Spooky Ghost(ing) Stories
By Molly Rapozo, Lifestyle Editor
When I was in third grade, I was in a ghost story book club. Three of my friends and I would sit under the table in the front of the classroom like crazy young weirdos truly would, and we would devour whichever ghost story we had checked out from the library that morning. Once silent reading time was over, we’d race outside to a big log in the woods near the playground and retell the stories we’d just soaked up. Some days, we’d all go to the bathroom and play Bloody Mary, which is a game you make your friends play if you’re truly a scary child.
Thirteen years later, I’m being haunted by different kinds of ghosts than the ones I would feverishly read about. The ghosts aren’t smokey purple old ladies with their coarse granny hairs popping straight up out of their heads like the librarian in Ghostbusters, no, these ghosts are silent, empty and like to play mind-games all day long.
One dark and chilly night, a few nights after the first date, I had trouble falling asleep. Things were, seemingly, going well after we shared a few short chats, a couple of drinks and one real date. Then, I offered up an easy invitation. A gentle, “Let’s study.” Met with nothing, I tossed a little conversation starter about a mutually-enjoyed band into the world—I’m not afraid of a little double-texting—which shall forever float in the void, I guess. So much for those good prospects.
Ghosting—the act of falling off the face of the Earth, for anyone unfamiliar—is everywhere and those freaky ghouls can appear in any relationship, intimate or professional. And they always, without fail, lead to a haunting number of questions on what the ghostee did wrong.
What never fails to baffle me is this: the continuation of social media follows. In the two ghosting experiences I’ve had, I was still followed on everything that they had been added to. The post-date radio silence came with lurking eyes watching every single Instagram story I posted. Is it laziness? Is it curiosity? Am I just that pretty and interesting and unforgettable that you want to still see my day-to-day? Not on my watch. In the case of the first-date-gone-silent, I kindly did both of us the service of removing him from my followers, and I, his. And look here, I’m still doing all the emotional labor.
I’m not immune to ghosting myself—I know that I’ve done it after the hint wasn’t received. I would gently say no to each passing offer and then, when the message wasn’t understood, I would reply less and less. As a shy young woman, this was my easiest out. Through failures and miscommunications, though, it dawned on me that it is much simpler for everyone if you state clearly how you feel and move on.
Stories like these send a chill up the spine. You or your best friend or your best friend’s friend or your brother or your sister have at one point been ghosted. It’s a way of life now, it seems. It’s certainly not new, but much more prevalent in our current dating culture.
What it comes down to is this: you, as the ghoster, never have to do as much work as the ghostee does. The ghoster must simply sit on and ignore often well-intended and hopeful invitations while ghostees must do the question-asking, the reaching out to a brick wall—which are notoriously bad at responding, as they are bricks and not humans—and the social media unfollowing. Woof.
It’s not unforgivable to drift. In fact, drifting I’m more than okay with! Drifting implies mutual parties give up––in that case, very fair and very reasonable. And sometimes, ghosting might be what it takes to get someone to leave you alone. Understandable. What is unforgivable is the lack of compassion that could be so easily attainable with some nice and gentle version of “I’m no longer feeling this.” Emphasis on “nice and gentle.” And an unfollow. I don’t need the followers. What I do need is authenticity.
It seems as though the trend of ghosting might be here to stay, for its simplicity and ease on the ghoster’s end is too good to pass up. For the sake of my easily bruised brain, I’ll be giving that silence that doesn’t feel so good the face of that terrifying old librarian, and will promptly zap her with a charged proton unfollow beam. No need for that beast to be lurking around.