Relationships are an important part of a person's life. They help shape who a person is, and can lead to some beautiful and treasured memories. Unfortunately, not all relationships end as well as they began.
Women on Reddit who have ghosted someone explain the reasoning behind their decision. Content has been edited for clarity.
“Just Needed To Sever The Ties”
“I had a friend I had known for 25+ years. We wound up at the same company and realized we lived very close. She was all into office gossip and talked trash about people I liked. I asked her to stop. Any obstacle I was facing was dismissed because she had been through worse. When I needed to talk to someone about personal struggles I was having, she would talk over me and change the subject to her issues.
This went on for a few years. I would hang up after talking to her and question why I bothered. Finally, I had enough. I ghosted her and after a few months, she reached out to me via text. I replied and told her why. I was not cruel, just honest. Now I am ‘mean and hurtful.’
I blocked her and am not regretting this at all. I think about her and hope all is well. I just needed to sever the ties.”
This Guy Had Trouble Seeing The Problem Here
“I ghosted a guy I had been dating for a few months when I was in my early 20s. This was after he peed in my closet one night after he had been drinking for hours because he thought it was the bathroom (or so he claimed). Just never answered any more of his calls or messages.
I finally did pick up the phone one night about two weeks later, and he was trashed (AGAIN). This time, he was crying about how much of a brat I was for ‘not communicating,’ as if I had to spell out for him that it was unacceptable for him to pee all over my things and then be too hungover the next day to help me clean it up. As if I owed him jack after that. I didn’t feel bad about it at all if that wasn’t clear. Anyway, I told him to get some help for his drinking and lose my number.”
“I Have No Regrets At All”
“I dated a guy for a year, thought things were going well, and then one day he just stopped talking to me. He blocked me through every possible form of communication. Five months later, I got a text in the middle of the night saying how sorry he was, he couldn’t believe he let me go, and was there ever a possibility we could get back together?
I, being the petty, terrible-grudge-holding person that I am, agreed–on my terms. I told him I wanted to take things slowly, so I didn’t see him in person again. But, for about three weeks, I lead him on through texts and phone calls. And then I did the exact same thing that he did to me. I blocked him through every possible means in which he might contact me, and never spoke to him again.
Part of me wants to feel bad about what I did, but honestly, I have no regrets at all. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but after over a year of giving my all to someone to just have my heart completely ripped out with no explanation, I figured three weeks of hope and getting a taste of his own medicine, was little penance for him to pay.”
She Got A Lot Off Her Chest
“I ghosted my ex-boyfriend. I was 15 and he was 20 when we were dating, and I was too young to understand the problem with that. He was extremely manipulative, and occasionally physically abusive. At least once a week, he would break up with me, then we’d get back together. This led me to believe that if I broke up with him the standard way, it wouldn’t stick. So I was trying to think of a way to really make sure things ended.
One day, I was out with a friend and my phone died. For hours, he couldn’t contact me. No calls, no texts. It was the most at peace I’d been in months. So when I got home and charged my phone, I just blocked him. A month or so later I ran into his best friend at a park. He asked me why I had ghosted my ex-boyfriend and I had a full-on stuttering anxiety attack. But he just calmly waited for me to get my answer out, and was actually really nice.
He wasn’t aware of my age until I told him. So being confronted was scary, yeah, but ultimately felt good because I got to tell my side of the story.”
“Suddenly Shifts Gears Hard”
“An old ex-boyfriend from college got in touch with me via social media, which was lovely and a tiny bit concerning. Had a great time catching up, getting in touch with old friends from college via this exchange (seriously, this was the best part of that). His life turned out pretty much as I expected – numerous divorces, presumably some infidelity on his part.
Several months into our very polite chats, he suddenly shifts gears hard. He’s spouting Birther nonsense, trying to get me to leave my husband for him (literally haven’t seen this guy in 20+ years). No way in heck is that going to happen. I blocked him on social media and didn’t think twice about it afterward.
About six months later, our mutual college friends start haranguing me about why I’d ghosted the guy while he was deployed in Afghanistan, how dare I ghost a veteran who needed our support, and how hurt my ex-boyfriend was that I’d cut off our friendship.
Oh boy.
Here’s the thing. I kept a screenshot of his nonsense to show my husband. And each time one of my college friends started in with that nonsense, I sent them the screencap. One of the guys was so mad, he told my ex-boyfriend that if he didn’t stop backstabbing, they’d send it to his current wife.
Haven’t heard anything since – going on eight years now. I don’t expect to.”
This Was A Low Blow
“I ghosted an old high school friend because she was a drain on my energy. She treated me like a back-up friend and was overall just not worth it to deal with.
It started off with me just not initiating texts, but eventually, we just didn’t talk anymore. I actually felt it was more ‘growing apart’ than ‘ghosting’.
She texted about a year after we stopped talking, asking me why I ghosted her. I was in the middle of typing out a response when I got her next text.
‘Is it because I got into medical school and you didn’t?’
I fully and purposefully ghosted her after that.”
“It Just Gets Tiresome And Exhausting”
“I ghosted a friend at the end of my junior year of high school after our relationship had quite a bit of strain. I don’t necessarily regret leaving her, but I do regret how It was handled.
The situation was that she treated me far more like a therapist than a friend. Every day, several times a day, she would bring up her worries, it was probably the main thing we talked about. She’d ask me one thing, I’d give her an answer and she’d ask it like two more times throughout the school day with me giving the same answer. She also leeched off of me for homework and would complain and get upset when she had a project due and it wasn’t finished despite her having a month to work on it. To top it off, she also started hanging out with some questionable people which I was uncomfortable being around.
As someone who has some pretty bad OCD and anxiety myself, I understand what it’s like to get obsessive toward anxious thoughts and seek reassurance. But it’s incredibly hard to manage my own as well as someone else’s, and I would never unload all of my problems onto my friend like that; it just gets tiresome and exhausting.”
Things Were Not As They Seemed
“I was 18 and in a long-term relationship in high school. We dated for a little over two years. His best friend had told me he had been talking and seeing other girls, and I couldn’t understand why he was telling me this. I started to drift away from my then-boyfriend, started going out with my friends, and met another guy. I decided that if he was going to start messing around with other girls, well then I was going to start seeing someone else so he could see how it felt.
Well, one thing led to another and I messed around with another guy and became pregnant. I was absolutely devastated. I was still talking to my then-boyfriend here and there, but we had drifted apart so things were at ending at that point when I became pregnant. I completely ghosted him when I found out I was pregnant, I wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it to him. I was ashamed, mad at myself, I was completely lost.
He found out I was pregnant by one of our mutual friends when I was about seven months along. When he called me, I decided to finally answer the phone. He asked me if the rumors were true and I finally broke it to him that I was indeed pregnant by another guy. He was absolutely devastated and I completely broke that poor boy. One of the saddest parts about the whole situation was that I had later found out that my ex-boyfriend was not seeing nor talking to any other girls at the time. His best friend was just extremely jealous of our relationship.
I should have just talked to him about it, but instead, I reacted. It has since been about 14 years since that happened and I was grateful that I was able to apologize to him as an adult a few years back for hurting him the way I did. It took me almost 10 years to get over what I had done, but now that my daughter is older I would never have regretted or taken that back. I would have gone about it differently but never have changed the outcome.”
“I Still Feel Like A Piece Of Trash”
“This happened nine years ago when I was a teenager. I had started dating a guy whom I really, really liked. He did not like my best friend, and would often make fun of her. I felt like my friendship with her was coming to an end anyway because we were drifting apart, so I didn’t stop him. His toxic behavior actually made me start resenting her.
Eventually, I just ghosted her. Left her on read. Never hung out with her anymore. We didn’t go to the same school, so I just never saw her.
She sent me a long message asking why was I not talking to her? Did she make me mad, did she do something wrong? It was a really heartbreaking message, and I pretty much told her that I felt like we weren’t close anymore, that I was in a good relationship and I didn’t feel like we were friends anymore. She responded by basically saying she understood with a sad face.
I didn’t talk to her for almost a year. I’m not sure what the push was (I was still dating the guy), but I missed her and I texted her a very long message apologizing and groveling. That I was wrong and stupid, not sure what came over me, etc.
She forgave me. I don’t know why, I pulled a really horrible move and I know I did it when she was at a low point. I’m so extremely grateful that she decided to give me another chance. We’re still best friends to this day. But her confronting me when I initially ghosted her was absolutely miserable and heartbreaking. I still feel like such a piece of trash for it.”
A Very Toxic Cycle
“I ghosted the guy I’d been seeing for the better part of a year.
Our relationship was extremely toxic. I couldn’t trust him. He was convinced I’d cheated on him (I was assaulted at work). He was so hot/cold in regard to me in general but always said he loved me but that I had too many issues from my past relationship.
I have BPD, have been going to therapy for a few months now, and came to realize that any relationship between us wasn’t sustainable or healthy for either of us. Every time he’s broken up with me, he’s also chased after me a couple of weeks later. I have attachment issues, and being strung along by the person I cared for was way too much.
So I went over to his place to talk to see where he was feeling about us. While we were talking, he said he was tired of dealing with my ‘depressive issues,’ and ‘we weren’t like that’ after I told him that I was still in love with him. He still wanted to hang out and be friends and sleep with me though. After that, I started turning down his invites to hang out and distanced myself from him over a period of a month.
The other day he called me on it. When I told him about why I stepped away, he said, ‘Oh I still love you of course, and you always assume how I feel; of course, I want to be with you! Please come over and give me a hug.’
I didn’t respond and he said he was going to block me.
The next time he hit me up a couple of days later, he yelled at me because I missed his call requesting to come over for the afternoon while he was at work. He needed me to hide his cats from the apartment staff while they did repairs. I couldn’t make it and I thought that’d be the last time we spoke.
He tried reaching out to me again and wanted me to fully explain to him why I ghosted, but I just told him no and that I loved him and wanted him to have a good life, but to please forget about me. I think he got the message finally because he told me never to contact him again.
So goal accomplished.”
“But The Whole Text Blamed Me”
“I’m ghosting a friend who thought of me as her ‘best’ friend. We met in college, were sort-of friends for years, and then she asked me to move into an apartment with her. I was living on campus at a Christian college and hated all the rules, so after a bit of thinking I accepted. We signed a 13-month lease but she ended up leaving three months early.
It started when she asked me if I’d keep living with her once the lease was up, and I told her probably not. This was because I wanted to move out of the state as soon as I could. She pretty quickly found someone else who she’d live with after the 13 months, but then she told me this friend wanted to move in early. She left and told me she’d keep paying her half of the rent. I didn’t get another roommate because she’s kinda rich (definitely acts it), and I wanted to see what it’d be like to live alone.
A month or two into me living alone, she sends me a huge text basically asking me to either end the lease early or get a roommate. Turns out she had quit her job before leaving and still somehow expected to pay for her portions of rent for TWO APARTMENTS. But the whole text blamed me for being messy, lazy, taking advantage of her family, and for ‘letting my boyfriend live there illegally which is just not okay’ (I literally let him stay with me for a week so I could do a trial run of living with my boyfriend. I made sure it was just a week).
I didn’t have anyone who could pay to live with me, so I decided to end the lease early and move back in with my parents until I move out of the state. I texted her to let her know, then never spoke to her again.
She’s been sending me the occasional text trying to patch things up, and I saw through social media that she and her boyfriend broke up. I know she feels lonely right now and it sucks that I’m continuously hurting her feelings by ignoring her. But for the first time, I’m only maintaining friendships with people I know I want in my life, and with her, I definitely do not.”
She Made The Right Call Both Times
“I’ve ghosted people twice, have been called out both times, and felt perfectly fine about it.
The first instance was when I went on a first date with a guy who completely catfished me (his photos were super different and his bio was very obviously exaggerated). My biggest pet peeve is people who lie on their profiles, so this was a huge strike for me. Throughout the date, I was as polite as possible but never indicated that I’d be interested in a second one. After the date, the guy kept texting me to ask me a bunch of personal questions about my dating habits until eventually, he said ‘All right, I get it,’ and left me alone. I personally felt (and still feel) I owed nothing to someone who was going to be so dishonest right off the bat, so I don’t feel bad at all. Also, why lie about stuff when all it takes is one convo in person for me to figure it out?
The second person I ghosted was a guy I was hooking up with who was just really freaking rude. The reason I ghosted him was that after treating me poorly for months, the one time I said no to coming over he sent me a passive-aggressive snap complaining about not having another to sleep with for a WHOLE WEEK. The best part was that I hadn’t seen him in a month at this point. I personally didn’t care that he was seeing other girls, but I found it really gross that he tried to throw it in my face the one time I said no to him. So I figured rather than disrespect myself any further I was just going to block him on everything I could. Two months later he called me out on it via DMing a social media account I never gave him. But instead of feeling bad about it, the creepiness of him finding me AND the cockiness of his DM let me know I made the right choice.”
“I Finally Had Enough”
“I ghosted exactly one person, a former friend I will call ‘Betty.’
Betty was a narcissistic brat without a doubt. For years, I hand-waved away her narcissism, constant lies about the amazing friends she has (including, apparently, some guy who is a member of the Yakuza and another who owns a private diamond mine somewhere in Africa), and how she was going to be the next Deepak Chopra (like the world needs another ‘guru’ con artist).
I finally had enough, though. I couldn’t continue to pretend she was anything other than dangerously unhinged, selfish beyond all measure, and a pathological liar who wouldn’t hesitate to destroy anyone who crossed her. Having seen, first hand, how she lied to get revenge on people (including falsely accusing an ex-boyfriend of assault), I cut her out of my life rather than risk confrontation with her.
When I got a new job more than 100 miles away from where I was living, I blocked Betty’s number, then her email addresses unfriended her on Facebook, and swore our mutual friends to secrecy about where I was going to be moving to. It was relatively easy, too. Nearly everyone who knew her knew exactly what kind of person she is. It turns out, most of our mutual friends were in the process of cutting Betty loose as well.
It’s now been several years and, last I heard, she doesn’t have a single friend left from the old days. Everyone we both knew has cut her out of their lives, all through ghosting her, and she has moved on to a new group of idiots.”
What Other Texts Did This Guy Send?
“My worst ghosting incident was a dude I’d gone on a couple of dates with. He was nice enough, just a little too odd and clingy. Insisted on picking me up – I refused and met him instead. Insisted on driving me to the theater between dinner and the movie. I refused again. Then acted weird in the theater, yelling at people if they so much a coughed.
After the movie, he was bold enough to go for a kiss. I did the cheek turn thing, then left. In the twenty minutes it took me to get home, there were over a dozen texts, each one more frantic than the last because I hadn’t replied yet.
I immediately noped out and ghosted. For weeks, I got messages before he told me ‘He thought I was better than this.’ But then I’d get the odd text like he was testing the water.
The weirdest was ‘Mmm. Shamrock shake. Want one, Lexi?’
I’m very glad he didn’t have my home address.”
“I Was Tired Of Her Letting Me Down”
“I ghosted a friend I made in high school.
I actually met her in middle school. My best friend spent the night at her house and said this friend was so mean, she made her dad cry over a Reese’s cup.
This mean friend and I had several classes together in high school and by virtue, became friends. By the time senior year rolled around, we had 5/7 classes together, including lunch. I saw her all day. She was the type of person to insult people’s looks and make fun of girls’ makeup (while her own pale face was sporting the biggest, blackest sharpie eyebrows I’d ever seen). All lunch consisted of was her complaining and insulting people.
It came to a head when a friend of ours moved in with her. This mean friend was pretty well off (yet complained she was poor. I literally laughed out loud when her mom said she would pay her $20 to fold her own freaking laundry). The friend who moved in lived in a rough home, hence moving in. The mean friend was obviously MEAN. The friend who moved in had a heart of gold, and was the kindest and brightest person ever.
The mean friend who I ended up ghosting would talk dirt on this friend—who she previously loved so much she invited her to move in. I don’t remember all of it, but the most striking was how she would complain that our nice friend wouldn’t wash out the mean friend’s coffee cup for her.
‘It takes 30 seconds, and she just leaves it to get dry and crusty.’
Um, why the heck don’t you wash out your own coffee cup? She talked about her like she was her slave.
The nice friend went through a lot of struggle and pain living there. I ended up ghosting the mean friend when we went to college. She wasn’t making friends because she was a judgmental brat who didn’t deem anyone good enough to be her friend. Yeah, right; I’m sure they all just saw her for who she was. Meanwhile, I was having a hard time putting myself out there in my own college experience (different college, thank god), but I was trying and I was having an okay time. I was tired of letting her get me down, and I ghosted her.”
