You’ll probably never understand how lucky you are if a partner breaks up with you through a face-to-face conversation.
Sounds crazy that anyone should feel lucky for getting dumped, but then, people get dumped through a single, short text message and even worse, without any form of contact - no calls, no texts and of course, no face-to-face conversation to ‘formally’ end the relationship.
This is known as ghosting and it is an act becoming more rampant among millennials.
When someone ghosts, they quietly disappear; wordlessly fade away from the life of someone they had a relationship with.
Breakups are terrible and the hurt they bring often cuts really deep but somehow helps the healing process.
With closure, the heartbroken gets a clear picture that the relationship is ending and why.
A ghoster just disappears, breaks off all contact and blocks all attempts to establish communication.
It creates an open-ended situation where he or she selfishly reserves both the choice to either disappear for good or to just resurface after a while with something as insanely lazy as an
“Hey” sent via DM on Twitter or Instagram, and no sensible explanation to boot.
According to American expert, Dr. Greg Kushnik, what aids this type of behavior is the popularity of online relationships among young people, enabled by their huge presence on social media.
“If you're currently messaging with three potential dates while struggling with being ghosted last week by someone you liked, how much effort are you going to invest in offering closure?” he asks.
"You've already moved on in 10 different directions, which squashes your empathy toward someone you decided isn't worthy of your ‘commitment.'”
And it’s pretty apparent.
The average millennial has an account on two social media platforms and has private conversations [DM's] with members of the opposite sex who are interested in a romantic relationship with them.
It makes it pretty easy to just zone out at the smallest hitch encountered, and to stop responding to messages from another person with whom a kind of romantic connection was already being built.
Many millennial also believe in starting a relationship by just ‘chilling together and seeing where things lead.’
The relationship does not start with anything being spelt out. There are just two people going on dates, making out and maybe having sex. All these without labels and a definitive idea of what they’re doing.
Of course because it is pretty easy to fall in love with someone you’ve been spending time and having sex with, feelings creep in and makes the ghosted hurt badly when they get dumped without a word or explanation.
Dr. Kushnik explains that the “overstimulation of choice, combined with a lack of consequences, breeds a dating culture bereft of emotional compassion.”
“Our digital worlds are shielding us from the emotional consequences of our actions.”
Ghosting creates a kind of hurt so intense and a kind of gaping, hard-to-close void that closure would have filled, even if it’s only halfway through.
As more young people create undefined sexual relationships on social media and off it, while retaining the freedom to still actively pursue other romantic/sexual relationships, ghosting will likely become more rampant in the dating culture because, as Kushnik says;
“We'd rather meet online than face to face; we'd rather break up over text than in person – if we decide to break up at all.
“We've forgotten what ‘closure’ is and what ‘accountability’ means.”
And without these to temper the use of social media platforms as dating sites, ghosting is only sure to increase instead of decrease.
Sounds crazy that anyone should feel lucky for getting dumped, but then, people get dumped through a single, short text message and even worse, without any form of contact - no calls, no texts and of course, no face-to-face conversation to ‘formally’ end the relationship.
This is known as ghosting and it is an act becoming more rampant among millennials.
When someone ghosts, they quietly disappear; wordlessly fade away from the life of someone they had a relationship with.
Breakups are terrible and the hurt they bring often cuts really deep but somehow helps the healing process.
With closure, the heartbroken gets a clear picture that the relationship is ending and why.
A ghoster just disappears, breaks off all contact and blocks all attempts to establish communication.
It creates an open-ended situation where he or she selfishly reserves both the choice to either disappear for good or to just resurface after a while with something as insanely lazy as an
“Hey” sent via DM on Twitter or Instagram, and no sensible explanation to boot.
According to American expert, Dr. Greg Kushnik, what aids this type of behavior is the popularity of online relationships among young people, enabled by their huge presence on social media.
“If you're currently messaging with three potential dates while struggling with being ghosted last week by someone you liked, how much effort are you going to invest in offering closure?” he asks.
"You've already moved on in 10 different directions, which squashes your empathy toward someone you decided isn't worthy of your ‘commitment.'”
And it’s pretty apparent.
The average millennial has an account on two social media platforms and has private conversations [DM's] with members of the opposite sex who are interested in a romantic relationship with them.
It makes it pretty easy to just zone out at the smallest hitch encountered, and to stop responding to messages from another person with whom a kind of romantic connection was already being built.
Many millennial also believe in starting a relationship by just ‘chilling together and seeing where things lead.’
The relationship does not start with anything being spelt out. There are just two people going on dates, making out and maybe having sex. All these without labels and a definitive idea of what they’re doing.
Of course because it is pretty easy to fall in love with someone you’ve been spending time and having sex with, feelings creep in and makes the ghosted hurt badly when they get dumped without a word or explanation.
Dr. Kushnik explains that the “overstimulation of choice, combined with a lack of consequences, breeds a dating culture bereft of emotional compassion.”
“Our digital worlds are shielding us from the emotional consequences of our actions.”
Ghosting creates a kind of hurt so intense and a kind of gaping, hard-to-close void that closure would have filled, even if it’s only halfway through.
As more young people create undefined sexual relationships on social media and off it, while retaining the freedom to still actively pursue other romantic/sexual relationships, ghosting will likely become more rampant in the dating culture because, as Kushnik says;
“We'd rather meet online than face to face; we'd rather break up over text than in person – if we decide to break up at all.
“We've forgotten what ‘closure’ is and what ‘accountability’ means.”
And without these to temper the use of social media platforms as dating sites, ghosting is only sure to increase instead of decrease.
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