Giving up the ghost

A confession: I once ghosted a poet I met on Match.com.

Ghosting, or disappearing—poof!—without a word after several dates, or even while in a committed relationship, is as common as breaking up by text. Giving someone the silent treatment is frequently traceable to a fear of confrontation or conflict. But I drifted for a different reason.

My first date with the poet was at a hookah bar. When I arrived he was seated on a fabric-covered bench inside a semiprivate booth, floor cushions stacked near his feet. I wasn’t willing to spend the hour staring up at him, so I dragged a small stool from another booth and tried to keep my bum from sliding off as we chatted.

The conversation was fascinating, so despite the strange seating arrangement, I agreed to a second date the next week. He proposed a tango lesson. At the dance studio, as the poet walked across the room to place his hipster hat on a table for safekeeping, the instructor told everyone to partner up. The poet smiled at the woman closest to him and took her hand. During the next 20 minutes, the poet and I shared one brief dance. The instructor encouraged everyone to change partners frequently. A few people refused; my date was not among them. So I locked eyes with various sweaty or heavily cologned men with whom I executed the eight-count. Mumbling heartfelt apologies for my clumsiness, I snuck peeks at the wall clock. I wasn’t having any fun.

During the course of the evening my mind rolled back to my Catholic elementary school. Dance classes were mandatory and those awkward hours often felt like penance. But when the poet originally suggested a dance date, I had imagined laughing together as we tangoed. Instead, I had small talk with strangers who mashed my toes or grew angry at my incompetence on the dance floor. As I counted tango steps (slow-slow-quick-quick-slow) with yet another dance partner, I suddenly remembered that I was an adult with a home full of books to read and a Labrador Retriever to play with.

Cue the Mission: Impossible theme music here.

The instructor called us into a half-circle near a mirror-lined wall to demonstrate a new technique. Standing at the back of the room, I met my gaze in the mirror. Warmth and compassion reflected back at me. I watched my head turn and spied the open door. Before I realized I was leaving, I had escaped.

A short time later, as I was slipping into bed with a novel, my phone blew up with calls and texts. “Just let me know if you’re all right,” the poet pleaded in serial messages. I tapped my phone’s airplane mode and opened my book. I never responded. I recall thinking at the time that his concern seemed odd since he barely spoke to me during the date. I assumed a lack of connection and was happy to end the dance. After all, it takes two to—well, you know.

In 2015, several years after our tango date, the poet contacted me through a social media site, chatting me up, inviting me for cocktails. No, I didn’t go. But I did realize that ghosting someone haunts that person. I had never done it to anyone before the poet and I will never do it again. It would have been kinder to simply text him back that night to say I wasn’t having fun and had headed home.

Ghosting isn’t the only way of avoiding connection, confrontation or conflict with dates. Here are three other behaviors that spook singles:

Texting the person you previously ghosted just to say something random, like: “I had a kale Caesar salad last night. Thought of you. Your fav, right?” Re-engagement tends to get the recipient’s hopes up, but unghosting is not meant to signify renewed interest. It just helps the ghost feel better about having ghosted you.

This has nothing to do with exposing one’s bum. Mooning refers to the iPhone’s “Do Not Disturb” feature, represented by a half-moon symbol. It turns off notifications so you can choose to silence everyone or just an individual. If an ex blows up your phone, you can moon that person without them knowing. The iPhone’s moon feature was intended to keep us present while we’re engaged in events that require our undivided attention. But it’s frequently used as protection against exes who drunk-text Grumpy Cat memes, or worse.

Mostly motivated by FOMO (fear of missing out), benching is the practice of leaving someone on your romantic roster without giving them playing time. You occasionally exchange flirtatious texts that include vague plans to hang out but never actually get together. That’s because some people prefer to keep the bench deep while continuing to play the field.

Ghosting, unghosting, mooning and benching are methods of skipping opportunities to learn the skill of gracefully saying no. The ease of connecting—or disconnecting—online makes the digital demise of a relationship seem painless. But as I discovered, the person who has been ghosted can be haunted by a vanishing act, sometimes for years.