Ghosting Is Way More Common Than You Think. So What Should You Do If It Happens to You?

Despite rumors to the contrary, Charlize Theron is adamant that she never "ghosted" Sean Penn after they split last year.
"There is this need to sensationalize things," she tells WSJ magazine in a new interview. "And the f--king ghosting thing, like literally, I still don't even know what it is." In case you're like Charlize, ghosting is when the person you're dating suddenly disappears—they stop responding to calls and texts without any explanation of why. Just like that, your relationship is over. And, according to a new survey, it's much more common than you think.This information comes courtesy of the dating site Plenty of Fish, which polled 800 of their daters between the ages of 18 and 33. According to the findings, a whopping 80 percent of them have been ghosted. Granted, it's a little easier to ghost someone in online dating where you typically don't share the same circle of friends, but that's a lot of people who are suddenly cut off with zero explanation.What's going on here? "Ghosting is becoming more common because it is so easy to do," says licensed clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, Ph.D., author of Should I Stay or Should I Go?. "Social media and tech make it easy to be sloppy in relationships, and ghosting is just one more form of this. Why face down a conversation when you can just disappear?"Not only does it just plain suck to be ghosted, it leaves people with no sense of closure or idea of why things didn't work out. But Durvasula points out that ghosting is often the fault of the ghoster, not the ghosted. "Ghosting usually reflects immaturity and psychological fragility on the part of the ghoster," she says.While it makes sense that you would want an explanation or even confirmation that things are over, Durvasula says there's little benefit to trying to get an answer. "If you are sure that this isn't a true missing persons issue that needs to be reported to law enforcement, then your next step is to ghost them from your heart and mind," she says. Why? A person who is a ghoster doesn't tend to be particularly accountable for their emotions and actions, she says, so repeatedly reaching out and asking for an explanation generally doesn't achieve much.So, if you're ghosted, the best thing you can do is just delete the person you used to date from your contacts and know that you're better off without them. "Ghosting is a coward's move," Durvasula says. "Once it's done to you, give yourself time to grieve...and then move forward."