PSA: Ghosting sucks. Don't do it

Story by Lindsay Schindler Photos by Phoebe LaForge

Iwalked into my apartment after my date, and naturally the first thing I did was tell my roommate how it went.

“That was the best date I’ve ever been on,” I said without any hesitation.

It was true, that was the best date I had ever been on. It was my third date with him, but it was the first time we had really connected. There were no awkward silent moments, no points in which I felt uncomfortable, and he was very adamant about paying for dinner. Quite frankly, this boy, who I’ll refer to as Kobe (after my cat), checked all of my boxes.

However, there was one teeny tiny red flag I had ignored. I venmo’d him for the tip (because who I’ll call Sasha (after my other cat), might hate me a little bit. He had quite the crush on one of my roommates a few months back, and things didn’t end well between them. By association, I’m a bad person. But that had nothing to do with me, so what’s the issue?

I wish I could say there was no issue, or that I even knew what said issue was. But I don’t, and I likely never will.

The day after our date was wonderful. We texted all day and made plans for the following evening.

Then Kobe hung out with Sasha.

“Hey, I hate to cancel but Sasha reminded me that I promised to hang out with him tonight,” Kobe’s text to me read.

Okay, no big deal. So he’s a loyal friend. Honestly, could he be more perfect? I wasn’t going to let that bother me.

Except that was the last time I heard from Kobe. It’s been one month, and he is still yet to even open my response.

What happened? Did Sasha say I’m his roommate’s crazy ex-girlfriend? Did he say my roommate is a horrible person, so I’m horrible by association? Or did this have nothing to do with Sasha, and Kobe just decided he hated me? Did I smell bad, but did it really take him 24 hours to realize I had smelled bad?

I will never know why Kobe chose to ghost me, but I’ve elected to convince myself it’s because he was just too in love with me and was afraid of his own emotions. What’s he going to do, correct me? That would require him to communicate with me, and he’s clearly never doing that again.

I’m hurt. I internalized this rejection and all I can do is assume I messed up. His real reason for ghosting me may have nothing to do with me, but all I know is what

I did, and I can’t think of any ways that I acted with malice that would cause him to ghost me.

Ultimately, unless you’re ghosting a random creep from a dating app, ghosting is never the answer. It’s hurtful, and if you’ve formed a connection with a person, you owe them an explanation. End of story.

At time of print, Kobe still has me on unopened and I have happily moved on from his ghosting.

I’m a good person) and saw in his transaction history that he had most recently venmo’d my exboyfriend's roommate.

Not a big deal, right? There was no bad blood between my ex and I, and it’s not like Kobe was friends with my ex himself.

Unfortunately, a small detail to note here is that this friend,