Where do you draw the line between Withdrawing and Ghosting?

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Well, what's the legal definition of stalking? In practice, "stalking" is hard to prove. Harassment is easier to prove and the two can often go hand-in-hand.

I'd have to actually talk to a lawyer about it, but I'm not sure it's even legally POSSIBLE to stalk someone who is ghosting you. LEGALLY possible. The emphasis is important. It's not stalking unless it has been CLEARLY COMMUNICATED TO THAT PERSON that you want that person to go away. Ghosting is a complete cessation of communication. There is no breakup. As far as the person who is being ghosted is concerned, a relationship still exists because nothing to the contrary has been communicated. It's perfectly reasonable for this person to call, or text, or email, or send a message on FB, or even drop by the house or the apartment. You can't have someone arrested for that.

But if you CLEARLY COMMUNICATE that the relationship is over and you want nothing further to do with that person, THAT IS NOT GHOSTING. So if this person continues to follow you around and the mere presence of that person is upsetting to you, then, YES, you do have a case of stalking and/or harassment.

BTW…when it comes to harassment, I know this for an absolute fact in at least one jurisdiction. I went with a girl to the police station to report that very thing and voluntarily waited outside the courtroom to be called as a witness on the day of the trial. It's laughably easy to prove. Multiple people saw him come at her on multiple occasions and saw her upset with his being there. Even when he tried to testify that he never intended to upset her, he still had to admit that he was present and that he could tell she was visibly upset every time. Slam. Dunk. Hearing was over in a matter of minutes and I never even got called to the stand. Kinda anti-climactic if you ask me, but that's basically it.

Whereas if you've been dating someone for, say, 6 months to a year and NOTHING at all seems weird about the relationship and the other person just drops off the face of the earth? Um…yeah, I went over to her house. I was worried. I knocked on the door two, maybe three times, no answer, so I got in my car and left. When I got home, I called in a missing person. I didn't know she was home, had no idea she was calling the cops. I hadn't heard from her in 3 days, so I really have no idea what's going on. [/hypothetical] THAT is not stalking or harassing. That's just a case of the person ghosting you going psychotic.

Another actual case in point: I'd been dating someone for quite some time when she suddenly dropped off the planet. Yeah, I was a little bit frightened by that, because I'd had no indication that anything was wrong, especially not with our relationship. We were long-distance at the time. So I was alarmed. I called several times, as often as I could. NOTHING. Y'know where I found her? Psych ward. She managed to sneak a phone call in 2 days later and they cut her loose after a week.

My point is people drop off the radar for all sorts of reasons--car accident, medically induced coma, loony bin, arrested, kidnapped, held hostage by Islamic militants, etc. You can't automatically assume you just got dumped if indeed someone's life might be in danger and they need your help, not abandonment.


But ghosting doesn't send the message that someone "obviously" wants nothing to do with you. It indicates NOTHING. So if you're just trying to make sure someone is ok, that hardly qualifies as stalking.


But what if the behavior isn't scary, threatening, or illegal? One minute life is wine and roses just like it has been for the last year, or in my case 2 or 3 years, and the next minute ____________. Nothing. Honestly, if someone cares about you and you *poof* vanish without a trace, what do you expect someone, or anyone, would do in that situation?


IF, and strongly emphasize IF my behavior really is that offensive. If I said her mother is so fat I took a picture of her last Christmas and it's still printing, I think I have a good idea why she's not talking to me anymore. If I threatened to hurt her and/or her family if she breaks up with me, gee…I wonder why she suddenly vanished… Or--heck, let's try something a little less assuming--you went on three dates and you have some doubts about the chemistry. Hmmm…she's just not that into you and would just rather pretend it never happened? I get that. I'd ghost that person.

But we're not talking about people with poor impulse control or boundary issues. We're talking about romantic relationships in which two people, as far as at least one of them is concerned, have absolutely no indication whatsoever that anything is wrong in the relationship. The girl or boy just *poof* falls off the planet. Is it really necessary to go to the cops over a simple voicemail, "Haven't heard from you in three days and I'm really worried. Please call as soon as you can"? Or you show up on their doorstep to make sure nothing catastrophic has happened? That's not stalking.

What I would suggest to anyone who finds themselves in a similar bad situation (a love interest completely vanishes without a trace) is grab two friends you trust and the three of you stop by the house or apartment. You're not coming by to stay. You're just making sure nobody is in the hospital. You get her to come to the door, you get as straight an answer as you can, and you immediately turn around and leave. What this does is it prevents her from making wild accusations. And since you've got two people to vouch for you, it's less likely you're going to get arrested, or even if you do, you have witnesses who can verify you committed no crime, nor did you intend or plan to commit a crime.

But this whole "out-of-control" craziness…have you ever actually been stalked or harassed?

Strongly disagree. Those rules where setup by NTs, so I see no reason why I would abide them. If somebody I had a year-long relationship with suddenly ghosted me, she would have to assume she would get stalked, and for a good reason.

In the emotional sense, ghosting is far worse than stalking, so it should be ghosting that is illegal and not stalking.

Of course, stalking without ghosting, or when the other person has clearly announced it is over, could still be a criminal behavior.

I think anyone who wishes to ghost (talking about being in a relationship or being friends) is an idiot for thinking they are being stalked if the person keeps calling them or shows up on their door step or finds them on facebook and shoots them a message or calls their friends or family or leaving them an email. If they are going to ghost someone without bothering to tell them they don't want to be friends or that they want to break up, what do they expect? How can they not know they will get their friend/partner worried if they just snuck off like that? How my online friend was treated by our "friend" I thought she was an idiot for thinking she was being stalked and freaking out about it and I wouldn't have forgiven her for her behavior and her accusations but my friend sure forgave her. I remember she disappeared off the internet but I didn't worry much about her because people disappear off the internet all the time and I didn't feel close to her and feel the same about her as my online friend did. But my friend cared enough to search her online and leaving her messages and I believed they were closer in friendship than me and her were because she gave him her phone number and everything. Then she blocks us when she decided to do her binge and purge thing and blocked all her friends who were into what she was into. But he didn't know that because she never told him and then she was surprised she was being "stalked?"

QFT

Exactly.

Personally, I keep a mental image of the friendship or relationship. When I sensed something changed, such as when someone blocked me on Facebook. I am concerned with aligning expectations of communication. I also have trouble controlling myself when upset, unfortunately that involves unproductive communication attempts. So when a certain person broke a friendship off with me, she turned it into a very stressful situation where I could not really cope.

The main issue I had was boundaries. She was saying things about me publicly on this site which I felt like responding to. And there were events we both went to that I would not quit on her behalf. I tried my best to ignore her, but she did not do the same for me. Things like that make me think about our former friendship. I would say that she was holding an ultimatum above me, not allowing any reciprocal communication, and still taking something out of our contact. Therefor, I would dare to say it was an abusive situation for me. There was a group meeting where she did not RSVP, and still went and said hi to me. That mostly just scared me. She had indirectly threatened to go the authorities already. I did send her a message later, to no response. Just more posting on WrongPlanet BS.

Maybe there are worse things than just simply cutting off contact without a word.

To paraphrase Dr. Phil, how is the borderline stalking of folks who chose t ghost you working out for you?

In your attempts at quasi-but-not-meeting-the-legal-definition-of-staking-folks-who-ghost-you, has the outcome ever been positive? Has any good come from it?



Really? It's common for ghosters to be in comas, in psych units, held hostage by Islamic militants?

Common enough to justify the not-legally-but-nevertheless-so-scary-to-the-ghoster behavior?

Panicking after not hearing from a grownup for 48 hrs?

Because they may have been Baker Act-ed and supposedly denied access to a phone?

(Unless you're in the ICU, multiple convictions for stalking/threats or in therapy, youve got access to a phone in a psych unit. My baby sis was a frequent-flyer. The Baker Act-ed person who ghosts? Has phone access, doesn't want to talk to you).

All partners and friends worry when they don't hear from someone or when they don't come home and if something happened to me, it would suck if my husband just moved on without trying to find out if I was hurt or not or if something bad happened so he moved on and found someone else because he assumed I walked out on him and never bothered to tell him I wanted out of our marriage and filing for a divorce. If you wish to ghost, don't be surprised to find a message from them online or them calling you or having your own friends calling you or your family about your ex or them showing up on your doorstep or finding the police because he or she reported you as a missing person.

Me? Who cares? I'm married with three kids. My life turned out great.

The one girl who ghosted me was someone who had a long history of playing head games. She played me like a fiddle and I fell for it. Lesson learned. I moved on.

The funny thing about all this is every now and then she'll call me up, email, or contact me through social media. It's the same pattern. I'll usually get the last word in and she'll disappear again for months or years. I'm well past the point of caring, so I just get a chuckle out of it every time it happens. But it does make me wonder why on earth she's contact me out of the blue. She's married, the guy is an independently wealthy (a lot better off than I am, I might add) writer and college professor, she has a kid from a previous one-night stand and another kid with this guy…so why on earth is she following ME of all people on social media? I don't get it. But whatever…lol.

I lucked out…I didn't end up with the girl of my dreams. I ended up with someone much better and beyond my wildest dreams. I'm a winner. I'm not all that concerned about haters who think there's something wrong with concerned people making sure people are safe.

I'll be honest with you…I'd rather spend a night in jail knowing that someone who vanished on me is at least alive and well than having to live the rest of my life knowing someone I care about is hurt or worse when I could have done something to help. I don't expect a self-centered hater to understand, but the least I can do is try to help.


lol

OK…you just happened to catch me on a night when I have a lot to do that I really, REALLY don't want to do and am currently bored out of my mind. So before I get too deep into this, there's something I'd like to know. Have you ever been stalked or harassed? Because if that's the case, then this post is my final response to you. People who have been abused are understandably hypersensitive to these kinds of issues, and having been in a relationship with someone who had been relentlessly stalked and harassed by an ex to the point of PTSD, I understand more than you know where you're coming from. The last thing I want to do is be an insensitive jerk about it, so we can go ahead and be done NOW.

If you yourself have not been a victim of stalking or harassment, then that leads me to wonder if you really are that selfish and uncaring. Hateful, even. I've walked a close friend who really was a victim through the system and I've seen it work firsthand. I know how this works. Ghosting someone and calling the cops on them for trying to contact you rather than just breaking up isn't just heartless and vindictive, it's sociopathic. With ONE exception I've managed to avoid women who ghost and play head games, and I'm glad I figured out that ONE exception before things got really bad. So if you really are that selfish and would seriously defend ghosters who use that as a tactic to abuse people, we're pretty much done here, anyway.

There's some serious ignorance going on here and a whole lot of hate. You are under the false assumption that committed people have identical rights in every jurisdiction. I can tell you from personal experience this is not true. Or if it is true, there's no actual guarantee hospital staff are going to actually grant access to a phone. My gf was locked up against her will before she had a chance to contact anyone. How was I to know she didn't actually want to contact me and was prevented from doing so? Turns out that was EXACTLY the case. So your latter statement here is patently false.

Oh…and it doesn't matter how frequently people disappear on you for whatever reason. The point is you have no way of knowing what happened to someone. Again, I'd rather take the chance and risk getting arrested, because AT LEAST I know two things: I've been dumped, AND nothing horribly wrong has happened to this person. Because WHAT IF I'm the first person to notice something is wrong? What if I'm the first person to notice all the doors are locked, no one answers the phone, and a back window is broken? Reporting that to the police soon after I notice she stopped talking might be what saves her life. Or maybe not…but you gain nothing by failing to act. If I get caught in a situation in which I have to pay $50 bail and a $350 misdemeanor fine, then I'll just chalk it up to a momentary absence of mind and falling for a psychotic b!+ch. I'll lick my wounds and move on with life. But at least I'll sleep at night. That sleep won't come quite so easy if backtracking her route home from school or work could have saved her life.

And, too, you've got the burden of proof on the accuser. If we had a typical Friday/Saturday night date just like we've had almost every weekend for the past year, our friends NEVER ONCE saw anything off-beat, NEVER ONCE heard her complain or act upset, and one Sunday morning she FREAKS OUT to her roommate when I try to tell her I'm on my way to pick her up to go to church (which we've ALWAYS DONE without incident), it's very difficult to make a case for stalking.

Sensible people don't engage in this kind of behavior. Sensible people tell you "hey, we need to talk…there's this guy. He came over after you dropped me off last night and I can't go to church with you because…well…he's still here. I meant to tell you, and I'm really sorry you had to find out this way. This is goodbye."

The real trick is learning to spot psychotic people and not ending up with them in the first place. Like the girl who to this day likes to contact me just so she can ghost me again. There's a whole lotta wrong going on with her. I don't know what her issues are, but I'm making a point of not being a part of it. If she contacts me, I'll respond. But if she wants to talk, she's going to have to take the initiative. I'm not letting anyone drag me into their insanity. Time is just too precious to waste on mindless excrement. Sure, you're going to have freaks and weirdos who are very good at faking it who slip through the cracks. But any way you learn to weed them out will only work in your favor.

Disappearing on a spouse isn't quite the same thing as disappearing on some person you casually dated for three months.

Also, a person who is found to be active on social media, posting pics on FB and not responding to your messages clearly isn't dead/in a psych unit/ kidnapped by Islamic militants. They just don't wanna talk to you.

(I agree that ghosting's rude and upsetting to the ghostee, that it's preferable and humane to just TELL the person that you're no longer interested in any sort of relationship with them... but I've also had "not interested, way too busy with other stuff" be interpreted as "oh, then I will just try to take over a bunch of your little errands so that you'll have enough time to still be my gf").