Article
Attention
Culture
Digital
Ghosting
Psychology
5 min read

Ghosting is not immature, it’s plain cruel

The dehumanising behaviour hiding in plain sight.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

On a dark street someone checks their mobile phone for messages.

‘Do you really believe that the moon only exists when you look at it?’ 

It’s a great question. Do you know who asked it? It sounds rather Shakespearean, doesn’t it? It’s got a touch of the – ‘that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ - about it. 

But not so.  

Interestingly, it was Albert Einstein who asked this question. He asked it again and again – unable to relax into any answer his contemporaries could offer him. He thought, at least initially, that he was asking a question about quantum physics. But he wasn’t; not really. Einstein was asking what it means to exist, what it means to be. 

And that means that he was actually asking a theological question. And I, for one, would appreciate it if we would get into the habit of asking it too, just phrased a little differently. I’d like us to ask something a little like:  

Do you really believe that the person only exists when you text them back?’ 

Yes, I’m imploring us all to take an Einstein-esque approach to the phenomenon of ‘ghosting’.  

Ghosting, just to make sure that we’re all one the same page, is the act of abruptly and completely cutting off all forms of contact with another person, offering no form of prior warning nor any kind of subsequent explanation. To ghost someone is to perform a social cut and run, a relational dine-and-dash, if you will. This, of course, can happen in all kinds of contexts – in work situations, in friendships, and in the most niche of circumstances. There’s an incredibly popular podcast, the title of which – ‘My Therapist Ghosted Me’ - is a tongue in cheek reference to one of the presenters being inexplicably cut off by their own therapist. Ouch.

And so, ghosting causes a social injury, it inflicts a heart wound. Being ghosted, we are coming to realise, is a rejection of the most absolute kind.

But where this phenomenon is reaching astounding heights is in the context of romantic relationships. The technological age in which we live, where the majority of romantic relationships are now being initiated and established online, has meant that we’ve got ghosting down to a fine art. It’s become all too easy. And apparently, nobody is immune.  

Just recently, Billie Eilish – Oscar and Grammy award winning musical genius and all-round cultural icon - explained how she had recently been the victim of an almighty ghosting. She said,  

‘it was insane. I was like – “did you die? Have you literally died?” It was somebody that I’d known for years, we had a plan (to meet) and the day of… nothing. I never heard from him again.’ 

Imagine being ignored so suddenly and completely that your first instinct is that the person must have died, only to realise – they hadn’t died, you were just disposable to them. This is happening all of the time, there’s a generation of people who are having their sense of self and of the ‘other’ defined by this very phenomenon. 

What’s incredibly interesting is that in the span of a few short years, psychologists and relationship therapists have gone from speaking of ‘ghosting’ in terms of emotional immaturity, conflict avoidance and a lack of communication skills, to regarding it as a form of cruelty and even abuse.  

It is not primarily the intent of the ‘ghost’ that is causing psychologists to speak of ghosting in increasingly serious terms. Most ‘ghosts’ are cowardly, perhaps, but not sheer evil. Rather, it is the extraordinary depths of hurt that the behaviour inflicts (intended or not) upon the person who has been victim to it.  

We are learning that there are all manner of harmful things that ghosting does to our brains and all kinds messages that it sends to our self-esteem. Namely, that we weren’t enough for that person, that we’ve failed somehow, that we’re disposable, that we misread the situation, that we misread them, that we’re deficient in almost every kind of way.  

These lies inevitably fill the gaps left by the silence of the other person. False explanations, usually of the most self-depreciating kind, take advantage of that fact that no explanation was offered by the person who hurt us. The bewilderment itself becomes a form of torture. And so, ghosting causes a social injury, it inflicts a heart wound. Being ghosted, we are coming to realise, is a rejection of the most absolute kind.  

Ghosting is the symptom of a society in which we kid ourselves into thinking that people only come to life when our thoughts turn to them or our eyes rest on them.

But I think there’s even more to it. And this is where I return to Einstein’s question, and my modern, admittedly much less cosmic, re-imagining of it. Because underneath it all, I think that ghosting is a theological issue.  

To ghost someone is to act as if they do not exist because you have averted your gaze from them. It is, therefore, to deprive them of the fullness of their existence. Or, at least, to deny it. It is an act of deep diminishment. Do we really believe that the moon only exists when it is looked upon? Ghosting forces us to similarly ask – do we believe that we only exist when we are looked upon?  

So, you see, it goes deep. It cuts to the core of what it means to be.  

Ghosting is the symptom of a society in which we kid ourselves into thinking that people only come to life when our thoughts turn to them or our eyes rest on them. If we can’t see the suffering we’ve caused, it isn’t happening. If we’ve cut someone out of our life, they aren’t existing. At least, we can behave as if they aren’t.  

One could argue that it’s a form of dehumanization, one that’s hidden in plain sight.  

And that, alongside all of the other reasons (or perhaps undergirding them), is the reason that I think being ghosted cuts us to the core; it brings into question the very reality of our existence.  

‘Do you really believe that the moon only exists when you look at it?’ 

Einstein’s question may feel a little abstract but it’s actually as tangible and personal as it gets. 

Review
Culture
Film & TV
Trauma
5 min read

Unforgivable: Jimmy McGovern’s brave storytelling

Intelligent, understanding, and compassionate stories of a family affected by abuse

Henry Corbett, a vicar in Liverpool and chaplain to Everton Football Club.  

  

A family sit together watching a trial in a court.
BBC.

Jimmy McGovern would rather be called a storyteller than a writer. 

And what important, life-changing stories he has told. 

His 1996 TV film Hillsborough told the true story of the disaster in which 97 Liverpool supporters lost their lives. His 2014 story Common was written after he received a letter from a woman whose son was in prison unjustly under the Joint Enterprise Law. His 2017 BBC series Broken showed a caring priest dealing with a mix of situations, including the often hidden, catastrophic effects of gambling addiction. 

In those, as in all the stories he has told over the last 45 years, he seeks to serve the story, to be each character’s best barrister where possible, and to help an understanding of the often-complex situations the characters find themselves in. 

Brave, important stories, and here is another extremely brave story. 

A psychologist who worked with sex offenders contacted McGovern with the stories she was encountering in her role, and she mentioned the disturbing fact that so many people who abuse children have themselves been abused. A story that needs to be told? So to Unforgivable

Joe, played by Bobby Schofield, is in prison for sexually abusing his young nephew Tom. Tom blames himself for not saying more at the time. Joe’s sister Anna, played by Anna Friel, is trying to cope with her son Tom’s silences that are only interrupted by a “Yes” or a “No”. She has to go into school after Tom has been involved in a fight and amidst all this her and Joe’s mother dies, “from a broken heart”. Who broke her heart? Joe, surely. Joe’s father Brian, played by David Threlfall (the cast are all brilliant), agrees with his daughter Anna: they are both furious with Joe. His mother was the only person from the family who visited Joe in prison. Joe cannot come to his mother’s funeral. And young silent Tom has an older brother Peter who sits at the table with a stressed mother Anna and a non-communicative younger brother Tom. The whole family is blitzed. 

The mother’s funeral happens, and then Joe’s release date from prison comes. Where can he go? Right safeguarding procedures are put in place and he goes to St Maura’s, a place under the caring watchful eye of Katherine, an ex-nun, played by Anna Maxwell Martin. 

Joe is ashamed, penitent: “I am just a piece of s**t”. He gets spotted as he walks alone by the River Mersey and gets beaten up. In hospital the nurse asks “Why?”. He tells her that he is a child abuser and wonders if the nurse will continue to help him. She does. Is his life worth living, shunned by family, beaten up by lads who know him? 

Two things move him to action. The ex-nun goes with him to therapy sessions and tells him of her breast cancer. He is sorry to hear that. And he tells her the story of his abuse at the hands of Mr Patterson the football coach of his very successful under-12 team, and not only of his abuse but of one of his team mates too. 

The case against Mr Patterson goes to court, the family hear of Joe’s abuse, and Anna has another level of stress to deal with: if the abused often become abusers, then what about her Tom, will he become an abuser? Of course, not necessarily, and the other abused player tells Joe he didn’t go on to become an abuser. 

Not for one moment is the drama being soft on the horrors of child abuse. Joe was wrong, totally wrong. His act of abuse has and is affecting the whole family massively and tragically, and he should go to prison, serve his sentence and when he comes out there should be vigilant, effective safeguarding measures put in place to stop any repeated abuse. And child abusers can be very manipulative, can put on acts of contrition, and go on to abuse others. Not for one moment should we lower our guard. 

So where does this leave us? Many of us at some stage may be in the company of a family where a shocking, shattering act of child abuse has taken place. How do we respond? Do we blank the offender, wish them dead or in prison with the key thrown away? Are they inhuman monsters, just “pieces of s**t” as Joe describes himself? But Joe is a human being, he does seem penitent, and he was himself abused and he has taken his abuser to court to stop that person abusing others. What of others in the family? Anna’s hate, the father’s hate, the older brother feeling side-lined, Tom’s monosyllabic “yes” and “no”s, the desperate burdens they are carrying. How do we respond to them? 

A story-teller’s role is sometimes to ask awkward questions. Here is a final awkward question: is Joe forgivable or unforgivable? 

It’s also an ancient question. The unforgivable sin that Jesus talks of is the sin against the Holy Spirit, and that is calling good evil and evil good. Joe calls out his abusive act as the work of a piece of s**t. He goes after the person who abused him to prevent others suffering from a horrible, wrong, bad, traumatising act. 

I’ll finish with thoughts from people who know something of abuse, torture, injustice. 

Bryan Stevenson, the American lawyer and activist who has worked with many people on death row, says: "Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done." 

Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho who lived through the atrocities and abuses of apartheid say in their Book of Forgiving that forgiveness is not easy, is not a sign of weakness, is not forgetting, and is not quick. They suggest a fourfold path: telling the story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness, and, depending on the situation, renewing or releasing the relationship. 

Jimmy McGovern tells the story and names the hurts movingly, bravely, and compellingly. 

Support Seen & Unseen

Since Spring 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,500 articles. All for free. 
This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
 
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief