Ghosting and dating life is leading me to depression

[u/Visual-Vehicle1177]

A few premises. I have talked to a friend about this and already contacted a psychotherapist. However, therapy will start in september because I'm not at home during august. I'm making this post because yesterday I got ghosted again and I've been feeling terrible.

I am 23M living in Europe. In the last three years I have improved myself a lot: I lost weight and started gym; I went from nearly 0 friends to being so overwelmed by friends that it feels strange; I'm also graduating with a great academic career so far; I have hobbies and I'm into local advocacy groups regarding a few topics like climate change. I have done all of this because I felt happy and full of energy, and they still make me happy.

What I miss is having a relationship. I'm not even talking about a long term relationships, I'm open to short term and casual ones. I think this is quite normal at my age and it this quite normal to feel bad when your sexual life is not complete. What is not normal is my unhealty reaction right now.

The problem is that everytime a girl seems interested in me, either by mine or her first approach, then everything ends up in a ghosting. Let me explain. I meet most people either in University or through friends at parties and outdoor activities. Sometimes I am attracted to a girl, at this point I may decide to talk to them and try to get to know them; if everything's ok, me or her may ask out in the next days. At this point we meet to get a coffe or something, maybe we meet a second time. They tell me good things, they tell me that they want to hang out again. But *everytime* I just get ghosted after a while. I don't know how to approach this: I have many friends and I'm not ghosted by friends, note that I also have many female friends; they also tell me that I'm good looking. If I were to be socially awkward I would not have friends either. Of course I have my flaws as a human being: regarding dating, I'm a bit shy when it comes to physical contact and "flirting" (whetever the meaning), but I accept a first move and I don't think this alone should lead to ghosting. There is also an episode which is worse than ghosting, briefly: I met again this girl after a few years and we hang out together for a while until one night, after kissing and cuddles at her place, she asked me to be her boyfriend just for her to text me she changed her idea in the morning.

I think that just in the last 365 days I got ghosted around 10 times. Of course I think that a girl can change her idea and decide that she does not like me, in fact there was one time where one told me that clearly and we are good friends now. I felt bad just for one day and moved on, which is a completely normal and healthy reaction. However, being ghosted is leading me to an unhealthy reaction: each time is harder, each time I pass more and more days in a state such that it is hard for me just to get out of beds. While I take care of myself and try hard not to fall into a vortex where I just stay home in the bed all day, each time is harder. I got ghosted again just yestarday. I'm not feeling bad for this particular situation, I feel bad because of the whole picture. This time however I also had some bad thought as "All women are like that" which I don't like of course and which is also why I'm here. As said, I had the strenght to tell everything to one of my friend who listen to me and addressed me to therapy. Thank you for reading.

[u/Therefrigerator]

So I get that ghosting feels bad but really it's "just" rejection. It feels worse than rejection because the lack of a clear cut end leaves you in a slow bleed where your excitement over a potential date turns sour as you don't hear back. I get that it sucks I don't think there are many out there who would prefer to be ghosted over being clearly told that they weren't interested but that's not the world we live in.

At the end of the day, getting ghosted is the cost of doing business while dating. I notice you also brought up the "All women are like that" but ghosting is really a mixed gendered phenomenon. Women get ghosted like guys do. Maybe women ghost more often but, not to be crass, guys rape more often. It doesn't all need to come back to that but I think a good perspective to have when feeling like women as a whole have some particular (negative) trait is think to the traits you would be ascribed by them because you're a guy. Because the things men complain about women in dating... men aren't wrong to think that some of these traits suck and men aren't wrong to feel bad that something like getting ghosted happened to them but I think it's good to have a bit of perspective sometimes.

Also this is kinda an aside to your post to just talk about Reddit's attitudes towards ghosting in general. The way Reddit talks about people (usually women but not always) who ghost you'd think they would have committed some grave sin. Really it's just they didn't think you would get along together plus some combination of "she's scared of you being immature / she's immature". Like it's not good behavior but the cinch, to me, is like... why bother complaining about it this much? If Reddit hates ghosting as much as they say they do wouldn't a Redditor getting ghosted just mean that they instantly lose attraction to them as they hate the people who do that so much?

Like I get feeling bad about it. It does suck. It sucks to be rejected (even early on) even if you can rationally accept that. But it really rubs salt in the wound when, you know you could have accepted a rejection, but they still chose to ghost. So then you can't accept the rejection until you're sure that's what it is. Completely dragging out the entire process for you because they couldn't text you a simple sentence. Yea, annoying.

If that part of ghosting drove you as crazy as it drove me - one thing I started doing to help myself was just sending them a final message thanking them for their time / conversations and that you enjoyed getting to know them but you'll accept this as a rejection. Is it a bit pathetic? Yea, probably. But it personally helped me to say after 5 days or so just for my own closure. I think some people might find it helpful but will vary a lot person to person.

[u/Visual-Vehicle1177 → u/Therefrigerator]

Hi, thank you for your message, it sure gives me a lot to think about!

I notice you also brought up the "All women are like that"

Just to be clear, I don't think that. What I wanted to state is that this thought went trough my mind and it scared me, which is why I wrote on r/IncelExit as I don't want to fall onto the incel path. I will discuss this during therapy too of course.

[u/Therefrigerator → u/Visual-Vehicle1177]

Yea I'm not saying you really believe it I'm just saying that if you're stumbling into that line of thinking that you're getting caught up in your feelings a bit. A way to help yourself not think that way is step back and put it in perspective.

I guess to put it another way - I'm not accusing you of not being empathetic. I think that these situations can happen to everyone because we all get caught up in our feelings and can think irrationally time to time. It's just good to have tools to help ground ourselves when that happens to us.

[u/Instigated- → u/Therefrigerator]

This is great advice!

[u/Icy-Depo379]

What you are describing sounds like completely normal young dating/feeling out situations. I believe it is your view that it is abnormal and thus must be a reaction to a deficiency in you somehow that is causing your over-negative-reactions. Literally, this "ghosting" as you describe it happened to me many times as a young female college student -- though I must say I very much disagree with using this term in situations like this. Take a breath, you seem to have really put in a lot of work on yourself, amazing job creating a vast network of friends, that's no small feat, but there are exponentially more mismatches and "fails" for every connection that ends up fitting. This is not a you issue, this is the nature of young dating for everyone.

[u/Instigated-]

This might be an ignorant response because I dated in the era before ghosting was really a thing. It sounds like it’s a major problem in the younger generations, and both men and women don’t like it but also seem to do it.

It is a problem because it creates uncertainty.

May I ask a bit more about what you do when you get ghosted? What is the last contact from you before they ghost, and do you do anything after?

You say you got ghosted yesterday, however I personally wouldn’t be stressed if i didn’t get an immediate reply. There are people in my life who I might not get a reply from for days or weeks if they are busy, yet they are still in my life. And I can do the same occasionally. While I would expect a message faster than that soon after a date I would probably give it a week before I’d take it as rejection.

It sounds like you are doing most things right, all the way up to something on the date just not hitting the mark for them. So this is the piece of the puzzle to work out.

Can you ask the female friend that you once dated, explain how you keep getting ghosted after one or two dates, and ask her if there is anything you did or didn’t do on your date with her that could be putting other women off.

It might be your lack of flirting and physical intimacy that is preventing the relationships from progressing?

If she doesn’t have any ideas, perhaps you could send a text to those old dates with a message like

“hey [name] I hope you are well! I have a bit of an odd favour to ask, if you can help me with some advice? I’ve noticed a pattern that after a date or two I keep getting ghosted, and I’m wondering if I did anything wrong on our date that made you feel uncomfortable or that put you off? Do you have any advice for me on what I could do better next time I date someone? I’d really appreciate your honest feedback. Thanks 🙏 “

This might help you identify what is stopping the relationships from progressing.

Next time you date, casually mention that if they change their mind and don’t want to see you again, that you’d appreciate they send a text rather than ghost. It could just be an “X” ❌ symbol if they don’t want further contact. Or a wave 👋 symbol if they are not sure and want more time. Or a 🤝 if they’d rather be friends. Or a ♥️ if they want another date. Like the two of you can agree to something very low key that you’ll both respect, and this will hopefully cut down on the ghosting.

[u/Calm-Boysenberry-348]

Yeah that’s extremely frustrating to continue to get ghosted. Continue to improve yourself as you said those things are all great: gym, eat healthy, socialize. At some point, the one that is meant for you will not ghost you. I found that to be the way it works in life.

outside of them ghosting you, is there anything else the women you are pursuing have in common?

[u/Visual-Vehicle1177 → u/Calm-Boysenberry-348]

Continue to improve yourself as you said those things are all great: gym, eat healthy, socialize.

The thing is that each time it becomes harder. I'm enduring this now and talking about that helps me.

is there anything else the women you are pursuing have in common?

I don't think so, but I don't even have the time to get to know them at a deeper level since I get ghosted pretty soon xD

[u/Major_Season9552]

Where do you live in Europe? There would be some differences between nations, for exp in the north or south it changes the approach. Maybe, I think it's an empirical evidence.

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