- We go across the street for lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

We sit down, we order, she says, I need to go feed my parking meter.

My car's a block away.

She leaves the restaurant and never comes back and never responds to my text or anything.

I was wondering if she'd actually been killed.

- Welcome to Forum, I'm Mina Kim.

We've probably all been there, had a potential romantic partner stop responding to our messages or friends drop out of text chats without explanation, or colleagues and clients abruptly end an email exchange.

The act of ghosting has become so common these days.

It's almost expected, yet it can feel really bad.

It can hurt and anger us or leave us spinning.

Listeners, have you ever been ghosted or ghosted someone?

And what do you think it says about how we relate to each other today?

Joining me to dig into those questions.

Dominic Pettman, professor of Media and new humanities at The New School, and author of "Ghosting: On Modern Disappearance."

Welcome to Forum, Dominic.

- Thanks so much, Mina.

It's really great to be here.

- Lizzie Post is also with us great-great granddaughter of Emily Post and co-host of the awesome etiquette podcast.

Lizzie, welcome to Forum.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- So glad to have you both.

And Dominic, I'll start with you.

We should note as you do in your book, that the phenomenon of ghosting is not new.

People have dropped communications, stood them up on dates.

You even had an uncle years ago just disappear completely for a while, right?

- More than a while.

I still don't really know if he's alive or dead.

- Oh, wow.

- Yeah, I was only about seven at the time.

He decided he'd had enough for whatever reason and changed his name, moved to a whole new country and yeah, no, no, no word since.

So that was an impressive thing for a young boy to witness to see.

On the one hand, it was sad.

Obviously you don't want a family member to just disappear of their, well ever, but as of their own accord, there's something also impressive about it.

Being able to just deci I, oh, you can just leave.

I didn't know that was an option.

So I guess that foregrounds kind of the both sides of the ghosting, the kind of painful side of the people you leave behind and the liberating side of the ghoster themselves.

- Yeah.

And, and those moments or those events were big deals.

How do you define it in its modern form with it being so common?

- Right.

Well, that's the big question is we seem to be in a transitional phase.

I mean, obviously people have left without word, abandoned each other, disappeared since the beginning of humans.

But it has a new valence these days with the mediascape, with all the tools of technologies of communication.

As I say in the book, as soon as you invent texting, you invent not texting.

And, and so it's a big question to the degree to which it will become normalized.

And even maybe, I'm very interested to hear what Lizzie says about the etiquette of it all, because we might have to invent rules of disengagement as opposed to engagement.

I I, I did hear that "Caspering" is apparently a friendly form of ghosting.

Perhaps that's, you give a little more, give a little more warning to the, to the person.

I'm not sure.

But yeah, there are different degrees of it.

There are different types, active and passive, but certainly the digital tools and the platforms and just the types of behaviors they encourage makes it harder to be there for specific people, but maybe for just the population in general.

And so I don't know where it's going.

I do fear that it might become just like I, I think the pain is a good sign.

The fact that we still feel that it's a big deal when someone close disappears.

I mean, I guess it's game over for humanity if we just let each other drift past each other completely.

Like, well, like ghosts.

- Well, let me invite listeners in.

You can join the conversation at (866) 733-6786 because I'm curious about what Dominic was just saying about why you think ghosting is growing as a phenomenon, becoming even more common or expected.

And if you have ever ghosted someone, did you try to do it in a Caspering way?

Like how did you do it?

Or if you've been ghosted, how did that feel?

You can email forum at kqed.org, find us on Discord, blue sky, Facebook, Instagram or Threads, at K-Q-E-D forum, or again, call us (866) 733-6786.

Lizzie, I'd love to get your thoughts too, on what you think has given rise to this, why we are doing this more today.

And as Dominic brought up, you know, the devices we have to communicate with each other have brought this on.

But in what ways do you think, - Well, I think one of the things we face is that, you know, you used to just have a telephone at your house, and now you have that phone in your pocket with you all the time.

And the idea that someone could reach you any old time of day, no matter what you are up to, whether it's a convenient time for you to respond or not, I think has led to us understanding a bit more that it could take someone a little bit to get back to you, you know, that, that I might not have texted at an opportune time.

I think depending on the relationship that you have with that person, a big old question mark starts to, to form in your mind the longer that the ghosting has happened, or longer that the non responses has taken.

And I think a lot of us, you know, I mean, it's that wonderful word, busy that pops up everywhere.

We feel busy.

We don't always feel like we have that moment to reply correctly or to get all our ducks in a row to reply with the information needed.

And so that lag time is something we're both more familiar with.

And I think that that, that, that really leads to us being a bit more forgiving about ghosting.

But when it then happens in that hurtful way, not that just kind of passive, oh, it, you know, they didn't get back to me within 24 hours, you know, that's okay, but they did finally get back to me.

Or when they get back to you, but they've ignored the thing that you've actually just, you know, that they were responding to and just said something else entirely.

I think we start to question, was it something I said?

Was it something I did?

What was it about that text?

Did they just miss it?

I don't know.

Do you really just miss things in your phone?

It, it starts to bring up so many insecurities, and I think that's where we can use our behavior to try to soften some of those insecurities, acknowledge the thing that we missed, not just leave it there hanging, but be pro- a little more proactive about it.

- Yeah.

Actually, Dominic, you have noted that even though the, sometimes the attempt at ghosting is to do a quick clean break, that actually the person who's been ghosted can really spin on it longer because there's no real closure in disappearance.

- Yes.

Like it, it can be social purgatory in a way you're - Yeah, that's a good term.

And this is one of the ironies is that even though they've absented themselves from your life, the figure in the memories, it almost makes them loom larger because you don't have that closure.

You don't have that explanation.

So I guess Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens abandoned at the altar, still wearing the wedding dress many years later, is, I hope most of us aren't that extreme when it comes to our reaction to it, but we all kind of feel that way inside.

If someone meaningful to us just suddenly doesn't respond to our attempts at communication anymore.

So I, I play a lot in the book with the kind of dynamic between absence and presence.

So, and that's something that the new technologies have also really brought to the fore, is that often some of the most meaningful relationships you have are through text, through avatars, through the internet.

They're not actually there present, but they are psychologically, existentially present, metaphysically present even.

So the something that there is something spectral about new media and the what's physical and what's metaphysical, isn't that clear.

So I argue that you can even be ghosted by someone in the same room as you if they're emotionally unavailable, for instance.

So it's, it's not about actual proximity, but it's about this, this very Yes.

A kind of heavy concept, I guess, of being present for each other, for showing as, as other, as people say.

- Yeah.

But it is true too that, you know, these technologies have given us the possibilities for so many connections.

And sometimes, as you say, those connections that are digital can feel very strong and, and more meaningful than even the face-to-face connections in our lives or someone in the same room.

But it also means that it's a really convenient way or easy way to shut it down, right?

If the relationship is started in the digital space, it's also very easy to end in the digital space.

- That's why it's so jarring, right?

Yeah.

The, the kind of swipe feature of the dating apps, I suppose, can be applied to everyday life.

So as we know, the distinction between offline and online doesn't make that much sense anymore.

So as soon as the big tech made it possible to swipe a human being off your screen without feeling any kind of remorse or in post humanity, I think we were preparing ourselves to do that to each other, even outside the, the protocols of the software.

- Well, this listener writes, I'm part of a bunch of group chats, and it can get overwhelming.

There's one thread of local acquaintances that I'm part of, but rarely participate in.

Someone is always sending a message about meeting up on a weeknight or suggesting weekend events.

I love knowing what people are up to, but sometimes I get self-conscious about whether I'm actually invited.

Should I be acknowledging every single message is being a casual texter?

Okay.

Lizzie, that sounds like one for you.

- I think it depends on the group dynamic, you know, and it's, it's one of those where if someone is putting an invitation out to a, a group chat like that, I would assume that everyone in that group chat is invited and that you could feel confident saying, oh, oh, I would love to come to something like this, you know?

But beyond that, I think it's, it's, it's really, I think it's really tough in our digital age because we feel so insecure about these spaces so often.

That's one that really gets me with it.

I have a, a girlfriend group chat, and the, there's one girlfriend who really seems to be able to garner responses to invitations.

And I was really wondering like, how does she do it?

Because there are times where I'll invite people to something and it's just crickets, and the chat just moves on and you're like, oh, it didn't work.

Yeah.

But, you know, you feel a little bit that pain from childhood, like, oh, no one's coming to my birthday party.

Like, you know?

Yeah.

But I think that there are real spaces that we operate in, and the more we can take care with our behavior and actually pay attention to the flow of that conversation, who's asking what and respond to it, I think the better off we are.

- But the listener also brings up something interesting, Dominic, in the overwhelm, which you've noted as well, you write, we all look down on people who ghost, and yet we are all obliged to deploy this option on semi-regular occasions given the overconnected world in which we live.

So that makes it, that makes it more understandable too, right?

I mean, people do have a lot of expectations for connection now, - Right, And the sociologist Robin Dunbar noted a number that we're su- the, the sort of maximum number of any organic community, and that's 150, and obviously we are all meant to juggle more than 150 people.

- We're talking with Dominic Pettman, a professor of media and new humanities at The New School, who's written a book about ghosting, and with Lizzie Post, great, great granddaughter of Emily Post, co-host of the Awesome Etiquette podcast, about the phenomenon of ghosting.

And we'll have more with them and you after the break.

I'm Mina Kim.

Welcome back to Forum, I'm Mina Kim.

We're talking about ghosting this hour, the abrupt end of communication that many of us have experienced, whether it's a date who drops off the map, or a client who never replies to your emails.

Maybe even that moment when you've glanced at a parent or friend's text message and forgot to text back for a while.

We're talking about how it makes us feel and how it affects us in society, what it says about where we are right now when it comes to interaction.

Dominic Pettman has written a book about this called "Ghosting on Modern Disappearance," a Professor of Media and New Humanities at The New School.

And Lizzie Post is co-host of the Awesome Etiquette podcast and co-president of the Emily Post Institute.

And you, our listeners are sharing if you've been ghosted and how that felt, have you ever ghosted someone even tried to maybe reconnect later?

Do you think it's ever acceptable to ghost?

And if so, in what situations?

Email forum@kqed.org.

Post on our social channels at KQED Forum, or call us at (866) 733-6786 And lemme go to Mark in San Francisco.

Hi, Mark.

You're on.

- Yeah.

Hi there.

Here's my experience.

I'm on a third date with a woman I meet online.

We go to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, walk around, connect on the art that we like.

We then go to Green Apple books on Clement, walk around, look at books, connect on the literature that we like, and we go across the street for lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

We sit down, we order, she says, I need to go feed my parking meter.

My car's a block away.

She leaves the restaurant and never comes back and never responds to my text or anything.

I was wondering if she'd actually been killed.

- Wow.

- And then two and a half years later, she texted me an apology from Britain.

- Wow.

Do you mind, Mark, if I ask you how it made you feel to get that text two and a half years later?

Like, did it make you feel better?

- It actually didn't, to be perfectly honest.

I mean, it, it, it just was, you know, a text texted apology from 7,000 miles away didn't actually heal the wound necessarily, but I guess I'm glad I got it.

But yeah, it felt bad at the time.

The apology didn't help too much.

Maybe it helped a little bit.

- Well, Mark, thank you so much for sharing that, and I'm really sorry to hear that that happened to you, you know, two and a half years ago, Dominic.

So, you know, I wanted to ask you about what you feel like our thinking that we could, in Mark's case, like physically ghost someone like this, you know, what that's indicative of in our society?

- Yeah, I, there was a, a different sociologist called Sigmund Bauman who wrote about liquid modernity arguing that all our physical bonds are starting to dissolve.

And he, he even wrote a, an a, an update called Liquid Love.

And I suppose, I mean, it's, it is this idea that there's just so many options now that the, with the menus of, I mean, as we said, we have so many connections and that, I call it the Netflix syndrome.

You spend most of your time kind of browsing and never committing to an actual show.

And I think more people watch the menu of Netflix than any particular show.

So I think there's something about this, the sheer dizzying potential on offer that makes us turn our own lives into a kind of shuffle button.

And we, you know, we're, we're not great at being present, making the most of a moment.

It's the opposite of, what was that Crosby Stills, the Nash song.

If you Can't Be with the One You Love, love the one you're with.

Ooh, the dog's not the dog are a ghost.

- The dog agrees, or - The dog are a ghost.

But, but one thing I really did want to make clear in the book is that there's a lot of things that go to psychology around this and individuality, and I think this is, these are systemic issues, and the, and the more we can, I know it's hard, very hard, but to take these things personally, I, if anyone can read my book and then feel like it's, understand that this is a holistic social problem, it, it's not, then maybe we take the, we don't second guess so much and become insecure as Lizzie was talking and think it's a reflection of us as a person, as an individual.

It's, it's more a symptom of the way that we're asked to relate to each other now, which is kind of impossible as just, you know, thou interfacing with thousands of human beings on a, in a weekly basis, and then trying to be there for all of them.

- Do, do you think, you know, sort of the watered down effect that can happen with digital relationships has decreased our sort of sense of social responsibility to each other, the responsibility to engage or interact in ways that are more meaningful?

- Well, yes, and I mean, I'm gonna do that annoying professor thing and say yes and no, because I, I think people are making all sorts of great commitments and, and, and finding causes and connections thanks to social media.

So I don't want to be fully nostalgic about how wonderful things were pre the internet and how people were there for each other.

I start the book with the, that popular film from a few years ago, "The Banshees of Inisherin" because it's about a very small, organic community.

And, you know, one person gets fed up with his best friend and says, I don't want to talk to you anymore, even though they, there's only one pub in the whole county.

So I, I, I do think we need to relearn attention, like social media and things have turned us all into squirrels, and that's not good for, you know, paying, sustained, nourishing attention to our projects, our collaborators, our, you know, our loved ones.

So it, it's, the whole world is designed to, you know, frack our attention.

And I think that, that, yeah, it seems to be much more about quantity over quality.

- Lizzie, Mark brought up something else that I wanted to explore with you, which is sometimes an apology or an acknowledgement of something.

I mean, in his case it was two and a half years later, so that was a pretty significant amount of time.

But it can not have the effect of soothing the person who was ghosted and, and maybe even be interpreted as, 'cause I've heard this as well from people who have gotten acknowledgement after someone ghosted them for a while, as more self-serving for the ghoster, right.

To make themselves feel better.

So if you have done this to somebody and you do feel bad about it, and your goal is to make the person you ghosted feel a little better, do you have any thoughts on how best to acknowledge what you did?

- I mean, I think a, a good apology is an important place to start.

And even as Mark acknowledged it, it helped a tiny bit maybe to know that she thought it was wrong too, you know, to finally hear that like, yeah, the way you treated me was bad.

Thank you.

It doesn't make the bad feeling go away or the memory of it any better.

I mean, he still has a whole lot of questions about what happened.

I'm, I'm no psychologist, but, but I think it speaks so much to our fear of delivering rejection more, more than anything else, even maybe, than just her being that insecure about telling him, this isn't working out for me.

I, you know, I'm so sorry, but I like, I've, I've had a nice time, but I, I've, I don't really wanna move forward with this.

I hope you can understand those kinds of things.

We seem to have such a hard time delivering, and I think that Dominic brings it up well when we've been conditioned to just swipe the other direction, you know, and quietly let someone go without them even knowing when you're actually engaging with another person that's not polite like you do, I think have a social obligation to deliver that.

"I'm sorry, this isn't working for me.

I hope you can understand" and then move on from it.

Mark might not have felt great about that in the moment if it had happened, you know, at the end of the lunch, but I think he would've felt more respected in the situation.

Mark, I don't wanna speak for you, but I'm just guessing.

But I think that that's, that's an important aspect here, that we really stink at rejecting people and delivering bad news or, or bad anything that might make the other person feel harm.

We seem to run away from it so scared that we actually cause more harm.

- I think caller Hank is having some similar thoughts.

Hank, join us.

You're on.

- Hi.

Yeah, I was gonna say pretty much the same thing.

I, I've been ghosted and I've felt the temptation to ghost in dating context, and it always comes down to a fear of the other person's disappointment and sadness.

- Hmm.

Yeah.

And, and I think it underscores the point as you were saying, Dominic, that it's important to maybe recognize that this is not necessarily a personal judgment about us.

Let me go next to caller Winston in Oakland.

Hi, Winston.

You're on.

- Hi.

I think something that a lot of men don't understand about dating women is that way too often when women reject men, the men become nasty, mean and even violent.

And I think something that we, you know, women can't, they, they have no way of knowing most of the time if a man will become nasty, mean or violent, so the safer option for them is to ghost, right?

So I think something that as, as men in particular, but I guess everybody, you know, if you get rejected, thank the person who's rejecting you and say, Hey, thanks a lot.

We had a great first date or whatever, I had a great time.

You're a lovely, beautiful person, you know, good luck in the future.

And then 90% of the time the person will respond to that and be like, Hey, thanks, you too.

Good luck out there.

You know, - Winston, I really appreciate you bringing up that point because I do hear this a lot too, and from women who are dating men who say that sometimes the only way to get the message across to this person who, who may, you know, be very entitled and not really reading your other cues, that this is the, the best way to do it.

Right?

So Lizzie, there are legitimate reasons, maybe even preferable to ghost.

- Yeah.

And we would always say at Emily Post that safety supersedes etiquette.

If you're getting that vibe, then you do what you need to do.

Like put the politeness aside for a minute and you do what's gonna make you feel safe.

I, I have experienced those kinds of horror stories and they are terrifying.

I have read about worse versions of them, and they're even more terrifying, and I'm, I'm just so grateful that you brought this up because I wasn't even thinking about this in this conversation, and yet that's happened to me before.

- Yeah.

And, and Dominic, you also talked about how sometimes ghosting can even be merciful, like say in the employment context, there was this study that found that people, you know, who applied for a job and, you know, had some minimal interaction with the potential employer and then was ghosted and, and not chosen for the position and never heard anything back from that person, that actually the people who heard back and heard the reasons they weren't chosen felt worse than the people who were just ghosted, - Right?

Yeah.

It, it's, it is morally ambiguous.

We tend to think of the ghoster as, as a villain figure, but as we've just been very importantly reminded, reminded that there are, there are certainly reasons for it, feminist ones for sure.

There's, there's quite a bit of literature around that.

The feminist case for ghosting and some men's magazines and things have even been trying to do exactly what Winston was saying and helping men learn to take rejection better.

But in the, this is one thing I also wanted to stress is that it's not just a romantic thing.

I, as I started with the family example, but it's also expanding out into the professional world.

Whatever business you're in, I'm sure you've been ghosted by a client or a boss or a colleague, and it's becoming more and more prevalent.

In fact, the ghosting in the definition, we think of it today, showed up in the Oxford English dictionary in 2012, and that was a tweet actually, and the context was an interview.

Somebody just said, oh, I ghosted an interview.

So that was the sort of, that was the founding moment of the - Wow, the term, - The way we think of ghosting - Yeah.

In modern life.

- Yeah.

And it was, it was a business, it was a professional context.

And I, I think also things like ghost kitchens, ghost newspapers, there's that new sitcom about, about that and how even the institutions and the places and the services that we took for granted are just kind of evaporating or our favorite haunts, as it were, ghosting us, which is ironic.

I suppose.

- Yeah.

Dominic, though, what should people keep in mind about the stakes of ghosting in the workplace?

- Oh, wow.

I hadn't, I hadn't really thought about that.

I mean, it's, it's, part of it is systemic, again, I keep blaming the, the system, don't I?

But it's, sometimes it is, there's only three employee, like one employee dealing with a thousand applications or something.

I guess we'll have AI, won't we?

We'll have AI be stepping in and, and doing the stuff we should have been doing all this time and telling people, you know, at least doing we'll have, we'll outsource our etiquette to our machines - With so much remote work.

Lizzie, I'm wondering how long we should reasonably expect to wait for a response before we consider ourselves ghosted in a professional context.

- Oh, it's so tough.

It really depends on the actual context of the communication, right?

Something that needs to be happening this week that doesn't get a reply could fail an entire project.

Other times, you know, long term projects that you're hoping to get off the ground might take years, and you might have anywhere from three to six months to 18 months between a communication, but it doesn't mean the project is dead.

I've got one of those kicking around in my own life, and the, the director reached out, she said, I just want you to know we've got meetings coming up in December.

They just keep getting pushed back.

It's like, Hey, glad to know that's still out there.

Yeah, that's useful to hear.

I'm going to write a column this week, you know what I mean?

But I was interested to hear what Dominic said about when, when applicants were offered, the reasons why they weren't chosen.

They didn't like that.

We often hear from folks that they don't wanna hear silence.

That a a no, but maybe not a no with all the reasons why is the appropriate way for the application process to be working the interview process.

- I did have one excellent anecdote from my world.

The academic world is a, a friend traveled across the country to chair a panel at a conference, three people, 8:00 AM the dreaded 8:00 AM panel, and none of the other people showed up with no warning, no explanation.

And so this guy who traveled there just to chair the session, just made conversation with the audience.

So, so, so that's pretty extreme one from, from my corner of the world, but oh yeah, you just, yeah.

It, it seems to be more and more common.

- The only silver lining I can think after that is that person really learned a valuable skill to deal with a situation, how to pivot.

Lemme go to call her Elizabeth and Santa Rosa.

Hi, Elizabeth, you're on.

- Hi, I, I just wanted to call in and say it's a great topic and I, I, I think the gentleman that was speaking before touched on it, but I, I have ghosted before in the dating world, and I feel awful about it.

And it is, it comes from a place of just being scared of the response of the gentleman that I would be rejecting because I've had a few pretty, pretty lousy ones.

And then it makes you scared to do it again, and then you make the ultimate bad move and you hurt someone's feeling.

So anyway, I really appreciate the topic and I just wanted to chime in with that too, - Elizabeth.

Thanks, thanks for sharing that.

And, and you know, and Dominic again, you have brought up the ghosting can be necessary, even merciful when compared to a prolonged fade or a slow drip of, from a more superficial relationship that you have.

And that's called bread crumbing, - Apparently.

Yeah, I mean, there are forms of emotional manipulation.

I also, I mean, the, the other figure as opposed to the ghost is the zombie, right?

And because digital media has made relationships so easy to continue in this very light, superficial way, some relationships go in much longer than they perhaps even should, because it's so easy to just send a, an emoji once a week or something.

And I suppose that's a form of bread crumbing.

And, and the, you know, the unkind version would be this is a zombie relationship perhaps, and maybe it's time to transition to a ghost.

- I don't know.

Well, this listener on discord writes.

I remember several years ago, I stopped responding to a guy texting me because I wasn't interested after meeting him once, he confronted me via text asked if I was interested and needed me to communicate so he wouldn't waste his time.

I responded and was embarrassed that my spineless attempt to disappear was so obviously immature.

We're talking about ghosting, how to handle it, how it feels, and what it says about how we relate to each other these days, that ghosting has almost come to be expected.

We're talking about it with Dominic Pettman and Lizzie Post, and with you, our listeners, more after the break.

I'm Mina Kim.

You're listening to Forum.

I'm Mina Kim.

Technology makes it easier to disappear without a word, despite how bad we all know it feels, ghosting has become more commonplace and more expected, the abrupt end of communication that many us have, many of us have experienced.

And we're talking about the effects of this and whether or not you've been ghosted or if you've ghosted someone, if you think it's acceptable to ghost and in what situations and why you think ghosting is more common or expected.

You can email forum@kqed.org, find us on Discord, blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, or Threads at KQED Forum, or call us at (866) 733-6786 to join the conversation with Lizzie Post, great, great granddaughter of Emily Post and co-host of the Awesome Etiquette podcast.

And Dominic Pettman, a professor of media and new humanities at The New School, author of "Ghosting: on Modern Disappearance."

Let me go to Maria in Newark.

Hi, Maria, you're on.

Join us.

- Hi, good morning.

I just, you know, I'm listening to the show.

I wanted to just give a little quick breakdown of what happens to me when I ghost people.

I do have a mental illness and you know, everybody knows it in my family, so I am bipolar and I just tend to, you know, ghost them even when they're checking up on me.

I'll ghost them and then that'll prompt them to come and probably bring me a Starbucks and, hey, how you're doing?

And if I'm doing okay, then that's the end of that visit because they know I like to be alone.

It's, it's nothing against anybody or anything, it's just sometimes I'm up to it, sometimes I'm not.

And I mean, as long as I have the right people in my corner, they know to go check on me if I'm being distant.

And if I'm not and I want to go out, they're the type that will go pick me up and we'll go do something to keep that kind of, like, that motivation going until like, my body can't, or my brain will say, Hey, you gotta stop for a few days, but I have good people in my corner and, and I know it's ghosting, but I don't think with having the people that really love me and try to take care of me, consider it ghosting, I don't know if that makes any sense.

- Oh, absolutely.

- To me it does.

To me it does because I have the right people there.

And for a minute, I didn't have the right people there.

So, you know, the, the downside of being bipolar, you don't wanna do anything, would just drag out.

So now it's just, I always call it like minor episodes and then boom, I have a cousin, I have an aunt, I have, you know, a friend, come on, get up, get dressed, let's go.

And so it's a different type of ghosting, but it's still ghosting.

- Well, Maria, I, I so appreciate you telling us that story.

And it also underscores, Lizzie, what Dominic was saying earlier about, you know, we don't always know the reasons that it's happening, and oftentimes it's really not about the person who's being ghosted themselves, so extending some empathy, or at least the benefit of the doubt to those who disappear on us.

- Exactly.

Sometimes it's just done some subconsciously.

It's not like, oh, this morning I'm gonna be mean, I'm gonna, it just, it happens.

Maria, thanks.

I really appreciate it.

And Lizzie, what do you think about that?

Thank you for calling, just in terms of how, how we can try to reframe it for ourselves when we're ghosted and feeling some of the things that we were describing earlier in the show about how painful it can be.

- I think that what the caller brings up is so relatable.

Even if you're not experiencing it from a, a mental health standpoint, we can all have times where we're feeling, you know, very overwhelmed and we need to withdraw and, and some of us recharge our batteries by withdrawing and taking that break and stepping away.

And I think it's important for the person on the other end who's in this case being, and I'm gonna say quote unquote ghosted.

'cause I think it's very unintentional, ghosting.

It doesn't have that.

I'm trying to completely distance myself from you purposefully and forever feel to it.

It's something that, that we can all be a bit more understanding about.

I know I've certainly gone through times in my life where things are just overwhelming and even when a friend reaches out to say hi, sometimes you just don't have it in you that day to respond and say, Hey, yeah, thanks for checking in.

Here's what's going on.

And I think that the reality of that is something that we need to pay attention to be aware of ourselves in that respect.

You might even be able to say, Hey, now's not a great time, but thanks for checking in.

Might be like a etiquette solution to it.

But I think on the other end of it, the person receiving sort of the, the ghosted experience to not make assumptions.

We, we all know that great adage about assuming things and I think it's a good one to apply - If you are somebody who wants to reach out and bring it up with somebody who ghosted you.

What do you think would be a good way to do that?

- I, I think you could say, Hey, I just wanna check in.

Not sure if this ghosting is intentional or just happenstance, but was, you know, wanted to check in, hope you're doing well, something like that.

If you're not getting responses to very soft check-ins, I think it's a good sign to just back away for a bit.

Give the person space and time.

Either they come back or they don't.

And that's a, you know, it's a tough pill to swallow, but I think it's a reality of the, the world we live in, the way we behave today.

- Steven writes, one thing that occurred to me is Christmas cards.

You've sent one for years to someone who really isn't in your life any longer, so you stop.

Is that ghosting, Lizzie?

- I think that's a fabulous question.

It might be ghosting, it might also just be a part of the natural evolution of your Christmas card or your holiday card list, right?

They, some people drop off, some people come on.

It's, it's a little bit more about how you wanna manage that particular exchange during the holiday season.

Another one, right?

It's - Great question though.

Yeah, I went to a friend's wedding recently and had to leave before the party was over.

This sparked a debate among some of my friends about whether it was better to say goodbye to the couple, calling attention to the fact that we were leaving early or quietly slip out so as not to spoil their night.

What does your guest think, I'm guessing this is you Lizzie is silently leaving a party ghosting?

Okay, I was gonna say that's one where I do think, especially a wedding, it's a pretty big significant event.

And if you are leaving before the cake cutting, if there's gonna be a cake cutting or before sort of some of the normal departure times, like after a dinner, after some dancing, I would say that it is important to go seek out the couple and explain what your absence is going to be for.

Don't do it in a big production way.

This is more, if you can get to them, I would do it.

If not, I would try to get to someone in the wedding party or one of their sets of parents if they're around, just tell somebody so that you're not just Houdini-ing out of that party.

- Andrea writes, I was caught up in a Meta ban wave and my Facebook and Instagram accounts were abruptly disabled to my friends.

It appeared that I ghosted everyone or blocked them.

It was a really tough time for me thinking that friends might be worried and I didn't have a way to tell them I was okay.

In a way., it was like I was ghosted by all my contacts at once.

That gets at a couple of things.

One is, you know, just how easily digital communication mediums can make it seem like we've ghosted them.

And also what we were saying before about the unintentional ghost and how it can be interpreted.

Did you, go ahead.

I - Don't have a great solution for that one because I don't know how you would communicate to everyone who you're connected to on just that platform that you are no longer able to function on that platform normally.

I think that's a really hard one.

I would definitely be texting my friends, you know, who I have contact numbers for, emailing folks, getting in touch, whatever, maybe on a different social media platform.

You could let somebody know, hey, I'm, I'm no longer able to access my, and then list the platform just to help people as best you can.

But that, that is a, a truly difficult situation that does not have a very easy answer.

- Let me go to caller Sarah in Oakland.

Hi Sarah, you're on.

- Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Good morning.

I'll try to make this quick, 'cause there's two things I wanted to say, but when my mom got into her like late sixties, she started dating again and it was terrible.

She would tell me stories.

One guy she met, he was drinking too much, she wanted to go and she went to the bathroom and never came back.

And two days later she got like a three page seething letter from this guy pretty much just being like, this is the last straw.

I paid for dinner, I do all these things for women.

And, and then he was really angry and I said, well, I guess you dodged a bullet regardless, but mom, you can't do that.

It's called ghosting.

She's like, what?

And I had to explain it to her.

And on my end, I feel like I'm the person that's the sensitive one that's always like, why aren't you getting back to me?

I'm more of like, I guess you could say needy, but one of the things I also wanna say about technology is the read or delivered responses.

When you send text messages, I feel like, like I, technology shouldn't do that.

You know, like you can either turn it off or you can see that someone read your message but didn't respond.

And I feel like that's something that like either plays into it being worse or better, but I feel like it shouldn't even be there because when you see someone read something and they don't respond, then you're just like sitting there.

So anyway.

Yeah, thanks for taking my call.

- Wow, so relatable, Sarah, right?

Lizzie, with regard to, you know, just all the tools we have to know whether we they've read it or it appears like they've read it or the dot dot dot as you were saying, and the kind of, I mean, yeah, what do you think about the role of those types of technologies?

As Sarah is saying in, you know, the effects of ghosting, - I have shut those off on my phone.

I don't let them write, read receipts be apart.

I know that some people choose to, especially with very close contacts, I hear a lot of my married friends talk about that.

Like, oh no, it really helps to know whether they've seen the message or not.

Then I don't bug them about something, but I'm, I'm with you.

I think disabling those is actually a healthy thing.

Other people will argue differently.

So it is a little bit personal preference, but leaving someone on read is really, really tough.

I know you've seen it, but also seen it means like, what does that really mean?

Have they actually seen the whole thing or did they just engage the notification that popped up and therefore it's checking off the read receipt for you.

It's really hard to know exactly what that means.

Did they read the whole message and see the question mark at the end?

You know, I think it's, it's really difficult and it does try our patience, and I think that's really hard Sometimes text messaging is really supposed to be that place where we can send something to someone and then let them respond in their own time as opposed to that phone call, which feels a little bit more like demanding immediate attention.

Even though we know we can all control our devices, I think it's psychologically really difficult for us and we've, we've created this for ourselves.

- We're talking with Lizzie Post co-host of the "Awesome Etiquette" podcast and Dominic Pettman, professor of media, new humanities at The New School, author of the book "Ghosting."

And we're actually trying to reestablish our connection to Dominic, who we have lost that connection with briefly.

Let me go to call her Vicki in Mill Valley.

Hi Vicki, you're on.

- Hey Mina.

So this didn't happen to me, but it happened to a girlfriend while we were all backpacking, which we do every year.

She was kind of in the middle of a breakup with a guy not really sure if they were gonna connect back or not, and he didn't know that we were going backpacking where there is no cell service.

So he called her, didn't get a message, texted her, didn't get a message, he kept calling, texting, and each time he just got angrier and angrier.

And, but the last time he was like, this is why we're not going to work, which is course we heard two days later in the car coming home and we all laughed and just said no to the sky.

And that was the end of that relationship.

- Again, one of the reasons you might try to give a little bit of the benefit of the doubt to the person who is ghosting you.

Thanks for sharing that, Vicki.

Oh, lemme remind you, me that, yeah, thank you.

Let me remind listeners who're listening to Forum.

I am Mina Kim.

And this listener writes, I grew up in a home where the silent treatment was used as punishment.

Even today at almost 80 years old, it's sometimes it's something that deeply hurts.

One best friend uses it often after 45 years of friendship and ghosting, I'm juggling whether to finally walk away.

Let me see if Dominic is there.

Dominic, have you heard about this sort of like weaponizing ghosting?

And we don't have Dominic, so let me ask you that, Lizzie.

- Oh, I, I have heard of that using it, you know, the silent treatment just in digital form.

And I do think it's, it's really unfortunate.

I think at most the polite response would be to actually say, Hey, I've gotta take some time for myself.

I'll, I'll get back to you at some point, you know, but I don't think it's appropriate to just weaponize the silent treatment in digital form.

It's just, it's really, I think it's not gonna do well if you want that relationship to be one that you want to have moved forward in the future, right?

It's super effective when we wanna end a relationship and we really want someone out of our lives.

But I think if it's someone who we're close with or gonna have to work with in the future, you know, whether it's family or friends or dating or, or, or work to just use the silent treatment in that way, I don't think is very effective or mature.

It might be what someone has to do, but I think acknowledging it would be a better way to communicate, Hey, I, I have to stop communicating with you for a bit and just leave it at that.

At least they know that they, they just know that, you know what I mean?

Even if they don't know why.

- Well Heidi writes, the worst ghosting for me is when you are in a friend group and one friend decides they no longer wanna be friends with one of the friends.

They decide to just let their relationship go and not contact the friend or friend group.

I'm talking about women in their fifties, not teenagers.

It is horribly awkward for the other friends to explain why they no longer are coming as it is really not nice.

Another listener, Steve writes, Stewart writes, many years ago, a rather new employee went to lunch and then never returned.

The staff's reaction varied from great concern to great criticism.

It was truly odd and perplexing.

I know again, left to do so much interpretation.

Jeff writes, doing intergenerational work, I find that everyone seems to think they're getting ghosted.

Oftentimes different generations use different platforms differently.

What I've learned to tell adults is for teenagers Snapchat is text.

Text is email.

Email is non-existent.

If you need to get their attention, let me know because I'm on those platforms.

Let me see if I can get Nancy from Berkeley in here.

Hi Nancy, you're on.

- Oh, hi.

Yes, thank you.

I'm an older woman and I have a number of friends, but I have three friends that disappear from time to time.

Now if I call two of them after a month or so, you know, then we sort of get back together and I mean these are people I've known a long time, women I've known a long time and then they'll kind of disappear again.

But I have one friend that I've also known for years and years and some, you know, she will disappear sometimes for a year.

And then I'll run into her.

We both like to do thrift shopping and I'll run into her in a thrift shop and it's like, you know, we've never parted and you know, we'll meet for lunch or something and then she'll disappear again for a year or so.

And I, you know, it's beyond me.

I do not understand any of this.

- But have you come to accept it or is it still just something that - Well, - No, you're still, I get it.

I get it.

Nancy, thanks.

And Greg writes, I have various longstanding friends who I communicate with by texting.

We will have bursts of texts and then radio silence for weeks to months.

And this goes on.

Dominic, are you with us?

- I don't know.

Am I?

- You are.

Yeah, I can hear you.

And I just wanted to let our listeners know that Dominic did not ghost us.

You know, - I was worried that would be a pretty big move to just, - I know this was your moment to like really make the point, but really, you know, ghosting is here to stay, which is what it sounds like.

And it sounds like it's normalized.

I've wondered if it's normalized because, you know, it happens and we're, because we've decided to cope with it or we've, we're coping with it, we're normalizing it to be able to have saying it's normalized to be able to have it as a coping mechanism almost.

It's like, okay, this is just the way things are.

And, and so Dominic, I guess what I'd like to ask you as we come to the end of the hour is, given the fact that it appears ghosting is here to stay, what is one piece of you of advice that you have for us around it?

- Oh, wow.

I mean, one piece I, one little nugget I got from the research is that even Obama was ghosted by Marilynne Robinson, the great novelist "Housekeeping" and "Gilead."

So, and she couldn't even explain why.

She said in an interview they used to write very long, interesting letters to each other.

And then she just stopped and she couldn't even explain why.

Never said sorry.

So I don't know if, if it happens at that level, then maybe we should all expect it.

It's inevitable.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, I think the not to take, try to, not to take it personally would be, I know that's very hard to, pretty much impossible to do.

So I guess it's just one more - Yeah.

- Have to have to cope with, - Well, while we can't say for sure what the effects of this phenomenon of ghosting is, you know, a culturally expected thing now, what effect it will have.

I, you have both really helped me better understand it this hour.

Dominic Pettman, thank you so much.

His book is "Ghosting: On Modern Disappearance."

Lizzie Post, you can hear Lizzie on the Awesome Etiquette podcast, great-great granddaughter of Emily Post.

And thank you as always to our listeners for sharing so candidly, your stories, your experiences, they mean so much.

This is Forum, I'm Mina Kim.

Have a great weekend.