- 26
- Mar
- 2025
In an era of instant virtual connections, “ghosting” emerges as a relational avoidance strategy that reveals our primal traumas and unconscious defense mechanisms in the face of emotional vulnerability.
The anglicisms used to illustrate certain phenomena observed in virtual exchanges have surprising meanings. Far from indicating a mundane behavior, they carry meanings that reveal deeper characteristics about their users. This week, we will try to understand what “ghosting” is, which shares common traits with “breadcrumbing.”
The contemporary digital environment seems to facilitate, and perhaps even encourage, these types of behavior. The mediation of screens in our social interactions creates a form of relational disembodiment that makes ghosting, along with other similar behaviors, easier. The absence of physical contact and the psychological distance inherent in digital communication reduces the perception of the emotional impact of our actions on others. This distance allows for a form of infantile regression in interactions, where individuals feel entitled to act on immediate impulses without fully considering the emotional consequences on the other. The relative anonymity and absence of direct closeness diminish the sense of responsibility, making avoidance behaviors like ghosting easier.
Furthermore, we observe that the current culture, characterized by immediacy and multiple relational options, also fosters these phenomena of sudden disappearance. In an environment where connections are numerous but often superficial, emotional investment can seem optional, or even unnecessary. This perspective transforms relationships into consumable goods, where disengagement without explanation becomes an acceptable option in the face of discomfort or difficulty. The technical ease of cutting ties without tangible social repercussions strengthens this trend and creates fertile ground for the normalization of ghosting as a relational practice.
What is ghosting? This practice refers to the reaction of a person who abruptly interrupts all communication, without providing an explanation, primarily in the context of romantic or friendly relationships. This phenomenon has significantly increased with the rise of social networks and online dating apps, which emerged in the mid-2000s and have since become common behaviors in the digital world. What distinguishes ghosting from a simple break in contact is the total absence of explanation and the suddenness of the disappearance. The “ghosted” person is left facing deprivation, without understanding what may have motivated the action.
To understand the deeper mechanisms of ghosting, we can formulate a number of hypotheses. First, we may speculate that individuals who resort to ghosting may have insecure attachment patterns, especially avoidant types. As we mentioned for breadcrumbing, their fear of abandonment or emotional intimacy becomes so strong that they prefer to flee rather than cope with relational complexity. This avoidance strategy has its roots in early family experiences. A person who experienced abandonment wounds during childhood may develop protective mechanisms that later manifest in practices like ghosting, unconsciously repeating traumatic childhood patterns.
In addition to the attachment dimension, a fundamental motive often underpins ghosting: the fear of confrontation. Facing an uncomfortable conversation, expressing dissatisfaction or explicitly ending a relationship requires emotional maturity that some individuals may not have developed. Ghosting then becomes a convenient escape to avoid the discomfort related to interpersonal conflicts. This behavior can also be seen as a repression of anger or aggression: rather than directly expressing their displeasure or frustration, “ghosters” choose a passive attitude, underpinned by aggression, through their silence and disappearance.
Exploring the psychic dynamics at play more deeply, we find that the “ghoster's” characteristic flight can also be interpreted as a strategy to hide their true self. In a culture where outward appearance is paramount, especially on social media, individuals may fear revealing their vulnerability or aspects of their personality they feel ashamed of. This fear of emotional investment that would expose their fragilities leads some people to cut off any relationship that threatens to reveal what they consider weaknesses. Ghosting then becomes a protective shield against psychic vulnerability, a barrier against what psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott called the fear of collapse – this deep, archaic anxiety related to exposing our fragilities.
This protective dimension of ghosting naturally leads us to consider its role in the psychic economy. Ghosting can indeed be the expression of a deep wound, the reopening of which could be unbearable. In the face of a relationship that reactivates past traumas, some individuals prefer to flee rather than risk reliving the associated pain. This reaction is particularly present in individuals who have experienced traumatic childhood experiences. From this perspective, we can understand ghosting as a desperate attempt to preserve one's psychic integrity in the face of a threat perceived as existential.
For the person who suffers from ghosting, the impact can be deeply destabilizing. This sudden and unexplained silence usually provokes intense feelings of confusion, exclusion or rejection. The absence of an explanation leaves a void that the ghosted person tends to fill with interpretations that are often self-deprecating. “What did I do wrong?” “Am I so unworthy of interest that someone can disappear without even informing me?” These painful questions reveal how ghosting can undermine self-confidence and reactivate previous narcissistic wounds.
Even more troubling, this experience can awaken, as we mentioned, old abandonment traumas and weaken not only self-confidence, but also the ability to invest in future relationships. The prolonged uncertainty–the disappeared person not always removing their virtual contacts–can keep the ghosted person in a painful state of waiting, a kind of relational hell where the hope of a return coexists with the pain of absence. This ambiguity keeps the wound open and complicates the grieving process of the relationship.
While ghosting can be seen as a way to temporarily avoid emotional conflict, in the long term, it can reinforce dysfunctional patterns of avoidance and escape when faced with inevitable relational difficulties. This strategy can also fuel a cycle of psychic isolation, where the person, out of fear of intimacy or rejection, deprives themselves of potentially reparative and enriching interpersonal experiences. Ghosting then becomes a symptom of a deeper difficulty in forming authentic connections and containing the emotional complexity inherent in human relationships.
As with breadcrumbing, we may even observe, in some cases, that repeatedly resorting to ghosting reveals narcissistic traits or a form of relational manipulation. For some individuals, keeping the other in uncertainty can be a way to exert psychological control, a cruel way of maintaining a bond while avoiding commitment. This ambivalence between the desire for control and the fear of intimacy characterizes certain forms of ghosting and may indicate deeper relational issues.
Comments