Love Languages

Professional Matchmaking: How to Never Get Ghosted Again

If you have spent any amount of time in the dating scene over the past few years, chances are you have heard of the ghosting phenomenon. Hopefully, you aren’t guilty of ghosting anyone, and likewise have not been the victim of a ghost. At Executive Matchmakers, our priority is helping you find genuine, lasting love, so you never get ghosted again.

Did you know that over half of today’s daters have first-hand experience with ghosting?

What exactly does it mean to get ghosted?

Ghosting is the sudden, unexpected cease of all communication from one party within a relationship. Although the term is new, it wasn’t born through dating apps, and it isn’t a new concept.

I assume you have heard the cliché of a father who went out for cigarettes and never came back—that guy ghosted his whole family. It’s not specific to romantic relationships either, we all know a guy who ditches his friends whenever he gets a girlfriend.

The most common form of ghosting can be explained by the following scenario:

You matched with a woman online and shared a number of pleasant chats. You ask for her number and eventually to meet in person. After a few dates and weeks of FaceTiming, she suddenly stops responding to your texts. She dodges your calls, and bails on your weekend plans. You assume she’s caught up in work and give it a week or so before you start to worry. Eventually, you ask her what went wrong, but you get no answer. You’re then left wondering if you did something wrong, she met someone else, or even if she died. 

This is an emotionally painful situation to find yourself in. You may have been the perfect gentleman and said all the right things, but she just didn’t see a future with you for one reason or another. Unfortunately, she was unable to communicate that to you—so she ghosted.

“It’s really important to remember if someone ghosts you, that behavior says more about them than you. It’s about their discomfort.” -Dr. Jennice Vilhauer

Why do I keep getting ghosted?

I’m a firm believer that most negative behavior stems from a basis of fear. When humans are afraid, they respond with either fight, flight, or freeze. Ghosting is a combination of the latter two. The ghost freezes communication because she’s afraid of the outcome if the relationship continues, and she flees from the situation in order to avoid difficult conversations or unwanted outcomes.

Fear isn’t the only reason women ghost though. Maybe she’s busy with her career or her family. She could be going through a rough time, either mentally or physically. I think we can all agree, COVID-19 has thrown everyone into a bit of a crisis. Maybe she met someone unexpectedly or an ex came back into her life. And there’s the hardest pill of all to swallow: she’s just not that into you.

But what is she afraid of?

Perhaps it’s a fear of rejection. A sort of get them before they get me first approach. People with this method of dating are not in the right mindset for a long-lasting, committed relationship anyway. Someone who has a pattern of leaving before they get left, will never stay long enough to work through the hard stuff that life tends to throw at us.

One of the most common fears that cause women to ghost is the fear of retaliation. We have been socialized and trained to play nice and never offend a man’s ego. Because of that, some women were simply never taught a polite but effective way to turn down a man’s advances.

How many comedies play off of a woman’s inability to kindly reject a man who buys her a drink at a bar, when she’s clearly not interested in him? There is more truth in that than most of us would like to admit.

Unfortunately, there is a darker side to this fear of retaliation. And that is the very real threat of violence and abuse women have historically experienced at the hands of men with bruised pride.

If the woman who ghosted you has been a victim of or a witness to abuse in her lifetime, try not to take it personally. She probably has a level of fear that revolves around her interactions with men, and ghosting feels like a safer alternative.

Is she too busy or just lazy?

Honestly, does it matter? Whether she’s hustling in her career working 80-hour weeks, or has been on her couch in the same pair of sweatpants all weekend—the fact is she hasn’t made time for you in her life. She may be actively ignoring you, AKA ghosting, or she may just have a mile-long priority list that doesn’t include you.

Will one scenario sting less than the other? I doubt it. It hurts when someone you were developing feelings for doesn’t reciprocate, no matter what the circumstances are.

That being said, I’m a proponent of second chances. If she reaches out with an apology and a valid explanation for being absent, why not give it one more date? That is if you still see potential in the relationship, of course.

How do I never get ghosted again?

Well, there are no guarantees in life, but matchmaking is a smarter, safer way to meet people.

The use of dating apps has created a lot of lazy daters. We pick up our phones and sometimes getting a date is as easy as ordering a pizza. If we don’t catch the other person’s attention within a few messages, they get bored and move on to the next app. We have thousands of possible matches in our pocket. We may give it a few dates, and if that person doesn’t blow our mind, we start swiping again.

It’s all pretty indicative of where we are as a society in terms of instant gratification.

But there is good news! There are alternatives to the monotony of endless swiping, texting, and eventual ghosting. There are better, safer, more efficient ways to date in 2020. At Executive Matchmakers, we have years of experience matching like-minded singles who go on to happy, healthy, long-lasting relationships.

The main reason that ghosting is so prevalent in recent years, is because we’re meeting complete strangers at an unprecedented rate. Previous generations met their mates through mutual friends, family members, church, work, and school. They typically had at least one other person in common with their date. 

Take the following situation for example:

Let’s say your Aunt set you up with a young woman from her church. If you were rude on your first date, or you completely disappeared on the woman, it’s likely that she will complain to your Aunt about your behavior. Your Aunt would then hold you accountable and you would face consequences. 

When you date strangers from the internet with no mutual connections, there is little to no accountability, and people feel free to behave in ways they probably wouldn’t if their Aunt was privy to the situation.

People are less likely to ghost if there is an additional person they have to answer to...like a matchmaker.

Your personal matchmaker will not only work to match you with your ideal partner, but she will also follow up with you and your matches to provide her expert coaching and advice. Our priority is helping you find genuine, lasting love so you never get ghosted again.

by Lindsay Mills