Ghosting, unfortunately, is nothing new. The term has been around since the early 2000s, and even before then, people were being randomly cut off by romantic interests before there was a word for it. And yet, of course, no matter how commonplace it’s become, it still stings the same.
So in today’s particularly awful dating landscape, people are trying to prepare themselves ahead of time. Actually, they’re going into dating expecting to be ghosted.
In a viral TikTok video, user @kiwiproductions.tx says that this is how she moves in her relationships. “Nowadays you have to pretend that every time you see the person you’re talking to, it’s potentially the last time you’re ever going to see them,” she says in the video. “It’s happened to me too many times to count.”
As a response, people in the comments are sharing their own ghosting stories—and warnings to be aware of this happening to others. “You have to be prepared to be ghosted at any moment, even if you’re fully in a relationship,” one user wrote. “That’s why I no longer get excited when I meet someone,” another commented.
“This can often be a protective mechanism, especially for people who have experienced rejection or hurt in past relationships,” psychotherapist Mandy Lam tells Cosmopolitan. “It makes sense why someone might feel this way, particularly if they've been in situations where things seemed to be going well, only for the other person to suddenly disappear. For some people, this can also be a trauma response, especially if they've experienced significant relational hurt in the past.”
And while I feel for everyone who has been ghosted at one point (or more) in their life, perhaps we’ve gone from being cautiously guarded to a flat out cynical.
Part of dating is knowing that you’re putting yourself out there, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and yes, taking the risk of being hurt. And although it feels like mentally preparing yourself for that hurt is a way to protect yourself, you actually may be doing more damage than you think. Lam explains that confirmation bias might happen in these situations.
Confirmation bias is the unconscious tendency to search for information that aligns with your pre-existing beliefs or expectations while ignoring anything contradictory.
“When we go into dating already expecting that things won't work out, we may be more likely to look for information that reinforces that belief,” she says. For example, if someone takes longer to respond to a text, we might automatically assume it’s because they’re losing interesting—because we convinced ourselves that was bound to happen before we even started texting them in the first place.
While you may think you’re just protecting yourself, your date is seeing a closed-off, detached person who really isn’t interested in them.
Plus, when you make it your mantra that any date you go on will likely be the last time you see that person, it affects the way you show up on dates—which then can influence how the other person reacts and responds.
If you walk into your next date already expecting to be rejected, it may make you hold back from sharing as much as you’d usually do or even try to appear more nonchalant. While you may think you’re just protecting yourself, your date is seeing a closed-off, detached person who really isn’t interested in them. Wouldn’t that make you uninterested in another date?
“In some ways, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where our fear of rejection influences how we behave, which can then contribute to the very outcome we were afraid of,” Lam says.
I’m not saying that approaching dating with caution is a bad thing—quite the opposite. “Being guarded in dating, especially in the early stages, can be a healthy form of self-protection,” Lam says. “After all, you're still getting to know someone and figuring out whether they're someone you can trust and feel safe opening up to.”
This might mean making a conscious effort to take things slowly and setting boundaries around physical and emotional intimacy. This can actually be great for intentionally dating, as it allows you to develop the relationship at a pace that feels comfortable and appropriate.
But living in a state of constant distrust with someone you want to build a connection with isn’t going to benefit you or the potential relationship you want to create. Now, that’s a hard line to tow. “I think there's a difference between acknowledging that dating comes with uncertainty and going into every date expecting to be ghosted,” Lam says.
And guess what? Whether you lower your guard or put up 50 more walls, you still might get ghosted. You can’t control what another person does. But does that mean you should live your romantic life constantly preparing for the worst? I don’t think so. Self-preservation is one thing, but that just doesn’t sound like a fun experience at all. And shouldn’t dating, at the very least, be fun?
“It's understandable to want to protect ourselves, especially when we've been hurt before, but I also think it's important to recognize when those protective mechanisms might be getting in the way of allowing ourselves to connect with someone,” Lam says.
Ghosting absolutely sucks. But not everyone is going to ghost you. So maybe it’s time to try a new technique: give everyone the benefit of the doubt, because I’m sure you’d want them to do that for you.