Silent treatment can be effective, but it still remains a highly immature and stupid method of showing annoyance while trying to get the guilty party’s attention at the same time.
I say immature because it is possible to simply address a situation with a person rather than taking the road most traveled by – the petty road – completely pushing the problem under a small rug, stewing in silence for a few days before passive-aggressively relaying your feelings after far too much time has passed. In some rare cases, silent treatment can work – the person who hurt you may be perceptive enough to catch your lack of responses or cold shoulders and be smart, or mature enough, to apologize and make amends. But not every human being is blessed with the power of perception and this is where silent treatment may fail, or worse still, work against you.
Keeping in mind how frustrating it is to communicate with a friend who is purposely trying to block you out, imagine how equally frustrating and confusing it must be to find out that your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend or FWB has suddenly decide to freeze you out for no apparent reason and without warning. How do you deal with that? How do you calm yourself long enough to think carefully about what you may have done to deserve the silent treatment? You may find yourself looking through previous text messages, replaying FaceTime and phone conversations; carefully picking through what you can remember and trying to figure out if you might have said something offensive – something that may have warranted such a harsh punishment. Someone you like, or maybe even love, shouldn’t ghost on you without at least respecting you enough to give a reason for screening your calls, texts and e-mails.
Silent treatment, depending on the individual and his/her level of pettiness, can last for a day, week, month and if the person is feeling particularly petty, a year. In a case where the silent treatment exceeds a month, you can refer to it as Ghosting.
Ghosting is an extremely cowardly way to get out of a relationship. If you no longer want to continue a romantic relationship or conversation, you should be wise and considerate enough to be honest with the person you have spent a good amount of time getting to know.
In the rare cases of first or second dates, where only a short amount of time is spent with someone, Ghosting may seem appropriate because you don’t really know person or establish a meaningful connection with him/her, but suddenly going quiet because you realize the relationship may not go further is an extremely problematic way of handling a situation.
Everyone appreciates honesty.
We may not like how painfully straight forward the truth can be sometimes, but after we are done sulking and dabbing our tears, we will appreciate anyone who has the balls to be real and honest.
There are basic human principles that help us in our quest to be better individuals, and Ghosting falls under the “I am an asshole and I don’t deserve nice things in this life” category.
On one hand, it shouldn’t be difficult to simply end a relationship with words as opposed to going silent and falling off the face of the earth. On the other hand, if you find yourself in a relationship that threatens your mental and physical state, then you owe no one any excuses or reasons for Ghosting. Any other reason besides abuse or threats cannot fly in my books.
If we’re all going to be adults and prance around shouting about how mature and level headed we are about relationships, then we should be grown enough to end said relationships with sense and decorum. Don’t walk around giving someone the silent treatment because you don’t find them as attractive anymore – be a man (and woman, relax feminists) and respect the person enough to give a reason, however short or long, for bowing out.
I have experienced Ghosting a few times, and let me tell you, it was not fun. I don’t know how I went from talking to someone everyday on every available platform to one day waking up and realizing he was never going to return any of my desperate phone calls or give me a reason for this sudden silence. We went from skyping from the moment I woke up to when he fell asleep to us barely saying a word to each other a few months later.
As hard as it was, I had to face the harsh reality and move on. He was coming back, and he never did, but I came to terms with what he did – I still don’t understand why he couldn’t trust me enough to talk through whatever problems he thought we had but I don’t want an explanation anymore. If someone disrespects you enough to ghost on you, you shouldn’t waste your time searching for reasons, answers and explanations. They don’t deserve that much of your time and effort anymore. They took the low road, now you have to take the high road and put the person behind you.
I can’t speak on behalf of everyone – we all handle situations differently – but I cannot and probably will never understand or appreciate any form of silent treatment. It’s selfish and can end up doing more harm than good. You shouldn’t pick and choose what you want to be grown up about. If you’re so eager to be seen and treated like an adult, be adult enough to handle your situations like a grown up. This is all I ask from everyone.