Ghosting

I was sitting in the waiting room when a young friend came out from seeing the doctor and took a chair next to me so we could catch up a bit before my name was called. Her presence was a welcomed relief and a good deterrent for one waiting to see a physician. In the course of the conversation, I asked about her sister and her love interest. “He’s ghosted her,” was my friend’s casual response. 

Ghosted. It’s one of those relatively new colloquial terms that refers to being abruptly cut off from someone without having been given any warning. Even when the one ghosted tries to reach out to re-initiate or just try to gain some closure, silence is all one gets. (There is also a “soft ghosting” which is where one person gradually reduces his or her level of communication where there is only minimal contact left.) 

Delving into the word a bit further, I learned that being ghosted “can have a profound impact on a person’s mental health, leading to feelings of depression, anxiety and deflated self-esteem.” Well, of course, it can! Who likes to feel rejected or betrayed? Ghosting actually lights up the same brain pain receptors that cause physical pain. And whether the one being ghosted knows why he or she is being ghosted, the pain is still the same. 

And yet the statement was so nonchalant and rolled off the tongue so easily: “He’s ghosted her.” But it wasn’t the first time I had head the word; and I’m sure it won’t be the last. (Believe it or not, there’s a word that’s supposedly even more painful than ghosting. It’s called “quiet dumping.”)

But words just keep coming. “Breadcrumbing” is the new ghosting and a bit sneakier. It’s what one does to keep the other hanging on by a thread. Lord, help us. 

And there’s not enough time or space here to talk about “gaslighting,” another more recent term on the dating market which is nothing short of psychological manipulation. Or witchcraft, if we really want to call it what it is.

Of course, none of these are limited to the dating scene which does tout a 67% ghosting rate. CNBC reports that in 2023 about 78% of job seekers said they’d ghosted a prospective employer. Really? These are grown ups, for crying out loud. Not children in a school yard.

What it is with these new words on the market that are being thrown around as if it’s now the norm? Have the actions always been evident and we’re just now labeling them? Ghosting. Gas lighting. Breadcrumbing. Some seem to think that these things are more prevalent due to the stress of the culture in which we now live … are we ever going to stop blaming things on the pandemic … and that give us an “easy out” from difficult circumstances and relationships. A “get out of jail free” card, if you will, with no scrapes, bruises or burns. 

But seriously, has kindness been replaced with rudeness? Courtesy with cruelty and thoughtlessness? Respect with dishonor and indifference? Have we lost what it means to look into the eyes of another and see the image of God? To know beyond a shadow of a doubt that person is deeply loved by the Father?

What IS the answer to all this Ghosting and Gaslighting and Breadcrumbing … and whatever the next new word will be? I don’t know. But I have a gut feeling it just might begin with my surrendering my own ego to Perfect Love.

He has told you, O man, what is good:

    And what does the LORD require of you

But to do justice, and to love kindness,

    And to walk humbly with your God.

                                                Micah 6:8 (ESV)

O Lord, let it be.

Just an ordinary moment…