I (22F) have been online dating on and off. I have an issue with some guys where I don’t know when it’s okay to stop talking or at what point it would be considered disrespectful to unmatch when I believe they either aren’t that interested or we aren’t compatible. I don’t want to cause a big deal by ending things with someone I don’t even know but I don’t want to be rude.
My general rule is that after you have a date, time, and place planned for a first date then it’s probably wrong to ghost, however I even feel bad doing it before then. After a date it’s a definite no unless your safety is on the line or the person seemed really creepy or had some major red flags.
Sometimes I’ll be talking with a guy who’s like “Yeah I’ll let you know when I’m free and maybe we can go out for coffee” and then I never hear anything and he just sits in my matches. Other times we may have a phone call and I know we did not click at all or I caught a weird vibe, it seems premature to say we aren’t a match but at that point I usually have no interest in continuing. Just recently I felt the need to take a break from online dating so I deleted my account along with some of my stale matches that I had been talking with slowly for weeks and it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
I know ghosting is super common with online dating and we have this mentality of “You don’t owe anyone anything” and while that’s true, I believe common curtesy is important. What do y’all think?
2 comments
First, thanks for prioritizing consideration.
I think it depends on context. If the person is blowing up your phone and you’re not interested, I think just a simple “hey I don’t think we’re compatible, best of luck though!” Is fine.
If they are not messaging you, I think just waiting a couple of weeks and removing them is completely appropriate.
Ghosting is only really an issue if a person is demonstrating interest that’s not reciprocated, if there’s a lack of interest on both sides, you should not feel bad about just moving on.
Don’t ghost people.