There was a time when ghosting felt shocking. It came with a sense of disbelief, followed by a frantic investigation worthy of a true crime documentary. Did they lose their phone? Did something happen? Were they abducted? You’d refresh Instagram only to discover your missing person had somehow found the time to post a sunset and a photo dump from brunch. Mystery solved.

Today, ghosting barely qualifies as an event. It’s become a feature of modern life, somewhere between surge pricing and unread emails. We don’t ask whether someone ghosted anymore, we ask how long it’s been before we can officially call it ghosting. Three days? A week? Two? Everyone seems to have their own internal policy.

Ironically, the people who condemn ghosting the loudest are often the first to disappear. We’ve all heard the speeches. “I could never ghost someone.” “It’s so immature.” “People deserve honesty.” They say this over drinks, nodding solemnly as if they’ve signed the Geneva Convention of Dating. Then two weeks later, someone sends them a perfectly polite message, “Had a lovely time, would love to see you again!”, and suddenly they’re nowhere to be found. The message sits there, quietly collecting dust beneath a “Seen” notification that somehow feels louder than any rejection ever could.

It’s funny how quickly our principles evaporate when we’re the ones who have to deliver bad news. The strange thing is that saying no has never been easier. A rejection text doesn’t require a handwritten letter, carrier pigeon, or an uncomfortable phone call. It takes less than a minute to type: “I had a lovely time, but I don’t think we’re the right match. I wish you all the best.” That’s it. Forty seconds, maybe less if you don’t overthink the emoji.

The problem isn’t that we’re incapable of communicating. It’s that we’ve started treating discomfort like an emergency. We’ve become so obsessed with protecting ourselves from awkward conversations that we’ve forgotten someone else is on the other side of the screen. Ghosting often masquerades as kindness: “I didn’t want to hurt them.” But silence isn’t neutral. Silence is still an answer. It just happens to be the least generous one.

What’s fascinating is how quickly ghosting went from being a dating faux pas to becoming an accepted social norm. It’s no longer confined to dating apps and situationships. It’s leaking into friendships, work, family dynamics, even everyday interactions. Someone asks if you’re free next week. You never reply. A friend sends you a voice note. You mean to answer, then three weeks pass, and now it feels awkward. You stop showing up to a group chat without explanation. You simply fade.

We’ve become experts at the Irish exit, except now we do it digitally, emotionally and socially. Perhaps that’s because disappearing has become incredibly easy. Every app gives us the illusion that conversations are infinitely postponable. Read receipts can be ignored. Notifications can be swiped away. Entire people can be archived with the same ease as an old shopping receipt.

Technology didn’t invent ghosting. It simply industrialised it. The most worrying part isn’t romantic rejection. Most adults survive being ghosted after a few dates. It stings, sure, but eventually it becomes another story to tell over wine. The real shift is that younger generations are beginning to normalise disappearing from every type of relationship.

Friendships are becoming increasingly casual, almost disposable. Someone you’ve spoken to every day for months can quietly drift into complete silence without a fight, without a conversation, without any apparent reason. One day they’re sending you memes. The next they’re a stranger who occasionally watches your Instagram stories.

There’s something uniquely human about endings. Whether it’s a relationship, a friendship, or even a conversation, closure isn’t just about the other person, it says something about us. It reflects our ability to acknowledge that someone shared a part of our life, however briefly. You don’t owe everyone a lengthy explanation. Not every coffee date deserves a dissertation. But basic courtesy shouldn’t feel revolutionary.

Perhaps we’ve confused emotional boundaries with emotional avoidance. One protects your peace. The other simply avoids responsibility. And if we’re not careful, where does it stop? Today it’s someone you matched with on Hinge. Tomorrow it’s the colleague you’ve worked beside for five years. Next week it’s a friend. Eventually, do we become the society where someone jokes, “We were married for two years, had two kids and then one day they just stopped replying”? Ridiculous, of course. Or at least we’d like to think so.

Every social habit starts somewhere. Smoking was once glamorous. Answering emails after midnight became ambitious. Maybe disappearing without a word is simply another behaviour we’ve accidentally rewarded because it’s convenient. The hopeful news is that social norms can change just as quickly as they appear.

All it takes is one person deciding to send the uncomfortable text instead of avoiding it. One friend saying, “I’m overwhelmed, I’ll be quiet for a while.” One date writing, “You’re lovely, but I don’t see this going further.” Tiny acts of honesty that take less than a minute but restore something much bigger: trust.

Because perhaps the opposite of ghosting isn’t confrontation. It’s consideration. And in an era obsessed with efficiency, optimisation and protecting our own emotional bandwidth, consideration might just become the most rebellious thing we can offer another human being. 

With Love, Chaos, and Jazz. Always.