Xiao Huang is the most positive and optimistic one among all my friends, and she is just like a "little sun". However, these days, she seemed to have encountered some setbacks, became very depressed and unwilling to go out and chat with other people. Under my continuous questioning, she finally told me what happened to her.
Two months ago, at a friends gathering, Xiao Huang met a boy. According to her description, the boy looks clean-cut, behaves gentlemanly, exactly in line with her aesthetics. Xiao Huang drummed up the courage to get to the boys' WeChat, and since then sent "good morning" and "good night" constantly, looking for a variety of topics to chat with him. At first, the boy will respond to Xiao Huang's greetings. But gradually, he began to often not respond the message, as if he disappeared.
Xiao Huang said very aggrievedly: "I know he is not really very busy because I saw him liked others' moments, but why he did not respond my message?"
I finally understood the truth of Xiao Huang's being emotional - he had encountered Ghosting.
I. Ghosting Is a Kind of "Silent" Rejection.
There is a behaviour in the field of psychology known as Ghosting, which is an attempt to dissolve a relationship by repeatedly ignoring contact with another person.
This kind of reading but not replying is not the behaviour of a friend who always forgets to reply to the message in daily life and thinks that it is you who didn't reply to him; Ghosting's reading but not replying is the act of "not replying" and "disappearing". In relationships, it can be called "cold violence"; in other issues, it can also be "cold treatment".
This phenomenon is not uncommon, with one relationship study indicating that two-thirds of young people have Ghosted someone in their relationship, and three-quarters believe they have experienced Ghosting. Ghosting is a common phenomenon in friendships, the workplace, and a wide range of relationships and situations other than relationships.
This so-called "disappearing" is not a sudden disconnection, but rather a gradual process. Research has found that the most common frequency of interaction in relationships that end in Ghosting is about 1-2 times per week. This is the main feature that distinguishes Ghosting from other forms of rejection --- the other person's attitude towards you seems to be "ambiguous", and they never say "no" to you directly, nor do they "lose contact" with you at all. So Ghosting often gives people the illusion that "there is still a chance".
However, a polite rejection is also a rejection, just like Xiao Huang's crush, he should be able to see that Xiao Huang is pursuing him, but he thinks that he is not suitable for Xiao Huang, so he tries to dissolve his relationship with Xiao Huang through this kind of rejection without feedback or explanation. Therefore, when the other person repeatedly ignores your contact more than one time. I think you should understand what it means.
II. Why Doesn't Your Crush Just Say "No"?
Although Ghosting is a common phenomenon, I believe most people hate being treated with Ghosting --- "If you don't like me, what's the point of giving me hope and not rejecting me directly? Isn't it just ignoring me outright because you're too lazy to deal with me?"
This may be one of the reasons, but indeed, the reasons behind Ghosting are more complex.
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The First Reason for Ghosting: Aversion to "Rejection".
It's easy to understand that "rejection" is not a simple thing for most people, and your crush is no exception.
Every person is not an isolated iland, but part of a large and complex social network, and social connection is widely recognised as one of the basic needs of human beings. In such a "social world", rejection puts a certain amount of psychological pressure on the "rejectors" themselves, as we often believe that rejection destroys our social relationships.
I'm sure you've been there. I'm sure you've had the experience of not being able to easily say "no" to a person who has made an unreasonable request to you. Rejecting others brings you embarrassment, anxiety, pain, and the fear of being disliked. This kind of mentality has probably occurred before when your crush was ready to reject you outright, not to mention that it is always more difficult to reject the kindness and affection of others.
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The Second Reason for Ghosting: to Protect "the Rejected".
This may sound counter-intuitive, but that your Crush doesn't say "rejection" directly is probably to protect "you". Rejection is always embarrassing, and your crush wants to reject you without hurting your feelings. Ghosting is used when your crush thinks that saying no to you directly or explaining the reason for the rejection might hurt you, so one of the reasons for Ghosting is that the rejector cares about the psychology of the rejected person.
In fact, people tend to underestimate how much the person Ghosting them cares about them. Researchers conducted a survey asking people who Ghosted others and people who were Ghosted to rate how much the Ghosting person cared about the Ghosted person, and found that most rejectors did not care less about the rejected person, and much more than the rejected person predicted. This suggests that we tend to underestimate how much the person Ghosting us cares about us.
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The Third Reason for Ghosting: Long-term Social Relationships.
The study also found that the majority of relationships that were written off by Ghosting were medium to long term relationships. 18.60% of Ghosting instances occurred in very short term relationships (less than a year), 34.31% occurred in medium term relationships (between 1 and 5 years), and 47.09% occurred in long term relationships (more than 5 years). Based on this, we can also speculate that longer-term, closer relationships make it harder to say "no" and thus lead to Ghosting. After all, compare to a "clean break", the "separation" of adults is often the result of less and less contact, and then a gradual separation from each other in a sea of people.
III. Long-lasting Pain or Short-lasting Pain, Which Kind of Rejection Is Easier to Accept?
Even though your crush may have chosen to end your relationship in a relatively gentle way by using Ghosting out of goodwill, this "ambiguous" attitude may also bother the rejected person. We can't help but wonder how Ghosting makes the rejected person feel.
Ghosting may be aptly described as "long-lasting pain". It has been suggested that ambiguous types of rejection, characterised by a lack of (clear) explanation, can be painful for the rejected person and may have longer-lasting damaging effects. Here is how the rejected described the feelings being Ghosted: I feel sad and helpless. I can't talk to her and tell her how I feel. I am also sad.
In addition to sadness, Ghosting also brings about a lack of belonging, self-esteem, meaning, and control for the rejected person because the rejected person feels "rejected" by the other person when being Ghosted, and rejection can threaten the basic needs of the individual. Moreover, this feeling remains long after the Ghosting has occurred, proving that Ghosting has a long-term effect on human emotions.
As for the rejectors, their emotional experience is much more complex. On the one hand, being shown affection by others brought the rejectors a higher sense of achievement and pride; on the other hand, as the rejectors, the frustration felt when rejecting others through Ghosting was not smaller than that of the rejected, which indicates that Ghosting is a frustrating process for both sides involved in Ghosting. Apart from this, they also developed higher levels of guilt.
So, is the "long-lasting pain" of "boiling the frog in warm water" better or the "short-lasting pain" of "cutting the Gordian knot" better? Researchers are also curious about the answer to this question, as a study of online relationships investigated which type of rejection is more common in online relationships, and which type of rejection is more painful.
The study found that the most common form of rejection in online relationships was Ghosting, while the most hurtful form of rejection was rejection "with an explanation". However, another study found that both those who used Ghosting to reject others and those who were rejected by others using Ghosting felt that they preferred to be explicitly rejected by others and to be given a reason for their rejection. This suggests that although most of us want our love to "die clear", "dying clear" can be really painful.
So, while you may resent your crush's ambiguous Ghosting, his or her Ghosting may have actually protected you in some way.
Whether it's better to have a "long-lasting pain" or a "short-lasting pain", however, is a matter of opinion that varies from person to person. "Communication" is a matter between two people, and exploring and developing the right way to communicate is a topic that both people need to work on together.
