Why is "Ghosting" Socially Acceptable?

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For those who don't know what "ghosting" is, it's basically the act of rejecting someone by completely cutting off all contact with them, and acting like they don't exist.

My main question is: why is this practice considered socially acceptable nowadays? This seems to be a very common way of rejecting someone you're dating nowadays, if not the norm. In my opinion it is extremely rude and disrespectful. I think that if you are going to go on a date with someone, you should at least have the courage to tell them that you're not interested if things don't go well. I think that people do this because they find it hard to reject someone or think that it will hurt their feelings if they tell them the truth. In my opinion ghosting is a far worse insult, because it basically implies that the person may as well not even exist.

If someone rejects me, it can be difficult but it provides closure and I move on. When someone ghosts me, I never get any sort of closure with the person, and I basically can't stop asking myself what happened between us - I find that it is far more difficult to deal with, and leaves me feeling absolutely terrible like I've committed some sort of horrible offense against this person.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

They're too shy to make a closure.

I think some people just don't handle the situation well because they aren't good at dealing with ending a relationship, no matter how brief.
Sometimes the person who ended the relationship can't tell you exactly why.

Like you said, it's easier to let the person take a hint than to confront him/her on it. Plus, you don't really know the person, so you can't accurately gauge how he/she will react if you were to say "I'm not interested". Maybe an underlying safety concern?

Jjancee- although I understand where you are coming from on that, I really hope you aren't justifying the rudeness that goes into doing that to other people. People are entitled to doing those things to other people. But of course there are consequences to every action, good or bad.

it seems few people nowadays honor much less understand the golden rule, or that what goes 'round comes 'round. we're making our potentially beautiful world into an inner circle of hell, and nobody cares enough to look up from their smart phone to give a hoot.

People are too afraid of retaliation. If it's just been one or two dates, they don't want to continue on, I don't feel I'm owed an explanation. But if it's an extended period of time with more than just "going out" I'd like to feel one is deserved. There's no human approach to it, if someone doesn't suit someone's needs it's always the cold shoulder and a middle finger until they go away, it's rather frustrating.

I'm not familiar with "ghosting" being used in this sense. I think you mean "fading."

Fading is the most heinous way you can ditch someone. I'm not aware that it IS socially acceptable.

If you are in a serious relationship, this isn't something you'd ordinarily do. You'd have the courage to break up with someone outright. If someone insults you, says something negative/insulting about your mother/friends/etc., or becomes abusive, go ahead and fade them. This is one of those "if you can't figure out the obvious, I'M not going to tell you!" situations. Anything that's an automatic deal breaker, a blatant I-told-you-on-our-first-date kind of no-no. Chances are you warned them that this is behavior you find disturbing and they do it anyway. Block their calls/texts, unfriend them on Facebook, "forget" their email addy, etc. Bf/gf? What bf/gf? I don't know who you're talking about. Might as well have been just a bad dream. See, THAT'S understandable.

Someone seems really cool and you go out with them. For whatever reason, doesn't really matter why, but "there's just no 'there' there." You aren't obligated to return phone calls, text messages, and you conveniently miss a friend request. Soooo?.oops, don't recognize that number?who are you again? Fade 'em. Because if you really have to explain, there will probably be hurt feelings. Fading is the nicest thing you can do sometimes and you spare someone the embarrassment.

Long term relationship? If you lost interest or you just don't see a future in this relationship, you just need to clear your calendar for one Saturday, break the news early in the afternoon at the latest, and be there as long as it takes--at most all you have to do is watch one last sunset together, but by the end of that day the relationship is still over. If we'd been together for a year or more and you give me the fade, I'm thinking the worst: Kidnapping, terrorists, car wrapped around a light pole, pair of concrete shoes for your birthday, etc. I'm calling police, hospitals, and psych wards. If there have been no fights, you've been in daily contact with this person, and absolutely no sign that something is amiss, you don't get to just disappear. You owe your partner an explanation. Doesn't have to be anything elaborate, no "I just need to find myself/discover who I am," no "I just need my space for a while," no "It's not you, it's me." It CAN be if it honestly is, but a simple "I feel it's time to move on and wish you the best" is all that is required. Now, granted, an explanation won't always be immediately accepted. But it doesn't matter?You signaled that the relationship is, once and for all, OVER. Stick a fork in it, it's DONE.

The most effective breakups are going to be the ones that are long in coming. You had a verbal fight. You're visibly unhappy when you're with this person. You stop saying "I love you." You're not as flirty as you used to be, not as much physical contact. And you've brought all this up in conversation before. There are some signs that can't be ignored for long, so you sit down and you mutually come to the conclusion that the relationship is ending. Chances are your partner has been thinking about it and just didn't want to say anything, and it's a big relief once for everyone when it's over.

But you don't just fade someone like that.

Now, if you've broken up and everything has been made perfectly clear, and this person harasses you, constantly texts, calls at inappropriate times, trashes you on social media, etc., yeah, fade them because they're being a jerk. You've done all you had to do and you want this person out of your life. There's nothing wrong with that. You just don't break up with someone by cutting off all contact without first letting them know that the relationship is over.

I don't think it's an entitlement. Providing closure is something good to do but it bears potential costs.

I'm assuming we're talking about being rejected by women in the beginning stages of relationship (i.e. not a long-term committed relationship). Consider that, at this stage, there isn't a substantive emotional connection, and so it may not ever occur to them that you require unambiguous closure in the first place. Moreover, they have no idea how you'll react. I've had a few girlfriends tell me that they avoid outright rejecting a guy for fear that he'll become aggressive. You might never respond like that, but a woman can't know that with certainty. She might reasonably conclude that the risk is too high.

I also wonder if the women described in the OP go full no-contact out of nowhere, or if they don't drop some hints that someone without Asperger's/autism would detect. The latter has been true, in my experience.

One last point: I suspect that a mere "I'm just not interested/not that into you" would not satisfy most of us. I think we'd want to know exactly what went wrong. This substantially raises the costs of a straight-forward rejection: if she thinks the rejection in itself might provoke hostility, then surely telling you why she's rejecting you makes such a response more likely.

Or maybe she just wants to spare you pain. That isn't unreasonable, either.