Where do you draw the line between Withdrawing and Ghosting?

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Yes I said he was aspie and I said I will never let a guy treat me like that again, going silent on me and acting like he doesn't exist, because if it does, I will just assume he doesn't want me and move on myself. No stress, no anxiety, no worries. Maybe he realized "Damn, she got a new boyfriend because I hadn't bee talking to her. I shouldn't go silent on someone again or else I will lose them thinking I dumped them." His loss.

We were separating because he had to move out of his apartment and I didn't want to stay with his parents due to lack of room and he snores and I can't sleep in the same room with him because of it. I can't sleep with snoring. He also agreed it would be best I live with my aunt and uncle and my parents said so we packed my stuff and he took me to their house and after that he was hard to reach and we didn't talk as much and he didn't involve me in his life as much. It was meant to be temporary and my mom told me that was the breakup. Even when we were together he said me and my first boyfriend were more compatible. It was all confusing when I look back because of different things and then things not adding up so I keep thinking no it couldn't be the break up because we were still talking and I got to take him out only once when I finally got a job out here and he picked me up and took me to the spot we were going to see a movie at we both wanted to see together.

I also remember the time I was walking and some stranger started talking to me and then he said "You have a boyfriend" and I said yes and then I was talking on the phone to my ex and I mentioned that and he didn't tell me we were not still together, he just said he knew I still had one because I wasn't giving him eye contact and he happened to be right. So that tells me maybe we didn't truly break up and we were still together but just separated because he had to move out of his apartment and I didn't want to be in his parents apartment with him due to lack of space. They only had one spare bedroom and the other one was the computer room and no bed and the couch was always so full of stuff so there would have been no place for me to sleep or I would have had sleepless nights and end up sleeping in the day time when I can. You can probably see why this would all be confusing about the break up thing. It was my mother that told me he had moved on and sometimes people don't answer their phones or return your calls when they break up and they don't tell you because they don't want to hurt your feelings or have any conflicts but IMO just going silent is worse than breaking up. That is why I say next time this happens, I will just move on and not have all this anxiety and stress. I may be married but you never know if something will happen to him and he dies, he has medical conditions. He could have an accident and die from it. He fell and hurt his back once and couldn't work for a while because he had a seizure and he could barely move for a while and it was very painful when he did. He couldn't get better unless my parents took our kid off our hands until he was better and I was very overwhelmed. I am hoping he doesn't die for a real long time.

I would like to think he hasn't spoken to me all those years because he had realized he had hurt me and didn't want to hurt me anymore. But he never apologized or ever told me he doesn't want to hurt me so he doesn't want to talk anymore. All very confusing. But it doesn't matter because we weren't compatible anyway. My mom asked me a few times back then why do I keep talking to my ex's they were both jerks. She thinks both of them were crazy lol. They both had problems and I was hurt in both relationships. I think I am someone who always wants to help people and make them happy so whenever I see someone is lonely or unhappy, I always want to be their friend to make them happy but I know I can't always do that and I can't always change people by trying to help them. That is how I end up with "crazy" people and getting hurt at the end. It's a pipe dream that once you help someone, they will be better people and be happy or once you are with them, they will be happy and bam they are better people. Doesn't work that way. Not in reality. It's like how some women think if they have a baby with their partner, their partner will change and be better people. I think only very few change after having a kid. My brother grew up finally after he found out he was going to have a baby and now he isn't this irresponsible person anymore who isn't taking life seriously. He finally decided what he wanted to do in his life and go that direction. It became all about the best interest of the child. I am sure it's the same with partners too about getting better after finally having a partner but I wouldn't count on it and sometimes people have deeper issues that need to be worked out through a therapist and the person has to want to get help in order to get it. Instead of sitting back and waiting for my partner to change like most women do, I left. It wouldn't surprise me if my last boyfriend dumped me first but it's hard to tell who dumped who first. I wanted to break up with him but was too afraid of adding to his depression and now i think I should have just broken up with him when I got the chance because he was too hard to reach and not care about his feelings and the BS he was going through with his other ex and the drama and trying to get custody of his child. That was why I was relieved when my mom told me I was single again and when the break up happened rather we intended it or not.

Ghosting is cowardly and reprehensible behavior. Just BREAK IT OFF and be as nice about it as you can to them. If you engage in Ghosting.....you deserve to be stalked.

Withdrawing usually happens when one steps back from the relationship (even temporarily) because they may feel things are going a little too fast for them or too intimate. That's what I remember. Ghosting can result from withdrawing, but I like to refer to ghosting as cutting of all contact and not replying to the other person when they attempt to contact you. I find it interesting that when this happened to me when I was a teenager (others ghosting me), my one good female friend kept saying "If she wants to talk to you, she will." That applies to someone that is upset with you, not with a ghoster.

You can try and rationalize and make up explanations in your head as to why someone with an ASD did this ghosting act to you. Or you can just simply look at things from a more responsible manner and acknowledge to yourself how it makes you feel and why. You can also choose either tell him how this made you feel or not. Chances are he will try and talk to you when you are involved with someone else as this eems to be how ghosters work anyway.

Umm, no one deserves to be stalked.

I was ghosted by a girl in real life (after being in good terms with her and suddenly - she ghosted me) , not just online, like pretending she's not seeing me while I am in the same room, she barely nodded and said hi to me when she bumped into me face to face despite my attempts to talk with her , otherwise she doesn't see me - as if her field of view is a narrow straight corridor.

So I've decided to ignore her presence too and forget she has even been an acquaintance, after like a month of this, when she saw me talking with someone else, she came to me and said "Hi how are you?" with a big smile. Like seriously?? I am suddenly visible now? I was there in front her a lot of times, I've just replied with a one word "fine" and continued talking with the other person.


Withdrawing and ghosting are the same thing, withdrawing is simply ghosting within an established relationship (withdrawing from the relationship through ignoring)

Reading between the lines, I think he or she was saying if you ghost, you might be stalked because the other person won't know you are avoiding them and want nothing to do with them and you have gotten them so worried like something had happened or don't know what is going on so just that one line of saying "I don't want to be in a relationship with you anymore and I also don't wish to remain friends" would make a difference so the other person knows even if it might hurt but I think it's even more hurtful to just go silent and not ever hear from you again. It's causes a lot of anxiety and stress.

I always have a hard time feeling sorry for someone and have a hard time seeing them as a victim when they claim to be stalked when they really had a friendship with someone or a relationship and then all of a sudden blocked them or stopped taking their calls because they wanted to move on and didn't tell that person so now they have gotten that person so worried because they don't know they had dumped them as a friend or partner. I just think what kind of friend does this? This sort of thing did actually happen to one of my online friends and then he found out she was calling him a stalker to her friends and I wouldn't have forgiven her for it if I were him but he did. They were just friends and he really cared about her and all and then she stopped coming online and then the Katrina happened so he thought she was hurt in the disaster or affected by it because she lived where they got hit with it. He knew her number and email and her myspace s he contacted her there and she called him a stalker.

I agree Lazar_Kaganovich, except for the part "deserve to be stalked". I'm assuming you are being sarcastic here?

Thanks aspieMike. Maybe I am using the wrong terms What I meant about withdrawing is when an ASD person isolates himself, therefore being on shutdown, which is what I really meant by "withdrawing".

You are right about me having a choice whether to rationalize his behavior or just ask myself how it makes me feel and why. I know how it feels and I know why I feel that way. Initially, I have to admit that it gave me anxiety because I related it to my experience with my ex. Had I acted on it, I would have called him an ass, charged to his house and demand for my belongings. I reminded myself that this is a completely different person (that has a completely opposite personality from my ex, despite the similar disappearing act), and that he has ASD - I had to rationalize it somehow. At this point though, it has already been a month of not hearing from him and I doubt this is still ASD-shutdown (if it is/was) related, especially when I've already tried to reach out, and this is why I've posted so I don't go ballistic on him



A lot of NTs operate that way - I am NT and I hate it. I can't think of a logical reason as to why he would ghost me and somewhat "stalk" me at the same time....not actually "stalk" but, what could be the reason why he would check me out on in apps/social media if he's not gonna talk to me.

@The_Face_of_Boo and League_Girl..

I've seen the situations you described with my friends/classmates back in school. What I can explain based on my experience, sometimes, the Ghost-ee is not aware that he/she is giving off an impression/signal that he/she is interested in being more than friends with the Ghost-er. This gives an awkward feeling to the Ghost-er (if he/she is not interested) and makes him/her distance himself/herself from the Ghost-ee (or just completely ignore). When the Ghost-ee starts talking to other people, it would seem that he/she has gotten over that supposed "interest" so the Ghost-er talks to the Ghost-ee again - this involves a lot of body language reading and relying on your gut feeling for your actions. I am not saying though that this is true for all, and this is assuming the parties involved are from the opposite sex. I am not saying that it is a good thing either - just from my experience, this is likely the reason why.

But, I guess my question really is, like what I said to aspiemike, how do you know if someone is on ASD-related shutdown or just simply ghosting?

rdos said that if he is on shutdown, he would not read my messages. What is the explanation for that? What happens when someone is on shutdown and isolates himself/herself? Does he still talk to people, but selectively? Does he not talk to people at all? What happens to his work? How long does a shutdown go for? These are the things that I don't get and I'm trying to understand. I've read about similar experience from NT women in forums (one told me to be patient and give it more time). I think I know how Ghost-ing works, but I don't know understand "shutdown".

I don't have a lot of experience with shutdowns, but I think this is only a temporary reaction to overwhelming (sensory) overload, and it won't continue for weeks or months. I can shutdown during stress and become hyperfocused, but other than that this doesn't affect me.

If somebody stays isolated for a longer time I would suspect depression rather than a shutdown. I also don't think he should be able to work if he cannot type a simple answer for you.

The only other reason I can come up with is that he for some reason think he has treated you bad and then doesn't dare to communicate with you again. Or he could be a real ghoster. Hard to know.

"Ghost and you deserve to be stalked"... um, aren't you a peach. Stalking a crime, ghosting isn't.

if you're repeatedly getting ghosted, it suggests that:
(1) the girls you're dating have valid reasons to fear you won't take rejection well, that you'd lash out and hurt them as a result of rejecting you -- so ghost you.
(2) the girls you're dating have told you why they no longer wish to see you, you don't like or don't agree with their reason and continue to pursue them anyways. You haven't *actually* been ghosted, you just *feel* ghosted.

I'm not going to say anyone deserves to be stalked. What I WILL say, though, is you can't really be surprised if that's what someone does after you just cut them completely out of the picture. If someone is genuinely psychotic and dangerous, by all means put some distance between you and that person, cut off ALL contact, and end it IMMEDIATELY. You can use ghosting to protect yourself if you're in that kind of situation.

What I said in the other thread was that ghosting, when you're dealing with two otherwise sane individuals, is you create a situation in which you're cutting someone out of your life after they've already put some high stakes in the relationship. What happens is you assume a tremendous amount of power over the person you're ghosting, which is demoralizing at best. You don't get to just cut someone out of your life like that and just casually expect them to go away. They don't know what happened. So what do they do? You don't return calls, you don't reply on social media, you ignore your texts…the guy or girl, sooner or later, will try to snag you in public or he or she will come over to your house or apartment. If you're THAT much of a lowlife, you'll probably call the cops and accuse them of stalking you, and you'll pretend you've never even seen this person before, let alone had a year-long relationship with.

I'm sorry, but since when is just making sure you're not lying in the hospital in a coma or the like something you have someone arrested for? LeagueGirl already mentioned that phone/text breakups are cowardly. And while I agree, I still maintain a quick text "Sorry, but I've started seeing someone else and can't see you anymore. Goodbye" is the very least you could do. If you ex insists on pursuing you after that, by all means call the cops and tell them some psycho won't leave you alone. Have AT LEAST enough decency to let an ex know that he or she is an ex.

[Note: No, I've never had the cops called on me. EVENTUALLY, yes, I got the picture and it never went that far. But I will say that it is absolutely maddening when someone does this. I understand someone can LEGALLY be a jerk if that's what they want to do. But it normally works so much better for everyone involved if we all shoot straight with each other. Breakups don't require, necessarily, all that much effort.]

As a possible explanation to Lazar's post I think they meant that people who ghost deserve to have the person their ghosting stalk them but not stalk them in any illegal or threatening capacity (eg. online). For example in my experience I personally reserve the right to stalk people on FB and other sites to cross check their BS story about why they're slowly talking to me less. If they say they've been flat out with work/study and aren't able to get online for weeks I will check on them and inevitably find them spending hours on FB talking to friends, or logged onto everywhere except the place we talk.

I don't deserve the hurt and lies any more than they deserve the stalking. What I really don't understand is that after all the complaining they do about girls rejecting them and when one finally takes an interest this is how they treat her.

This is the scenario I get all the time, even when they vowed to "never disappear without a reason".

Oh, I'm a fequent practitioner of Google stalking people. I make no bones about it. I'm not well-connected in social media, but I'd probably do something similar in that situation. It's not about obsessing over someone or revenge-seeking. I just want to know if my time and energy is being wasted. If I catch someone lying to me like that, I interpret that as this person dropping a hint that says "get lost, pal." I believe, within reason, in giving people what they want.

These are things, if you're avoiding someone, you can't stop others from doing. The idea of someone looking you up on Google or social media might creep you out, but that's a risk you take when you make information public. There's only so much you can do to limit that. The real problem is confrontation. We don't like the idea of someone we're avoiding showing up and saying, "What's wroooong? What did I doooooo? Why do you hate meeeee? Oh noes! My life is overrrrrrrrr!"

Maybe you don't owe anyone any explanation. Fine. But you do owe it to yourself to shoot straight with others to get them off your back. Simple, brief communication first. THEN you can pretend they don't exist after you've been sufficiently clear. If they keep coming at you and causing you distress, go to the cops. Usually the first step will be enough. It will save everyone a ton of headaches on down the road.

Ghosting? Is rude but not illegal. Even if you had a year-long relationship with them!

Stalking the person who ghosted you? Rude, creepy and illegal.

Continuing to contact the person who obviously wants nothing to do with you? Is stalking.

The stalkee calling the cops on you isn't a "lowlife" move. It's a legitimate recourse to your scary, threatening and illegal behavior.

Also, your stalker-ish behavior towards the person who allegedly ghosted you? Reaffirms the alleged ghoster's decision to ghost (scary, clearly-has-boundary-issues-and-problems-with-impulse-control you).



Because the girl who said she was "too busy" with all the other stuff going on in her life has committed some horrible crime?

That a girl who has gotten to know you a little bit loses interest, isn't entitled to do so?

What purpose does your "checking up on them" behavior serve, besides making you mad? And suggesting that her instinct to ghost you was spot-in?



Promises aren't legally binding commitments.

Also, given that ghosting is pretty rare AND it sounds like you get ghosted a LOT, has it occurred to you that the common denominator is you?

Or considered that something in your behavior, well-intentioned as it may be, is being perceived as threatening? That instead of complaining about the awfulness of getting ghosted, you get some help with social skills so that your actual good, fun, friendly attempts at engaging girls get perceived as such?? By adopting a Better Light a Candle That Keep Cursing the Darkness Approach?