Ghost Stories

Since August of this year, I’ve been ghosted twice. First, by a close professional relationship. More recently, by someone I believe (or believed?) to be a friend. I feel both cases are just kind of those confusing things that happen, but happening twice is worrisome.

via GIPHY

​​Going chronologically, I stopped hearing from my business colleagues around two months ago. I was 1/3 of the leadership team for a startup company. I was naturally on the edge of a lot of communication because the other two were in the same location, while I was remote. Sometimes, and with increasing frequency, it felt like I was left out intentionally. This was addressed a few times – as recently as July – with some improvements, but they never held. Keeping things very vague, this most recent silence coincided with a change in our website hosting service that caused me to lose access to my work email. I felt good about not reaching out to address this known problem.
 
Proceeding as if we are done feels like the natural path. While I really wanted us to succeed, I’ve been looking for a clear end to the limbo for a while. Now I’ve got it!

via GIPHY

​The friend ghosting me is more…ugh. We'll call him Peter. I guess it happened the last Saturday in September, although I didn’t realize for several days more that that was the last time I’d heard from him. We usually text daily; mostly memes, songs, shenanigans at work, assorted nonsense like that. But he just stopped. It isn’t uncommon for Peter to skip a few days if he’s busy or something, but this was different. Then, I had that seizure (see the “Setbacks” portion of this post) and, after that, I didn’t have it in me to figure out what was going on with a grown man who’s incredibly eloquent and gifted with words, yet refusing to use them.
 
I really don’t know what happened. Two days earlier, we had a great night when our team won trivia. All I can think of is that in the final messages, he sent a video I didn’t love, and I made a stupid joke in response that didn’t land. In retrospect, I can see that situation striking nerves and leading to miscommunication.
 
Peter openly admits he’ll go out of his way to avoid conflict. While I’m not particularly confrontational, I absolutely know the benefits of facing and addressing unpleasant and difficult things. Many of the best and most important experiences of my life have come from facing the hard thing. (See the examples in this post, especially #4. Yes, this Peter is the Peter from #3.) I understand needing to work up the courage to face something, but I don’t understand making the intentional choice to miss out on that goodness.
 
My analytical side wants to delve into all of our interactions and fix things, but that is not for me to do. That’s taking on work that belongs to someone else. I’m only responsible for what I know. I think I will low-key reach out to him once I finish something I’m behind on completing. Peter knows I’m making it, and I am generally someone who finishes what I start. Anything beyond that is up to him.
 
Overall, I am okay. When it comes down to it, neither the personal nor professional ghostings surprise me, but I am incredibly letdown. These were all individuals I trusted and still do care about, but they have now chosen not to know me. The direct sting of bad news hurts, but this vague poison of avoidance harms…

via GIPHY