Been Ghosted? 6 Smart Ways to Respond and Recover

Bumping into someone who has ghosted you can be embarrassing and anxiety-provoking. I’ve known clients to have panic attacks when they’ve run into someone who has hurt them.

The best plan is treat your ghost as if they were invisible. Don’t acknowledge your ghost or, if you can’t avoid that, smile and walk on past like they don’t matter at all. Don’t stop to talk or seek an explanation — if you do, that’s a win to them.

When we’ve been hurt in relationships, it’s tempting to critique ourselves: to wonder what we did wrong and to examine our flaws.

But being ghosted is not about you; it’s about your ghost’s values and operating style.

Your ghost has just given you a flash of insight into their style of relating in intimate relationships. If it gets hard, I’ll run. I’ll do only what works for me. Is that what you want in a partner?

There are four types of ghosts:

1. The avoidant ghost (conflict avoidant; will run away from anything difficult);
2. The lazy ghost (can’t be bothered with anything hard including being fair/decent); the mean ghost (doesn’t care at all about others’ feelings)
3. The half-ghost (may float back and forth in your life; likes to keep options open).

Ghosts are not necessarily bad people; there’s often no agenda to their behaviour — they’re just taking the easy way out.

It’s a lesson all of us should carry forward when we want to break up with someone. Ghosting someone can seem the easy — even the kindest way — out of a relationship you don’t want to be in, especially when you’re young and inexperienced. But it’s not: you don’t have to offer a long explanation for why you don’t want to be with someone but you should have the courage to tell them it’s over. Face to face is best, but a phone call or text message is better than nothing.

It may not feel like it right now but if someone disappears on you without explanation, they are not right for you.

So let go — the relationship you had is no longer real and the ghost will never be fully there for you. Now you’re free to find someone who is.