Last Updated on May 5, 2022 by Team CrazyJackz
Before diving into the types of ghosting, let’s try to understand what ghosting is.
What is Ghosting?
Ghosting is the act of abruptly ending a romantic or friendship connection by cutting off contact with another person without notice or explanation. A ghost is the sudden termination of all forms of contact with someone, whether friendly, romantic, or professional, by refusing to receive or answer phone calls, stopping instant messaging, or other forms of communication.
So..
- When someone you’re dating unexpectedly terminates the relationship, cutting off all communication without explanation, this is known as ghosting.
- When someone who is a friend or who is romantically interested in you abruptly stops communicating with you without explanation, this is known as ghosting.
- When someone wishes to avoid conflict or deal with your damaged feelings, they simply cut off all communication, this too is referred to as ghosting.
People who are ghosted are frequently hurt and confused about why intimate relationships end the way they do. Being ghosted by someone you’ve been close and personal with through text messaging or social media, might make you feel alienated or isolated from your digital networks, especially in an age where relationships start online. Even if you try to reconnect or start a conversation, silence greets you every time.
5 Different types of Ghosting Explained
There are several types of ghosting. Let’s have a look at the 5 different types of ghosting.
1. Breakup Ghosting
Sometimes people find ghosting the best way of breaking up with a person. I believe that this type of ghosting that you may receive from your boyfriend or girlfriend is one of the most hurtful kinds of ghosting. Imagine you are dating someone, according to you everything is going great. Suddenly you realize that your partner hasn’t contacted you in a long while, or hasn’t responded to your texts. What happens next? You panic.
Several ugly thoughts may start swarming your head. Did something happen to my partner? Are they alright? Are they angry at me? What did I do wrong? Are they cheating on me? You may call them after panicking and they might not even pick up your call, rather would let your call go to voice messages. You may send them some of those, they may ignore them as well. Or they might answer and tell you they are busy, give you a non-committal answer. They may start avoiding you fully, before breaking up with you, or sometimes they might not even break up with you properly.
This kind of ghosting is often done by people who are cowards. These cowards often do not have the maturity and guts to break up with you properly. They will avoid confrontation, and this could be because they don’t like confrontation. Often cheaters use this tactic to break up because they cannot come clean to their partners, and fear admitting their fault. This can harm your self-esteem a lot. Many people who experience breakup ghosting from their partners get very insecure. As they don’t know what actually made their partner break up with them, they start second guessing everything they do. They might lose a lot of confidence, thinking how their partner did not even think that they deserved a proper breakup. They might also find it hard to trust people after that, as their partner is someone they fully trusted and they somehow left them clueless. This often leads to people having trust issues.
2. Ego Ghosting (To boost their ego)
Your crush could be a narcissist. They might find it a boost to their ego to reel you on their web. Let’s say your crush knows that you have a crush on them. They might take advantage of your feelings, with several techniques. They will use techniques such as haunting, bread crumbling etc.
They might give you hope at first. They could do this by talking to you, flirting with you, and even complimenting you. You will be led to believe that you may have a chance with this person, developing stronger feelings towards them. Then they will start ghosting you, virtually and physically – Making you feel anxious about your relationship with them. You will be chasing after them, with calls, texts and literally chasing them physically.
But for the ghoster, having someone chasing them will be a huge ego boost for them. Thus they might even keep you around just to boost their ego and keep you on your toes.
3. Manipulative Ghosting:
Has this ever happened to you, where after having a fight or an argument, your partner has ghosted like you don’t exist? Ghosting is a tactic often used by partners, to manipulate you. They may not plan on breaking up with you, but to have a more dominant hand in the relationship.
They may ghost you, every now and then. Just to make you feel that you don’t hold much importance in their lives. To make you feel, as if you are the only one who is holding this relationship together. To make you feel like a loser who thinks about their partner so much when they couldn’t even care to connect. This may lead to you always texting first, calling first. They may also use this manipulation tactic to make you follow what they told you to do.
This kind of behavior is also counted as abuse. The person is using your emotions against you. Your feelings for them are being manipulated, for their convenience. These people might want to be the ones controlling the relationship. Often this kind of behavior might lead you to grow more attached to the person. Often these people who endure this kind of emotional abuse are the people who have endured abuse from their parents as well
4. Sidelined Ghosting:
Some crushes may simply ghost you to avoid developing further feelings. They might realize that you like them while you and them have become friends. So they may deem it fit for you that they ghost you.
They may think this will lead you to lose feelings for them. This could be the case when they don’t like you that way and may never develop feelings for you. It could be heartbreaking for you, but also could help you get over them.
5. The Love bomber Ghosting:
This is one of the most toxic types of ghosting people experience. This type of ghosting may be done by a person who may have shown interest in you previously.
Imagine a stranger or a relatively new person in your life. This person will bomb you with compliments from the beginning of your meeting. This will lead you to believe that this person likes you. They may also hint at the possibility of a future relationship. After this, they will start ghosting you, leading you to a lot of confusion. You will start wondering how someone who used to love you so much started ignoring you?
The love bomber ghosting is a very manipulative tactic used by ghosters to get you to like them. They might simply do this to you to experience separation anxiety as you are now used to talking to that person. The person makes you feel great at the beginning however in the end they will manipulate you into liking them back, and you will also want to please them constantly. So that you can get back their attention.
Understanding the Psychology behind different types of Ghosting:
The ghosting has a profoundly harmful impact on the person, with both short-term and long-term consequences. When a person has been ghosted, they are typically befuddled, as this generally includes a time where they are unsure whether or not the relationship is ending, and they are unsure what caused it. On the other hand, the Ghosters normally don’t give any thought to whether their actions will make another person feel or hurt them.
At times, the person doing ghosting may simply no longer wish to date the ghostee, or they may have begun dating someone else and are using the ghostee as a backup in case the relationship with the other person fails.
Also, people frequently act like ghosts in relationships to avoid the emotional tension they are experiencing, and they rarely consider how the person they are hiding from would feel. Empathetic people, for example, will almost certainly never be able to ghost someone after a few weeks of dating since they understand the grief and confusion it will create.
While it’s understandable for someone to shut down if they feel threatened, however, any type of ghosting can be attributed to a lack of empathy or simply a disregard for the other person in the relationship. As previously said, when someone hides from another person irresponsibly, they may also commit additional acts that are considered disrespectful or hurtful to others.
People I’ve seen as ghosts of other people in my life typically have low self-esteem, are scared to express their thoughts, are cowardly, and simply want to vanish. I’ve had the impression that the emptiness is filled with violence at times.
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