text and then hide my phone and not
Speaker 1: check it for like a couple of hours. That's fart, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that way too. If they did text back immediately,
Speaker 1: I seem pretty cool and la back. I didn't overthink
Speaker 1: it at all, certainly not. But Perel also notes how
Speaker 1: there is a spectrum of ghosting, not only in the
Speaker 1: sense of the time that you've invested in this relationship
Speaker 1: in quotes, whether it's a few texts or a few
Speaker 1: years or more, but how there's the ghosting where you
Speaker 1: just like up and leave, but there's also the slow fade,
Speaker 1: and this is referred to as icing, where you just
Speaker 1: kind of like put someone on ice or not exactly
Speaker 1: up and leaving, but you're just sort of trying to
Speaker 1: kind of get them to go get a hint so
Speaker 1: they'll they'll leave on their own, like maybe you keep
Speaker 1: putting off plan things like that. And she says that
Speaker 1: the slow fade is the cruelest because it leaves that
Speaker 1: other person in a state of stable ambiguity. And I
Speaker 1: can so relate to it. But I've also pulled the
Speaker 1: slow fade, and uh, reading this made me feel real
Speaker 1: bad about it, because it really does foster false hope
Speaker 1: and provokes insecurity because it's like you might respond to
Speaker 1: someone texting you, how's it going, Okay, Well there's no
Speaker 1: commitment here, so oh I'm fine, and then the person's like,
Speaker 1: oh great, we're still texting, and so they text you
Speaker 1: want to hang out tonight? And then suddenly, of course
Speaker 1: you disappear. Yeah you're still there. They're still hanging on yeah,
Speaker 1: or I mean, you know, in the case of my
Speaker 1: serious relationship right after college, UM, I inadvertently fostered a
Speaker 1: bunch of anxiety in my boyfriend because A it was
Speaker 1: a long distance relationship, which is hard anyway, but B
Speaker 1: I was still a pretty big commitment fobe at the time,
Speaker 1: and he just had all of this anxiety and rightfully
Speaker 1: so that I kind of didn't want to be in
Speaker 1: a relationship, and so he was the one who was like, so,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're pulling away, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, And I hate it. I hate thinking
Speaker 1: back that it had to be him confronting me about
Speaker 1: my own failing, but yeah, that's just how it went.
Speaker 1: I'm a little more mature now. I was guilty of
Speaker 1: that as well. With relationship. UM, I really like the
Speaker 1: going back to parrel. How she refers to the direct
Speaker 1: closure um tactic as power parting, which reminded me of
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow's conscious uncoupling UM. And obviously, quote unquote power
Speaker 1: parting is the most mature way to end something um,
Speaker 1: and she she offers some tips and instead of ghosting,
Speaker 1: you could employ your power parting skills to say something like,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for what I've experienced with you. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is what I wish for you. Henceforward, which I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if hence is madece forward,
Speaker 1: although maybe if you say henceforward in a text of someone,
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, yeah, I don't think this will work
Speaker 1: out anyway. This is fine. I'll take the staying out
Speaker 1: of it, um. But it is understandable that in today's
Speaker 1: kind of micro dating economy, where those quote unquote relationships
Speaker 1: can begin and end on text, it's easy to convince
Speaker 1: ourselves that not necessary to send henceforth power parting message
Speaker 1: because we're just like, you know what this is. This
Speaker 1: is disposable. And I have witnessed some of my girlfriends
Speaker 1: who are on tender go through that of the rise
Speaker 1: and quick demise of a text only relationship where they
Speaker 1: can't even get to the in person date, which I
Speaker 1: think also speaks to rules that some psychologists have developed
Speaker 1: of you should you shouldn't text more than X number
Speaker 1: of times before you meet, or else you might just
Speaker 1: never meet in person. Yeah. I remember one like pseudo
Speaker 1: relationship that dude roommate went through where he actually did
Speaker 1: not meet this woman online. He met her quote unquote
Speaker 1: met her through friends and they exchanged emails. We literally
Speaker 1: we had nicknames for each other's like dating partners who
Speaker 1: didn't become relationships, so we called her email girl. And
Speaker 1: he literally exchanged emails, like intense long emails with this
Speaker 1: woman for weeks, and then I think they finally met
Speaker 1: and it was like, well, because then it's weird because
Speaker 1: you know so much about the person, but you literally
Speaker 1: have never even shaken hands. Okay, So there is a
Speaker 1: psychological term for that phenomenon, and I wish I could
Speaker 1: remember it off the top of my head, but it
Speaker 1: is verified in research. And I know I'm getting a
Speaker 1: little bit off topic, but it's really fascinating where in
Speaker 1: it is dangerous to engage in that kind of um
Speaker 1: non face to face contact for too long because you
Speaker 1: build up this idea of the other person and it
Speaker 1: kind of makes them a bit loftier than they really are.
Speaker 1: And then when you finally meet, usually more often than not,
Speaker 1: it is a little bit of a dud because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: but we had all this. Oh ways, you're actually like this. Well,
Speaker 1: to bring it full circle, I do believe he ghosted.
Speaker 1: He ghosted it, yeah, and twice twice. Oh yeah, he
Speaker 1: goes to email girl twice. Yeah, because then they came
Speaker 1: back to and then roommate. Oh the webs we weave.
Speaker 1: But ghosting has its defenders because of course there are
Speaker 1: so many pieces about like ghosting is the worst, but
Speaker 1: there are just as many in defense of ghosting. Admittedly,
Speaker 1: click baity blog post across the Internet. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: even an Atlantic think piece about it. I mean, is
Speaker 1: there anything that doesn't have an Atlantic think piece about it?
Speaker 1: In this point I was one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: on the internet. Um. But one of the better ones
Speaker 1: is from two thousand Thirteam over Its Flight, where Amanda
Speaker 1: has claims that unless you are in an established relationship,
Speaker 1: that ghosting is better than the slow fade, which is
Speaker 1: better than directly ending things yeah. She basically says, you
Speaker 1: should know better that because you've established with this other
Speaker 1: person a rhythm of communication, you should know that when
Speaker 1: that rhythm is upset, something is going on. And you know,
Speaker 1: ask yourself, are you the only one who's initiating texts?
Speaker 1: Does it take them forever to respond or they wishy washy?
Speaker 1: Pay attention? Because if these things are true, then the
Speaker 1: other person might not be that into it. And she
Speaker 1: says that the only reason that we were in ghosting
Speaker 1: is because we were hoping for a different outcome. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, And I think the dangers I
Speaker 1: don't disagree with her, but I think that danger zone
Speaker 1: is when your your brain tricks itself so easily into thinking, well, like,
Speaker 1: but things are, things were fine, and then now they're not,
Speaker 1: and so surely like this is just a blip, and
Speaker 1: like they still want to talk to me, but they
Speaker 1: must be busy. And she also wrote something that jumped
Speaker 1: out to me about how quote unquote closure is not
Speaker 1: as useful as we might think it is, because, as
Speaker 1: she writes, the vast majority of explanatory breakup texts are
Speaker 1: just more lives shout out into the cloud in an
Speaker 1: effort to protect us from the sta stickle reality. A
Speaker 1: few casual flings materialized into lasting romantic relationships, and there's
Speaker 1: no particular reason why that's the case. And that's some
Speaker 1: real talk. That is some real talk. Yeah, when she
Speaker 1: said that, I was like, yeah, that's right, because even
Speaker 1: if even if you were literally breaking up face to
Speaker 1: face and you say, you know, but I hope we
Speaker 1: can still be friends now you don't know, uh, you
Speaker 1: know you're a great person. Well clearly not that great,
Speaker 1: you know, like just yeah, save it, just save it.
Speaker 1: And and so I I can understand and respect that.
Speaker 1: But she does say, like, if you're gonna ghost, you
Speaker 1: better ghost hard. You better not like come crawling back
Speaker 1: like we mentioned earlier, like don't ghost and then, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, several months later, when the person has
Speaker 1: started dating someone else, send them a Facebook message telling
Speaker 1: them how much they kick ass and they're so awesome. No,
Speaker 1: that's the way to get yourself sent to Facebook block town. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree that if you're going to go so you
Speaker 1: gotta ghost hard do it. I think that that's like
Speaker 1: way less cruel than coming back, because to me, if
Speaker 1: you ghost on someone and then you come back, that
Speaker 1: just says that you like, don't entirely respect the other
Speaker 1: person because you left them on the back burner, went
Speaker 1: to check out some other options probably and when those
Speaker 1: things fell through, you're like, oh, I got all reliable
Speaker 1: back here. M. Yeah, yeah, I don't like it. I
Speaker 1: don't like it. I mean, there are situations when someone
Speaker 1: needs to ghost a relationship, perhaps because they have stuff
Speaker 1: going on in their personal life. They need to work
Speaker 1: it out, they need to be with themselves and do
Speaker 1: them for a while. And I completely respect that, but
Speaker 1: I think that there's a way to handle that in
Speaker 1: a way that you aren't staying a person along. You
Speaker 1: can be honest, you can't have what is it, a
Speaker 1: power close, um, and you aren't just confusing matters more
Speaker 1: for that other person in the meantime, because Esther Perel
Speaker 1: also pointed out that the power close is also a
Speaker 1: way to help stave off that resent that that like
Speaker 1: almost hatred that can come up when someone's been ghosted,
Speaker 1: because you do feel like I've been tricked, I've been dooped,
Speaker 1: You're getting away with something, um, you know. And and
Speaker 1: so as much as it's understandable that that can be
Speaker 1: a really difficult conversation, for both sides, both parties. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it is a sign of maturity to be able to
Speaker 1: tell the person like, Hey, you know, you're great, you're cool,
Speaker 1: it's just not my thing, not gonna happen. And you
Speaker 1: know what, if you are on the receiving end of
Speaker 1: a power close, I recommend you turn around, put on
Speaker 1: some power clothes, and get back to it. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: put on the blazer with a strong shoulder and you'll
Speaker 1: be fine. Feel great. But we would also be remiss
Speaker 1: to not mention that there is a more serious side
Speaker 1: of ghosting that probably deserves the same kind of media
Speaker 1: attention to the whole ghosting in the context of just
Speaker 1: not texting back after the third date. Because when I
Speaker 1: was researching for this episode, I ended up on a
Speaker 1: really intense Reddit thread about ghosting, and it consisted largely
Speaker 1: of people's stories about quote unquote ghosting, abusive home lives
Speaker 1: and relationships. This is a big deal. This is a
Speaker 1: big deal that I don't think should be clumped in
Speaker 1: with like, oh, we went on some dates and then
Speaker 1: he didn't call me back, Like, this is a huge
Speaker 1: deal for people who are escaping abusive relationships, Like you
Speaker 1: have to be able to safely cut off contact to
Speaker 1: get yourself to a safe place, you know, make sure
Speaker 1: that you're not uh followed or tracked or stocked or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Like, there's so many horrible, dangerous situations
Speaker 1: that people need to be able to extricate themselves from
Speaker 1: that are so much different from the conversation of just dating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways, like we could use
Speaker 1: more resources for those kinds of destructive situations when it
Speaker 1: is imperative that you quote unquote ghost because you have
Speaker 1: to disappear. That's the only way that you can remain safe. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So kind of a downer note to end it on.
Speaker 1: But I think one that is really important that we
Speaker 1: mentioned as well, because there are you know, those scenarios
Speaker 1: are so real and it's not just ghosting from uh,
Speaker 1: you know, romantic relationships, but also a lot of stories
Speaker 1: about people you know, needing to leave abuse of parents
Speaker 1: and other family members. UM. So I really hope that, um,
Speaker 1: if that is resonating with you, um, that there are
Speaker 1: resources available for you and that you've been able to
Speaker 1: find help, and if you need any direction to some resources,
Speaker 1: please don't hesitate to reach out to us. And we'd
Speaker 1: also be interested to hear from our listeners who are
Speaker 1: in same sex relationships. You know, we mentioned earlier on
Speaker 1: the podcast that this is not so much a man
Speaker 1: thing or a woman thing as it tends to be
Speaker 1: just a person who's afraid of conflict thing. So I
Speaker 1: am interested to hear from our listeners in all types
Speaker 1: of relationships. If you've experienced ghosting, if you've been the
Speaker 1: ghost er, and you know what happened. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: because according to our somewhat debunked stereotypes, guys and same
Speaker 1: sex relationships would probably goes the most, whereas women in
Speaker 1: same sex relationships would have more power partings, but or
Speaker 1: power parties, I don't know, but we want to hear
Speaker 1: you're ghosting stories because I know y'all got them. Mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com is where you
Speaker 1: can send your emails. You can also tweet us at
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcasts or messages on Facebook. And we've got
Speaker 1: a couple of messages to share with you. And we
Speaker 1: come right back from a quick break. I have a
Speaker 1: letter here from Vanessa that's referring back to an episode
Speaker 1: in our archive, and she says that ever since your
Speaker 1: best for perspective, I've been making my way through your
Speaker 1: last year's episodes, and recently I stumbled upon your Star
Speaker 1: Gazers to part. I found these two episodes particularly interesting
Speaker 1: because I was at one time an aspiring lady astronomer myself.
Speaker 1: I studied physics and astronomy at a well esteem liberal
Speaker 1: arts college in the Northeast, completed a prestigious summer research internship,
Speaker 1: and graduated with high honors, and then promptly talked myself
Speaker 1: out of a career in astronomy. What Looking back, I
Speaker 1: think this was due in large part to a dearth
Speaker 1: of role models in the field. The overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: professors in my stem classes were mail, and as you noted,
Speaker 1: even the rock stars of science communication tend to be men. Moreover,
Speaker 1: astronomy seems to be particularly unkind to women, a fact
Speaker 1: that has been thrust into the public eye lately amidst
Speaker 1: multiple charges of sexual harassment of prestigious universities. At the
Speaker 1: tender age of twenty two, after years and years of
Speaker 1: full time schooling, I simply wasn't prepared to embark upon
Speaker 1: the uphill battle I knew I would face if I
Speaker 1: were to continue along in academia. All commately, I did
Speaker 1: find a way to incorporate my love of the cosmos
Speaker 1: as a science writer for a popular astronomy easy and
Speaker 1: currently make my bread and butter doing communications for an
Speaker 1: academic research institute. I do still toy with the idea
Speaker 1: of continuing my schooling and astronomy. As more and more
Speaker 1: women in STEM makes significant inroads in the academic community,
Speaker 1: I feel more and more strongly that I'd like to
Speaker 1: be one of those women who makes entrance into the
Speaker 1: science is easier for the next generation. Your podcast has
Speaker 1: inspired me to start thinking seriously about the next steps
Speaker 1: in my career and the ways that I might be
Speaker 1: able to become the kind of role model that I
Speaker 1: wish I had had access to years ago. Thank you
Speaker 1: for being such fantastic role models yourselves, and for highlighting
Speaker 1: so many powerful, inspiring women every week. Keep up the
Speaker 1: amazing work. Thank you, Vanessa, and you keep up your
Speaker 1: work too well. I have an older email here as well,
Speaker 1: from Jill in reference to our podcasts on anxiety, and
Speaker 1: she wrote, I've been an avid listener of your podcast
Speaker 1: for years, but this is the first time I decided
Speaker 1: I had to write you thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your podcast on anxiety to say that it hit home
Speaker 1: would be an understatement. I'm a thirty six year old
Speaker 1: woman who has been battling for several years with depression
Speaker 1: and anxiety, and so many of the points you made
Speaker 1: were exactly what I grapple with anxiety, hangover check worsen
Speaker 1: anxiety during the first week of the menstrual cycle check.
Speaker 1: But this was the first time I had ever heard anyone,
Speaker 1: including the doctors and therapist I had seen over the years,
Speaker 1: say so, I've been feeling so alone and just assuming
Speaker 1: I was broken that there was something wrong with me.
Speaker 1: Why can't I just be happy? You two gave me hope.
Speaker 1: The closest thing to a diagnosis I had was long
Speaker 1: term postpartum depression, but the double guilt factor of both
Speaker 1: feeling like having my child caused me to slide down
Speaker 1: the dark side and feeling like a terrible mother have
Speaker 1: made dealing with all of this even more challenging. I
Speaker 1: tried to do the math to see if I could
Speaker 1: tell you both how many women are just like me
Speaker 1: who heard your podcast and felt acknowledged, because I know
Speaker 1: there are more of me now. Thank to you, needless
Speaker 1: to say, I'm grateful and adore you both. For years
Speaker 1: of joy and information you've given me. Thanks to you
Speaker 1: with all my heart, Jill, Well, thank you, Jill. That
Speaker 1: means so much that you would take the time to
Speaker 1: write us, and we're just so thrilled to know that
Speaker 1: the podcast has been a resource for you, so dear listeners,
Speaker 1: we want to keep hearing from you as well. Mom
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email
Speaker 1: address and for links to all of our social media
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