Bob Dylan wrote a song about this way back around the time I was born --http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/i-dont-believe-you-she-acts-we-never-have-met
I looked it up and the odds are 1:10,267.
I screwed up the link but the odds that I'll fix it are pretty low.
Ghosting seems a bit cold hearted, especially if you have children with the person you're breaking up with.
I have heard this referred to as "go soze", as in Keyser Soze.
I would think that would apply more accurately to much more cruel ways of breaking up.
Unless there's an offset for killing a Baldwin.
I've been faded on a bunch of times by women I was talking to on OKCupid but never had the real ghosting experience. I think you have to be at least to the point where a define the relationship talk is in the offing before it's really ghosting. Fading is fine, I've done it myself and it's a perfectly reasonable way to signal disinterest after the first date or so. Once there's more investment I think it's super shitty to do, worthy of a flaming bag of poo on the doorstep.
I suppose you could write "I think we should see other people" on the bag and hope they can read that part before it burns.
I was such a clod as an early dater that I probably would have been less hurtful by ghosting.
Which is worse? "I like you as a friend", or ghosting? Let's assume a couple dates and some kissing, but no sex and no "I love you"s.
In college, you can just say you are transferring to a different school and, if you run into them again in the next semester, that your credits were accepted.
10.2: If it makes you feel better, I had several breakups where the guy argued with me that no, we should not break up. This meant that when breaking up with people for the next (mumble) years, I went straight to "I don't love you anymore," because it was basically impossible to argue with as a reason for breaking up. "Let's just be friends" seems tamer now, right?
"I don't love you anymore" won't work if you've never said "I love you." Or at least, it will seem strange.
If I'm counting right, I think I've ghosted someone three times. It just kinda suits my style. Why mess around with having to have a difficult and annoying conversation when you can just put off doing something and watch TV instead.
Now that you can record anything, sure. But back in the day, if you put off a conversation, you might get interrupted by a phone call that made you miss your show.
Alk of these problems can be solved by minimizing all human interaction.
This article suffers from the "lets find the most extreme anecdote" problem. Fading is common but the article includes crazy stuff to make the article more interesting.
It's a problem when the newspaper tries to not be boring?
I feel like I'm ghosting Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama. They keep sending me emails , "peep, we need to talk" and "peep, I need you!" and I keep not responding.
Now that summer cook-out season is here, the obvious way to break up is with corn. To grill corn, you partially shuck it so you can remove the silk and then re-cover it for the grilling. You can insert a note with the corn and the leave.
21: Are you sure the note won't turn into ashes?
As an ear of corn must part from its tassel,
I'm outta here; dating you is a hassle.
Grilled corn tastes better salted with delicious post-breakup tears.
You're supposed to soak the corn in salted water so the husk doesn't burn. Just put the note in first.
Wait didn't ghosting already mean leaving a social gathering without saying goodbye? Probably pwned. Anyway I have certainly done both.
26 isn't pwned and also what I thought it meant. I just figured I was too far removed from what the kids were calling things so I kept quiet.
If 26 is correct I'm a chronic ghoster.
To Heebie's part of the OP, now that I've watched the video, I'd argue that ghosting seems a lot more absolute than the Fade Away: the Fade Away is just sort of classic not returning calls, not committing to dates, begging off invites, etc. Whereas ghosting seems absolute, e.g. walking past someone you kissed yesterday like you've never met them.
Bottom line: I can identify with the Fade Away while ghosting seems sociopathic to me. But maybe it doesn't really exist, except for sociopaths.
leaving a social gathering without saying goodbye
I've heard it called an "Irish goodbye," which I assumed was a slander against the good people of Ireland, with the implication that the person was too drunk to say goodbye and thus ducked out quietly.
Too drunk or has pocketed the TV remote.
30 -- also known as the "French leave" in England, or, in France, "filer a l'anglaise" i.e. "English leave." Basically it's what fucking foreigners do.
I call it the "Bulgarian bye-bye" myself.
My favorite example of the phenomenon in 32 is the different names for syphilis (which I recall hearing as "French disease" / "mal des Anglais"; Google suggests a lot of other variations). It's what fucking foreigners does?
But seriously saying goodbye at parties takes forever.
If I used it all the time, it wouldn't be funny.
Bottom line: I can identify with the Fade Away while ghosting seems sociopathic to me. But maybe it doesn't really exist, except for sociopaths.
Oh, man. Xeni Jardin (of BoingBoing) had such a poignant series of tweets about this. Heartbreaking.
There must be traditional consequences of the cut direct. Like, being challenged to a duel. In terza rima.
Xeni Jardin (of BoingBoing) had such a poignant series of tweets about this. Heartbreaking.
Link? (I say, wondering if, by asking, I am demonstrating a ignorance of the conventions of twitter)
Link. It only works because she posted her series of tweets as replies to her original tweet, so they all show up in a stream.
But the reference to "the other plane landing" suggests the outcome, however painful was in this case better than it would have been without such behavior; the time spent in the relationship means it probably would have continued had such a shock not occurred.
How often does the opposite problem occur, where someone doesn't leave because they don't know how, and couldn't bring themselves to just vanish?
There probably wouldn't be as many comments.
Happy families all get the same number of comments.
Link.
Thank you. That is intense.
How often does the opposite problem occur, where someone doesn't leave because they don't know how, and couldn't bring themselves to just vanish?
There's a well-done scene in Ghost World in which Steve Buscemi goes to talk to the woman he's started dating and says (approximately)
"I want to say something that I've never said to anyone else before . . . I've gone to absurd lengths to avoid saying this . . . I think we should break up."
If the town/city you live in is small enough, another con of ghosting is living with the fear that you may, and probably will, run into the person at some point and perhaps be forced to have the "talk" right then and there rather than at a time and location of your choosing.
rather than at a time and location of your choosing
s/b time, location, and weapons of your choosing.
I thought the whole point of "ghosting" was refusing to choose a time and place (and weapons) to have that talk. Not that I can really relate to any of this.
also known as the "French leave" in England
No, no, "taking French leave" means not turning up for work. Being AWOL.
I've heard it called an "Irish goodbye"
Baffling as bearing no resemblance to the behaviour of actual Irish people, who can't even hang up the phone without "Okay, bye now. Bye bye. Byebyebyebyebye" (diminuendo as phone is removed from ear/mouth area and call ended).
30 -- also known as the "French leave" in England, or, in France, "filer a l'anglaise" i.e. "English leave." Basically it's what fucking foreigners do.
It's what you do to avoid making a drunken mistake and contracting the (insert foreign nation of choice) disease.
"I don't love you anymore" won't work if you've never said "I love you." Or at least, it will seem strange.
Just turn the whole thing into a lesson in tense-formation: "I never loved you. I wasn't loving you while we dated. I don't love you. I never will love you. I will never have loved you. Can we still be friends?"
One time, around the campfire, we discussed my friend C's tendency to French Goodbye. A few hours later, she slipped off and I joked "if C does a French goodbye in the middle of the woods, does she make a sound?" Nobody heard my joke, which then itself started to seem so meta that my stoned brain exploded.
At what point should you say "I don't want to see you anymore."? Is a formal breakup required simply bc you went on a couple dates?
In part, this goes to your assumptions about dating: are you exclusive upon the second date unless you otherwise say so? Or is the assumption that you are not exclusive until you have the talk? I think it is the later.
If that is the case, maybe you've gone on a couple dates, then you are essentially pausing with that person or otherwise busy with other people, but not completely ready to say that you never want to spend time with them again.
How often does the opposite problem occur, where someone doesn't leave because they don't know how, and couldn't bring themselves to just vanish?
Ahem.
57: In practice I think that people tend to say they're not interested in dating, with an implicit "Let's be friends" that is followed by the Fade Away.
It's not so much the presumption of exclusivity, I don't think, as the presumption of a romantic arc. After 2-3 dates, Person A may not be falling in love, but may be thinking that things could head that way. If Person B knows that there's no fucking way, it's polite to indicate so sooner rather than later.
Obviously this depends a bit on the underlying relationship (did you already know each other, did you meet through a dating service, was it a bar pickup, etc), but IMO 2-3 dates imposes some mild obligation for communication.
A couple times I was let down so gently that I hardly noticed; that's one hell of a skill.
I'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be
You're gonna give your love to me
I wanna love you night and day
You know my love a-not fade away
A-well, you know my love a-not fade away