Do you consider ghosting people a reasonable way to deal with today’s overwhelming and constant information and notification overload? Or do you find it offensive and unfriendly?
Would you equate it to a person ignoring you irl or is ignoring a text different?
For this post let’s assume the people involved are or were in the past friends, and ghosting is leaving someone on “read” for more than 2 days.
It can be very rude, but occasionally is understandable or even necessary. For example, if you’re not sure that someone is a threat to you, feelings might get hurt, but ghosting is a very fair play. But if you just can’t be bothered to let someone know you’re not interested, you are a jerk for leaving them hanging.
I dont think the act is inherently good or bad. It’s the ‘why’ that really counts with this angle.
Edit: after reading the body of the post (bad habit lol) I wouldn’t say that’s a huge deal. 2 days on read ime often means they’re either busy or aren’t sure how they’d like to respond for any number of reasons. 2 weeks tho, I might be a bit offended or hurt. Some people are just like that tho, so it depends on what I know of their typical patterns.
I’ve got one friend who I’ve known since childhood and have left on read the last couple weeks, not because I dont like him or want to talk to him, but because we just kind of burn each other out in certain ways. He does the same with me for periods too, but we always eventually get back to chatting and hanging out again. We’re just not each other’s favorite flavor, even if we enjoy a taste here and there, if that makes sense. Neither of us thinks of it as ghosting so much as putting the bookmark in and getting back to things when the time is right on both ends, and that’s just how our dynamic seems to work best.
I’d argue the results are what actually counts, even more than the why. If what you gain by ghosting is more valuable than the alternative (for example being physically safe vs. hurt feelings), it’s fine. On the other hand if what’s gained is only like two minutes of saved time…
I have been feeling a bit brain foggy the last couple days, but if I’m understanding what you’re saying, then I’m just not seeing much of a distinction between the two ideas. Like, the ‘why’ is what, more often than not, chooses the results because the results one wants are what dictates what they choose to do. Another way to say it is that the results you want are the ‘why’ I was talking about, and the results you actually get can only be got by way of whatever ‘why’ led to their becoming, right? I think we might be saying the same thing from only slightly different vantages in the sequence lol
Oh definitely, these things are not opposites or anything like that, it’s more of a philosophical difference… in vibe? lmao
The way I thought about it is, that “why” is the motivation behind choosing what to do, and “result” is what those actions lead to. These are not necessary the same as you can easily make mistakes in your judgement and cause effects you didn’t think of, or even lie to yourself (and/or others) and choose to ignore what you don’t like. Whatever actually happens is still the reality of the situation, so I think that ends up being more important than the motivations behind it, as people often lie about those. And being stupid isn’t really an excuse to do shitty things, either!
Though in most cases we don’t get full story anyway, so I guess judging based on either doesn’t really matter, yeah.