With ‘ghosting,’ relationships end in digital silence

Do you know what ghosting is?

If you think the term ghosting refers to the spirit of a dead person, you are wrong.

Ghosting is when a person in a relationship stops all communication with the significant other instead of telling the person that it’s over.

The person just seamlessly vanishes from the relationship.

Some UDM students have been affected by ghosting.

Sophomore Michael James was a victim of ghosting a few years ago. He was dating a neighborhood crush. 

“I was 13 years old,” he said. “I lived on McNichols and Stansbury at the time, and I met this girl on my street and I liked her and I talked to her and I asked her out.”

She said yes, and they went together for about five months, said James.

Suddenly, his girlfriend stopped coming around.

“I hadn’t heard from this girl in months and I was confused,” said James.

Adding to the intrigue, the girl’s cousin lived next door, where he would see her two months after her sudden disappearance.

“I was just playing in my backyard and I see her talking to this other dude, and I asked her are we still together and she said no I broke up with you,” he recalled.

UDM student Renesha Smoot has had experience with ghosting, as well.

She had been dating a guy for two years.

She felt that something was going wrong in their relationship when she went through his phone.

“Someone had just stolen my phone, so I was using one of his phones,” she said. “There were pictures and text messages between him and other girls.”

Smoot confronted her boyfriend over the messages in his phone and he broke up with her. Later, they rekindled their romance.

“We started dating again, and then he started acting funnier,” said Smoot.

She felt that he wanted to break up again, but she ignored her gut instinct because she was happy they were back together.

“One day, I just started calling him and texting him, and he wouldn’t respond,” said Smoot. “It turns out he was dating this girl he told me not to worry about. He was cheating on me when we were dating, and then he completely stopped talking to me.”

Senior Jason Marzette admits to being the “ghost” in a previous relationship.

“I was in a two and a half month relationship with a girl that I only met once,” said Marzette.

He felt he had rushed into the relationship.

Marzette said the girl would text and call him too much.

“One day, I just got fed up with it because she was too clingy,” he said. “I just straight up left the relationship. I wasn’t feeling her.”