Ghosted

Whether professionally or personally, it doesn't feel good to be ignored

Ghosted.

“… the practice of suddenly ending all contact with a person, especially in a romantic relationship, without explanation.”

I looked up the etymology because I don’t recall the term from my Boomer youth. AI came up with the above definition, and that it emerged between 2005-2010.

Whenever it cropped up, we all certainly know now what it means, and how it feels.

The feeling of being ghosted is one of limbo. You don’t know where you stand. Has something happened? Was my message ever received? Should I follow up? How often? In what way?

I’ve had it happen professionally in the theatre more than once. You reach out to an Artistic Director (AD) about a script and despite some expressed interest, they stop corresponding.

Let’s not overanalyze. I even heard one AD say at a theatre conference that if they stop communicating, it’s a “No” to your play. Like they’re making the practice of ghosting an official step in the process of script selection.

I’ve also been told that ADs are busy people and you never know what’s going on in their lives. So they get busy, they get flooded with emails (as we all do), and your inquiry gets buried. You can, judiciously, follow up.

I get that. What I don’t understand is what’s so hard about saying a clear “No”, if interest in the project isn’t going to go further. For closure, I would rather get a form email from a theatre saying “Thank you for your interest…” than nothing at all. (To be fair, playwriting competitions, as a rule, are pretty good at this.)

All this can only be worse in the romantic context.

Communication is civilized and courteous, even when negative. Ghosting is passive aggression masked as politeness. It’s cowardly.

Let’s embrace actual communication, not ghostly silence. Follow E.M. Forster: “Only connect.”