The Best and Worst Ways to Cope with Ghosting

Breaking up is always hard to do, but ghosting makes it, arguably, even more difficult.

Ghosting is the practice in which one person in a couple unilaterally ends communicating with their partner through various forms of media, thereby triggering the dissolution of the relationship.

Being ghosted brings on the specific challenges of coping with uncertainty and ambiguity because there is an absence of information. Instead of a two-way communication in which perspectives are clearly shared, ghosting leaves the rejected party to get it and forget it. It leaves questions unanswered and closure difficult to attain.

Ghostees may ask themselves “What happened?,” “Why didn’t I see this coming?,” and “What’s wrong with me?” These sorts of questions reflect efforts to reduce uncertainty and find out why the communication and the relationship came to an end. Naturally, being ghosted can lead to intense feelings of pain and distress.

The Study

So how can ghostees best cope with being ghosted? This question was the main focus of a study led by Dr. Leah LeFebvre and Xiaoti Fan of the University of Alabama. More specifically, they sought to identify the effective and ineffective strategies that ghostees employ when they are ghosted.

The investigators recruited subjects through Amazon Turk (a crowdsourcing platform). The sample ranged in age from 19 to 71 years, was 58.2% female, 41.3% male, and .5% unidentified, and their sexual orientations were 84.7% mixed-sex, 9.0% bisexual, 3.2% gay, and 3.2% lesbian.

In order to identify effective and ineffective coping strategies, LeFebvre and Fan presented participants with the three questions:

Which strategies (if any) were effective in reducing your uncertainty?

Which strategies (if any) were not effective in reducing your uncertainty?

Are there any other strategies you tried that were not listed to reduce uncertainty?

The Best and Worst Ways to Cope

After collecting the data the researchers performed a thematic analysis, yielding striking results. Effective strategies, which largely focused on the future, included:

• Moving on, which involved accepting the situation as having changed and embracing a new experience.

• Accepting the relationship loss, which referred to recognizing ghosting as a modern dating risk, and then pivoting.

• Distracting oneself, which meant giving attention to anything else (e.g., listening to music or exercising) or choosing to ignore reality.

• Initiating and/or pursuing other interpersonal relationships or intimacy.

Ineffective strategies were those that didn’t reduce uncertainty, and often centered on trying to obtain more information about the ghoster. They included:

• Observing the ghoster in an unobtrusive way, such as following them in a car.

• Engaging in indirect contact with a shared social network about the ghoster, such as mutual friends or family.

• Unobtrusive observation through technology and social media, such as viewing social media profiles.

Thoughts on Moving Forward

LeFebvre and Xiaoti Fan conclude their study by suggesting helpful strategies to cope with being ghosting, based on the data they collected. They recommend that ghostees should try to rebalance their lives rather than disconnect by initiating new relationships or reconnecting with old ones; spend time with other people; and establish new routines.

Useful distractions include exercise, listening to music, and experimenting with new hobbies. Renewing friendships may help to shift focus. Ghostees should also acknowledge and validate their difficult feelings as they work through and heal from them.