Welcome back to the blog and to a post I hope you find as interesting as I did writing it. I debated if it was a good idea or not to post this but I guess if it is not a good idea, I’ll just ride with it and get whipped later. Let me start by saying that the topic that is discussed today is a “thing”, a trend that I myself have also been guilty of. So truly this is a time to repent and a message to all the people who have been on the receiving end of that behavior I have exhibited. Ladies and gentlemen welcome tonight the most trending behavior of all time: Ghosting.
I do not know who invented this but let me tell you something from a black woman: that thing got me messed up! I am not even going to lie. The guy who says he’s going to call after a meeting, the girl who is talking to her mom and will call you back in 5. Yo… some of us have been waiting for 5 years!! For booboo the fool to be done at the barber shop and come back to go the movies (yeah I still got the tickets sitting on my night stand) . Let me catch a breath before I catch a mental breakdown. Having ghosted people and having been ghosted (yeah Karma was like: “girl you’re about to learn some!” and trust me I learned my lesson), I tried to understand the root cause of it. And after giving it some thought I understood that it was a phenomenon fostered by the society we live in: a society that has raised generations who have become inadequate.
We have become inadequate at expressing ourselves because we do not know how to communicate anymore without technology and outside of social media. We have not developed the skilled necessary to handle real human interactions. We have not learned to explore the broad spectrum of emotions which for us is limited to a double tap on Instagram, clicking on a reaction button on Facebook or sending a bunch of emojis via text messages. Anything outside of this frightens us because it is not familiar. It frightens us because we have not developed the tools necessary to handle people's emotions and the way they affect us. Or maybe we have but we simply don’t want to have to do it because we do not feel like it is our responsibility? Or perhaps we simply forbid ourselves to deal with people’s feelings triggered by our words, actions, decisions because it would imply that we have some kind of responsibility and accountability with regard to how they feel? Responsibility, accountability, duty, commitment to truth, inadequacy… All the things we hate to hear in one sentence… I feel the anxiety rising PLEASE give me a brown bag… Not working... I changed my mind!
I do not know who invented this but let me tell you something from a black woman: that thing got me messed up! I am not even going to lie. The guy who says he’s going to call after a meeting, the girl who is talking to her mom and will call you back in 5. Yo… some of us have been waiting for 5 years!! For booboo the fool to be done at the barber shop and come back to go the movies (yeah I still got the tickets sitting on my night stand) . Let me catch a breath before I catch a mental breakdown. Having ghosted people and having been ghosted (yeah Karma was like: “girl you’re about to learn some!” and trust me I learned my lesson), I tried to understand the root cause of it. And after giving it some thought I understood that it was a phenomenon fostered by the society we live in: a society that has raised generations who have become inadequate.
We have become inadequate at expressing ourselves because we do not know how to communicate anymore without technology and outside of social media. We have not developed the skilled necessary to handle real human interactions. We have not learned to explore the broad spectrum of emotions which for us is limited to a double tap on Instagram, clicking on a reaction button on Facebook or sending a bunch of emojis via text messages. Anything outside of this frightens us because it is not familiar. It frightens us because we have not developed the tools necessary to handle people's emotions and the way they affect us. Or maybe we have but we simply don’t want to have to do it because we do not feel like it is our responsibility? Or perhaps we simply forbid ourselves to deal with people’s feelings triggered by our words, actions, decisions because it would imply that we have some kind of responsibility and accountability with regard to how they feel? Responsibility, accountability, duty, commitment to truth, inadequacy… All the things we hate to hear in one sentence… I feel the anxiety rising PLEASE give me a brown bag… Not working... I changed my mind!
And then once the panic is gone, we decide to ghost. We try to rationalize it and make ourselves feel better by fabricating lies. We stitch them up together, make them look nice and good, but let me tell you that it didn’t feel good to me when he didn’t return my calls, when all of the sudden he stopped texting, moved in with her and then got married. The crying, the wondering, the constant questioning of your value or self worth: “Was I not good enough? What did I do?” It never feels good and we will never understand but somehow we find the strength to move on because we realize that perhaps it had everything to do with them and little to do with us.
Ghosting is not childish: there is nothing innocent or fun about it. It is a deliberate choice to ignore someone and destroy his/ her self-esteem in the process. And this is never acceptable. It is a disease that has been around for years and for which only cure will be the future generations if we teach them the right way to do things and instill in them the desire to build genuine relationship with people without the emotional numbness of technology and social media.
God help us all!
Until next time,
xo
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