What To Do When A Guy Ghosts You

You started off well. You’re building something solid and things are going well, and then BAM! He disappears. It’s time to face the facts: the guy totally ghosted you. While you know what not to do after something like this happens — please don’t stalk him to get closure! — what are you supposed to do? Here are a few ideas.

  1. Try not to make it personal. I know it’s kind of hard not to do that when you fell hard for the guy, but just think: there are tons of reasons why people ghost. For starters, they’re immature, inconsiderate cowards. But, what we’re getting at is that it might not even be about you.
  2. Remind yourself he’s not worthy. It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself after you get ghosted. You miss the guy because he seemed so nice and he had such potential for being your boyfriend or husband someday. However, it’s important to remember that if he was worthy of your love, he wouldn’t have ghosted you.
  3. Send a text. Before you reach for your phone, we’re not saying you should text the guy if it’s been days or weeks and he hasn’t replied to all your other messages. I’m saying that when a guy suddenly disappears, you might not even realize he ghosted you, so send him a text. Play it cool. Maybe he’s actually just swamped with family drama over the weekend and he didn’t want to talk to anyone. At this stage, you can give him (a bit of) the benefit of the doubt.
  4. Resist the urge to send a double text. Now, if you don’t receive a reply to the aforementioned text (which is like a test text), you might be tempted to go ahead and send another one. Don’t do it! You don’t need to chase anyone or try to control them so that he gets in touch with you.
  5. Set a deadline in your mind. At first when you’re ghosted, it might be hard to know if it’s real. What if he just goes quiet for a few hours or days but it’s NBD? To help you out, set yourself a deadline like, “If he doesn’t text me within the next three days, he ghosted me and will be treated a such.” This also helps you to set boundaries so that you don’t allow yourself to get disrespected.
  6. Cut all contact with him. Maybe he’s still listed on your Facebook friend list or he’s following you on Twitter. Now, you can leave these small doors open (you never know — he might want to sneak back into your life) or you can shut those doors in his face because he doesn’t deserve them. You know what to do. Deleting his number, email address, and removing him from social media all prevent you from being tempted to get an answer from him.
  7. You can confront him. It’s pointless to ask him where he’s at and why he went AWOL. Trust me, you’re unlikely to get an answer from him if he didn’t even tell you why he was leaving in the first place. Sometimes you might just want to be able to confront him about his crappy behavior. Go ahead and send him a text telling him that you know what he’s doing and he’s a cowardly child. You might not get an answer, but it’s not about that. It’s about having your say.
  8. Lose the hope. You might still have hope that this guy will want to come back into your life, but don’t hold your breath. He’s clearly long gone. Of course, he might be stupid enough to try to win you back. But, by that point, you should ask yourself if you even want such a loser back.
  9. Know what you’ll do if he comes back. What if a guy ghosts you and then he comes back in the future? It helps to know now what you should do if that happens. Will you speak to him? Will you take him back? Will you ignore him? Figure out a plan. Doing this exercise will also show you what it is you really want. Maybe you don’t even want this guy because he’s dissed you so badly.
  1. Hold onto your joy. Don’t let this person set fire to your joy and happiness. Why should they have that much power over you? They shouldn’t cause you to become bitter or feel depressed for weeks or months. They’re too small for you. Little things that bring you joy — that’s all you need to focus on to move on and forget about the guy.
  2. Take care of yourself. Ghosting can mess with your self-confidence and make you doubt yourself. But remember, it’s not about you! Now’s not the time to allow yourself to relive the pain. You have to take care of yourself. Eat well, exercise, spend time with loved ones, and do things you love. You deserve to feel good and it will also help you to take your mind off what happened to you.
  3. Distract yourself. One of the worst things about being ghosted is that it can make you feel stressed because you’re left hanging. Is the guy just acting weird but going to text you back with a perfectly valid excuse so things can go back to normal with you guys? Or is he gone for good? You have to wait it out and the best thing to do during this time is distract yourself with other, better things in your life instead of waiting around for him.
  4. Check his social media. I’m not saying you should stalk the guy (you have much better things to do with your time), but it might help you to put things into perspective if you check his social media timelines. Is he online and active? Is he posting stuff? This will show you that he’s around and online, he just doesn’t want to talk to you. It can make it easier to get closure on the loser.
  5. Avoid the self-blame game. He’s the one who’s at fault here because he just checked out of the relationship. He could have been a grownup who talked to you about problems he was facing or what was going on, but instead, he just vanished. Remember that instead of trying to find reasons to blame yourself. Nothing you could have done differently would have made him stay. It’s that simple.
  6. Talk to a friend. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your feelings, so it’s a good idea to open up to a close friend who can help you to see the situation for what it is and why you can do so much better. Remember that you don’t have to be alone. You’re surrounded by lots of people who care about you and can shed some interesting light on this issue.
  7. Have a good laugh about it. Okay, okay, so maybe laughing about how you were ghosted is the last thing you want to do right now, but try to see how funny and ridiculous he is! Your friend could help you out here. Laughter will make you feel so much better because when we can laugh about something (or in this case someone), it frees us from the pain.
  8. Consider the closure text. You might want to have your last say with this a-hole, and who could blame you? He just packed up and left without having the decency to tell you that he was over the relationship. It’s natural to want to express your anger, but it’s worth thinking about this before you go ahead. Do you really need to express anything to him? Does he deserve your honesty when he couldn’t offer you the same decency? Does having the last word mean giving yourself closure, or does it just give you another way to try to get him to answer you?
  9. Be grateful. You might not be ready to be grateful when a guy ghosts you, and that’s okay. But some time in the future you’re going to look back and say, “Wow, thank goodness that jerk left!” The truth is, a ghoster isn’t worth being in your life and sooner or later you would have kicked him out of it. So, really, he’s done you a favor by walking out himself. He’s also freed up some space so someone better can walk in.
  10. Get back out there. You need time to deal with the pain of being ghosted, but then you need to get back out there if you’re still keen on finding someone. While this can feel really difficult at first, you’ll get into the hang of it and it will give you better perspective. It’s so easy to obsess over one person who hurt you and one event that shook you, but there’s a whole world out there with people who wouldn’t ghost you.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
close-link
close-link
close-link
close-link