'Ghostlighting' Is The Cruel New Dating Trend That Makes You Question What's Real

Communication Skills Are Lacking: 

If you’re being ghostlighted, you’re dealing with someone who may be conflict-avoidant. When someone ghosts you, there’s a high chance that they’re avoiding a difficult or uncomfortable conversation, or they may find it challenging to express their feelings, so they choose to disappear instead.

Once their feelings have been processed, days or even weeks later, they could turn up and not think it’s worth rehashing.

They’re Spinning the Block: 

Easily the worst reason of all is a ghostlighter could be trying to see if they can spin the block on you or give you another try. When someone ghostlights you and doesn’t care to mention the reason for their disappearance or apologize for the impact it may have caused, it’s a clear sign of emotional manipulation.

In this case, they could have ghosted you to focus on their “number one” choice, and after things didn’t work out, they’re coming back around to see if there’s still an opportunity to “retry” things with you. And if that happens to be the case: run.

Life Happened: 

Sometimes life’s circumstances can truly get the best of us, and when that happens, we can either face it or run in the complete opposite direction.

Whether they were feeling the pressure from their job, family issues arose, or they hit a bout of depression and didn’t know how to share the news, the needs of their personal life might have taken precedence over that of their romantic responsibilities.

While it sucks to feel like an afterthought in someone’s list of priorities, try your best not to take it personally — after all, it wasn’t you, it was life.

How To Move Forward From Being Ghostlighted

Whatever the case and cause of your ghostlighing experience may be, it’s important to take time to reflect on how it made you feel without internalizing it as a character flaw on your end. Sometimes, a potential match may not work out, but no one deserves to be left wondering “why” or made to believe it never happened in the first place.

When you’ve been ghostlighted, and that person re-enters your life, pause and reflect about how you’d like to respond, stand in your truth, and don’t allow them to fuel any more new feelings of confusion. You know what’s real, and it’s up to you whether you cut them off completely or just need to set proper communication boundaries for what you will and won’t tolerate.

Whatever course of action you choose to take, just remember that no one gets to shape your reality but you.

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