I (15F) rejected a boy (15m) and when things started getting awkward I ghosted him. His mom texted mine and now I’m being forced to talk to him. What do I do?

47 comments

1. You should talk to your school counselor and let them know that you are being forced to communicate with someone you rejected romantically and that you are not OK with this. Ask them to explain to your parents that they are supposed to be safe people that you are supposed to be able to go to with your problems. They need to understand that this is setting a bad example for you to have to play nice with people who make you feel unsafe and uncomfortable. They should be encouraging you to be able to set boundaries with people you don’t want to associate with, and that you don’t need to justify why you don’t want to be around someone to anyone. Your mother is doing you very wrong here.

2. None of this is okay and you did nothing wrong. His mom is way out of line and your mom is just wrong. You have no obligation to talk to anyone you don’t want to (ESPECIALLY if you’re uncomfortable). I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. Is there another adult (guidance counselor, teacher, coach ,etc) you feel comfortable discussing this with? Give them all the facts/timeline. Unfortunately at your age it’s good to have an adult on your side, in case he/his mom escalates things.

3. Your mom is not just wrong, she is setting you up to be abused by men throughout your life. Prioritizing catering to his feelings over your own comfort is a very dangerous precedent to set. None of this is OK.

   You should be able to check in with your friends. “Hey, is it just me or has there been some weirdness between me and X since I said I wouldn’t go out with him?” If you can’t do that with them you need to re-evaluate your friendship with them.

4. It sucks that you’re being pushed to do this by your mom (not her business), but it sounds like the fastest way to get it over with would be to tell him you don’t want to be friends anymore.

5. Be clear with your mother. ‘I feel like this will send him the message that he can manipulate people to talk to him and me that I need to talk to people I don’t want to talk to. That doesn’t seem healthy or fair for anyone.’

   Because in the end it is your mother making the biggest mistake here. She should have your back, she should have told that friend’s mother to go eat spiders. You should be free to stop talking to anyone you like and she should be more than happy to respect that.

   Still, if she won’t budge on you ‘not ghosting’ is you telling him ‘hi, I no longer want to talk to you, thank you for respecting that and leaving me alone’ enough and if not then it isn’t the ghosting that is the issue at all.

6. Block him and then ask you mom: “Why are you forcing me to talk to him? I don’t want to talk to him.”

7. Ghosting is rude but sometimes necessary. You shouldn’t feel obligated to date him or talk to him. If you mom thinks it’s rude to ghost people, fine, don’t ghost him. Tell him that you simply didn’t want to date him and now that he brought his mom into it, you really don’t want to date him. You are under to obligation to date him.

8. Ask your mom why she thinks his feelings are more important than yours. You don’t want to talk to him and shouldn’t be forced to do so.

   If you do respond, tell him that it made you uncomfortable when he asked you out and you have no interest in him that way. Wish him luck finding another girl. Then stop responding altogether. No reason to be mean to him, but no means no and he needs to learn that, like yesterday.

9. You didn’t do anything wrong. I can’t believe a boy of 15 went and cried to his mummy about a girl not texting him back, what a looser! Ask your mum why she thinks it’s okay for a boy to make you feel uncomfortable and why you have to put your own feelings lower than his to text him? Just block him, no one is entitled to your time, least of all this boy who made you feel uncomfortable and is now trying to manipulate you via your mum.

10. so you rejected this guy, he harassed you via text, and when that didn’t work, he complained to his mom?

    and your mom abandoned her responsibility to protect you from stalkers and teach you how to form healthy relationships, and instead told you to talk to him?

    who would do this to their daughter?

    I guess you could start by asking your mom how she thinks a woman living on their own as an adult should respond if somebody starts stalking them. or maybe ask her if she ever had a stalker.

    the thing is, though, your mom’s reaction to this situation is so inappropriate that she might be the bigger problem.

    I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s all pretty weird.

11. Looks like a parent got too involved in a problem that she didn’t need to be involved in besides being informed about your life and giving guidance. She made a pretty bone headed call here not putting you or considering your side of things first.
    Ghosting is ok to do, but if you really want to put the stop to something, you got to be clear: tell that boy that you don’t want to talk with or do anything with him anymore and not to involve your parents to force you to talk to him. Tell him: You decide who you want and don’t want to talk to: not him, not your mom, not his mom.

12. Your mother is failing you miserably here. You absolutely can just cut contact with someone if you are uncomfortable. It’s honestly kinda sad on his part that he got his mom of all people to complain to your mom that you aren’t talking to him.

13. Wait, were you planning to drift away from your whole friends group?

    Don’t do that. There is always gonna be weird crush energy in any group and sometimes you have to reject someone or graceful decline ask-outs. And sometimes you have to take no for an answer too and then get over it.

    But. Don’t let that impact other friendships. It’s just a bit of awkward and things will get to a new normal soon.

    As far as this conversation, you can say, omg it’s pretty embarrassing you got your mom involved. Or you can say, hey I just wanted space, let’s not make it weird.

14. dont ghost people, just communicate how you are feeling and if he then doesnt leave you alone let your mom call his mom xD

15. Tell your mom you won’t be doing it. Don’t be rude about it. Just tell her you won’t be doing it. She has no right to insist that you do.

16. lol really… he involved his mom and then yours. That’s crazy.

17. Actually, all that you need to do is write

    ‘Dear X, I don’t want to go out with you, please stop sending messages to me’

    Your mother should help you with this. (I agree with others that your mother should be helpful instead of being part of the problem. I hope there is nothing more going on, for example that she wants you to be a relationship with this boy, or that the boy’s mother is her boss or whatever.)

    If he keeps on sending messages after that, you can tell

    ‘Dear X, I asked you to stop writing me, if you continue writing me, I will block you’.

    If then, he still continues, then you can block him

18. Tell him sorry, but you find it awkward and uncomfortable to converse with him. Therefore you are not interested in anything further.

19. Tell him in a text message that you don’t want to speak to him and you have every right to chose whom you associate with.

20. Tell your mother the whole truth. She might have thought that you ghosted him for childish reasons, but this isn’t it. She should have asked you why and got your prospective from the start. If she still doesn’t see reason, maybe you should consult a trustable adult other than your mother and make them have adult talks.

    Also, evaluate your friendship with the boy and possibly your friend group. You said that he is at the centre of your friendship? Then you might face the possibility of them siding him instead of you if he were to twist his story to his favour. I hope that is not the case. You have to becareful to not hurt yourself in the process and maybe find new friends in new groups if this happens.

    There are many good comments here, and I hope you have gotten the advice you need. I wish you the best!

21. I mean you say yall are friends but I suppose not best friends. Ghosting is rude, and sometimes you have to do it, but this is also a good opportunity to express how you truly feel about your friendship. Sure you aren’t obligated to talk to him, and your mom forcing you is rather odd, but on the flip side it’s better to tell him how you feel about him texting/talking to you rather than ignoring him, especially if you were friends. This kind of assertiveness pays off huge dividends in the long run. If you have done that then yea, you gotta block him and ask your mom why she isn’t on your team.

22. Wow I have a 13 year old son and I would never butt in their social lives like that unless I saw my son mistreat another person.

    In fact he has a girlfriend and I give them space I only give advice if my son asks for it. He has Asd & ADHD but he has had so many courses and training in social skills that I find him to be way more socially skilled than many other adults.

    Woah this is just unacceptable

23. “you are making me uncomfortable with your insistent contact after I rejected you. Please stop.”

24. A girl in the UK was just stabbed to death by a boy she rejected when he asked her out/gave her flowers.

    Your mother needs to do better. Honestly – I think you say no, show your mum the story and repeat “I do not feel safe talking to this boy”. If she insists after that just refuse anyway if you can, tell another trusted adult and block/mute him

25. Ask your mom to read through these replies with you. Decide how to respond together

26. Urgh I hate shit like this. You shouldn’t be forced to speak to people who make you feel uncomfortable. Ghosting isn’t the best way to deal with a situation, but I’m 35 and have done it in the past when things have got too awkward.

    The mothers are enabling this teenage boy to feel like he can do whatever he wants. No doubt he’s gone to his mum with a sob story about ‘how he really likes her and he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong and he just wants to talk to her’ and the mother’s gone ‘how dare she reject my perfect angel son, don’t worry darling I’ll get her to see sense’.

    And this is how you end up with dudes like my ex who, aged 31, got his dad to ring me to ask me to give him another chance. Lol.

27. “Hey, since your mom is forcing mine to make me talk to you, here I am. Not a very attractive thing to do btw…. What is it you’d like from me?”

28. Ask your mother if she doesn’t believe that you have the right to consent

29. “hi,

    My mother told me that your mother texted her because you tattletaled about me not responding to you. If it’s not clear from my lack of response I do not wish to have any contact with you. I don’t wish to date you. I don’t wish to text you. I don’t wish to talk to you. If you continue to text me I will take further steps to make sure that you cannot, If that means going to the principal, or the police That’s your choice. So once again, because it clearly doesn’t seem that it’s getting through to you, Do not contact me I do not wish to have a conversation with you anymore.”

    Tell your mom you contacted him and that you are allowed to have boundaries about who you do and do not talk to.

30. If I were your mom, I would have told his mom that I wouldn’t feel comfortable forcing my daughter to talk to someone she doesn’t want to talk to. But I would also advise my daughter that ghosting is really mean, and it’s much better practice to communicate , “I feel like it got awkward between us, and I’d like to keep some distance for a while.” It would be a different situation if this was a stranger who asked you out and won’t leave you alone, but this is your friend. You two are in the same friend group, and you cut off contact with him without a word. Tell him what’s going on. If he bothers you after that, it’s a different issue.

31. Personally I don’t think ghosting is the right approach, I agree with your mother. It’s ok to want some space while you work through this. I’d reply like this:

    “Hey [His Name], I’m really sorry for not responding to your messages lately. After you asked me out and I declined, I felt really awkward and I wasn’t sure how to continue our conversation. I realize now that ghosting was not the right way to handle it, and I apologize for that. I hope you can understand that it was my way of dealing with my own discomfort and not a reflection on you as a person. I value our friendship, but I also need some time to process and figure out how to move forward.”

32. Your mom is being a gigantic fucking idiot. Please show her this message.

    HEY LADY THAT DUDE IS HARASSING YOUR DAUGHTER SO MAYBE STFU AND SUPPORT HER INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FORCE HER TO DO SOMETHING SHE DOESN’T WANT, YOU ABSOLUTE TOOL

33. Your mom is wrong. You don’t owe anyone a relationship. You should show her this thread.

34. Your mom is so incredibly wrong. We do no own anyone anything. No is a complete sentence. If there is absolutely no way you could get out of communicating with him, stone wall him. Give one word answer: ok. Gotcha. Nothing. None. No. That is still communicating, just not saying much. The more you engage, the further he presses, esp now he knows he can manipulate adults into forcing you to deal with him. Stay strong and stay safe. Esp since your mother put you in such a horrible situation.

35. The 15 year old boy needs to learn that no, I don’t want to date you is a complete sentence. You owe him nothing beyond that. You don’t owe him why you don’t want to date him. It’s on him to figure it out/deal. Not go running to his mom.

36. Contact his mom and say:

    “Your son asked me out and i am not interested. I did not want the entire friend group to know so i have withdrawn. He knows this. Would you like me to inform the friend group?”

37. Sounds like the boy needs to learn to accept the rejection. It’s incredibly odd and entitled to get your mother to pressure a girl that rejected you into contacting you again. You don’t owe any of these people anything and you can decide for yourself who you want to interact with. If the guy keeps pressuring you like this, no wonder you don’t want to deal with him anymore. A lot of guys have frail egos and get very aggressive and stalkerish after a rejection. Don’t give in to this manipulative behavior. I’m saying this as a guy btw. Dude needs to grow up.

38. It sounds to me like things got awkward because you weren’t honest with him.

    Getting parents involved may be cringey, but being dishonest is, in my view, much worse. You could have saved yourself and him a lot of problems by just being honest.

    “Hey, I kind of feel awkward around you now, so I need some space from you for a while. I don’t want you to feel bad, but I’m just not sure how to act around you, and I don’t want you to think that we might get together when we won’t.”

    That would have been much kinder and better for everyone than the way you handled it. It seems like your mother is trying to teach you the lesson that when you aren’t honest with people, when you instead try to avoid problems, that you wind up making the problem even bigger and more complicated than it needs to be.

    So suck it up. Be honest. This isn’t a situation where the kid is stalking you. He’s not dangerous, and you aren’t saying he’s dangerous.
    It’s just an awkward conversation. But feeling awkward is not an excuse for being rude or dishonest with others.

    Others have pointed out that you shouldn’t have to talk to people you don’t want to – and that is valid. But that doesn’t change the fact that how you communicate you don’t want to talk to someone is a reflection of your character. If you ghost someone – that makes you a dishonest and avoidant person. It’s selfish and inconsiderate behavior in a situation like the one you have described.

    He was a friend. He wanted to change your relationship to something more intimate, and you did not, and so it was awkward. He wasn’t rude, he wasn’t mean, he wasn’t sleazy, he wasn’t scary. He was just honest about his feelings and because you didn’t feel the same way and didn’t want to hurt him, rejecting him was awkward.

    And then you went no contact with him, because instead of being clear about your feelings, you weren’t. And this meant that the awkwardness lingered.

    But imagine if that had been you that had been rejected. Would you like to be ghosted in that situation? Or would you appreciate some closure, in understanding that the person needed some time before they could feel less awkward around you, or something to that effect?

    The great thing about being honest, though, is that in this situation you can make it clear that him getting his mom to get you to talk to him didn’t make the situation BETTER. It only made it more awkward. Of course you don’t want to deal with him anymore because whenever you talk with him you are going to be thinking about how he complained to his mommy about this, making it a much bigger deal.

    But you did too, by ghosting him.

    The moral of the story here is that ghosting people is not ok. Maybe if you think the person is dangerous, and you met them for a first date, that is understandable.

    But if a friend asks you out, and now you feel weird, that’s not a good reason to avoid being honest with them. It’s just selfish and avoidant.

39. Just don’t respond. What is your mom going to do especially if you rejected him first which isn’t ghosting.

40. It’s very possible you’re all handling this poorly. Worth noting you don’t necessarily know if the boy asked his mum to reach out or if he just told her what’s happened and she stuck her nose in.

    Either way.

    1. Tell your mum how you are going to handle it.
    2. Tell the boy if you aren’t interested in keeping in touch at the moment. You don’t need to ghost anyone without saying that.
    3. Don’t overly rely on all the stuff you read in these comments. There are a lot of toxic traits that bleed through.

    Good luck.

41. Talk to him by telling it’s pathetic that he got his mommy to tell your mommy that you need to talk to him. Like seriously, wtf

42. Add his mom to your text chat with him lol.

43. Before I tell you what I think may work best for you, let me make this clear. Your mom is wrong. You can and occasionally should ghost people. Is this a good situation for it? Possibly…

    Now as for my advice if fighting with your mom isn’t worth the hassle I would simply text him once. Apologize for ghosting him but let him know the relationship feels awkward at the moment and you need some space. Tell him you expect him to give you that space. Then go back to low or no contact for a bit.

    It’s not ghosting I’d you tell them to leave you alone.

44. Ask your mom if this is really the message she wants to send to you, that your boundaries aren’t worth being respected.

45. DO WHAT YOU WANT
    you do not owe a response to a single soul on this planet. if you don’t want to speak to someone, then don’t. if you’re in an uncomfortable situation and you don’t want to be speaking to someone anymore, then don’t.
    your mother really cannot force you and neither can anyone else and as a parent this is sending the wrong message to her child, that you must reply to someone even if ur uncomfortable or you don’t want to. it really is none of her business just as much as her friendships are not your business and you wouldn’t involve yourself in hers.

46. You didn’t ghost him, you rejected him and he ignored you. You then stopped responding to someone who was harassing you. You need to stand up for yourself, actually tell your mom and show her the messages

47. I disagree with a lot of people here. Yes, you technically have the right to not speak a word to anyone ever again for the rest of your life. But people will rightfully consider you rude if you did that.

    Growth comes from conflict. You could’ve grown as a person by facing the conflict, getting over your discomfort, and telling your friend the truth, instead of ghosting him. Ghosting people as soon as you feel awkward around them is not a habit you want to develop into adulthood