5 Signs You’ve Been Ghosted and How to Deal With It

Being ghosted can be brutal on your physical and mental health. To understand the impact it can have on your dating life, you must first familiarize yourself with the concept.

What Is Ghosting?

Ghosting—an official entry in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary—is a fairly new dating term. As the term suggests, it literally means someone “vanishing” into thin air. You know, like a ghost. The hallmark definition? Abruptly cutting off all contact with someone you’re dating without any warning or explanation.

The thing is, relationships, especially in the online dating world, can be tricky to manage. Most people choose to walk away instead of putting in the work required for a happy ending because they’re either busy, overwhelmed or think “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” to fall back on.

In instances like this, people tend to “ghost” the person they’re dating to avoid confrontation. With no closure to substantiate the end of the relationship, getting ghosted can do a number on the confidence and self-esteem of a person.

So, how do you know you’ve been ghosted? Here are some common signs that can point you toward a definitive answer.

What Are The Signs You’ve Been Ghosted?

Ghosting is a very subtle form of withdrawal. Sometimes, people don’t even know they’ve been ghosted until it’s too late. If you think you’ve been ghosted, you may want to recollect whether these signs manifested themselves before the end of your relationship.

They Keep Canceling Plans

Maintaining physical distance is perhaps one of the most common signs of ghosting. If your significant other keeps canceling plans without making plans to reschedule, chances are, your love interest is losing interest in you.

As they physically distance themselves little by little every day, they emotionally detach from the relationship, making it easier to finally drop the ball and ghost you altogether.

There’s No Communication From Their End

You double texted, hell, even triple texted them and received no response from their end, but they’re active on social media? They’ve “seen” your messages but they’re yet to respond? Sure, it could be because they’re busy but if the no-text, no-reply cycle stretches to a couple of days, chances are, you’ve been ghosted.

Social Media Freeze-Out

The dating world seeps quickly into social media. You were likely on your love interest’s social media friend list and made frequent appearances on their posts and stories. If you notice that their feed is expanding, and you’re playing a smaller and smaller role, dig a little deeper. Chances are, you’ll find your account missing from their “following list”. This indicates that your love interest is gearing up to ghost you—in a very public and painful way, no less!

They’re Always Busy

If your significant other keeps replying to your texts and calls with “Sorry, I’m busy?” and stop making plans with you, that’s a definite red flag. They aren’t busy, they just don’t want to offer you a legit explanation because doing so will lead to a confrontation. If you notice the “I’m busy” excuse cropping up left, right, and center, they’re likely pulling away from the relationship.

Dry Conversations

Ghosting, at times, is not an abrupt end of contact with your love interest. Sometimes, it may include going through multiple layers of withdrawal before you reach the final stage.

While your significant other is, in a way, present in your life, their presence holds little value as the conversation between the two of you has completely dried up. At this point, their tone and the time they take to reply suggest their motive—to ghost you and walk away from the relationship.

How Do You Deal with Being Ghosted?

We always look for relationship advice when we are in one, but we also need help when we’ve just been ghosted out of one.

The key to overcoming being ghosted is to understand that you’re not responsible for the behavior of others. The moment you separate yourself from the blame, you’ll be able to dig deep, look inward, and focus on your wellbeing.

Admittedly, moving on is not the easiest part of the process. These tips, however, can help you understand that you are enough without someone else’s validation. This will help you rise above the hurt, anger, and confusion.

Accept the Truth

Your love interest ghosted you. There’s no point going around it to justify the toxic behavior. Don’t go looking around for reasons that may have brought the relationship to a grinding halt. Do not, under any circumstances, dwell on the situation. The sooner you accept the truth, the faster you’ll be able to get over the traumatic experience.

Stop Internalizing

Don’t play the blame game and analyze the negative aspects of your relationship. Remember, you are not to blame. Even if you contributed to the failure of your relationship, the person who called it quits without dignifying you with an explanation is.

So, the next time you feel insecure, dehumanized, and devalued, stay firm in your belief that you were not to blame and move forward with your life.

Focus On Yourself

Need something to distract yourself from the pain? Focus on bettering yourself. Do things that make you happy and center your attention on your health and happiness. Invest your time, energy, and resources in your passions and interests. Start rebuilding yourself and get your life back on track. Let the past fade away into nothingness.

Stop Thinking About Them

You think getting closure from the person who ghosted you will help you move on, but all it does is delay the process. The key is to understand that, sometimes, the people we love may not love us back, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is willfully putting yourself in the path of heartbreak again—we all know how disastrous that can be! Stop trying to get a reply out of them and walk away from the hurt.

Wrapping Up

Once you familiarize yourself with signs you’ve been ghosted, it’s time to put in the work to deal with it and move on. Remember, you are worthy, you are loved, and anybody that makes you question that does not deserve you. Accept the truth—it will make it infinitely easier to deal with the pain.

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