Looking for Love & Ghosting:

What Dating Taught Me About Goodbye

When I first returned to dating, I approached the apps very differently than I do today. There were times when I had several conversations going at once, and if one did not particularly hold my attention, I might simply unmatch.

No announcement. No explanation. No formal closing ceremony.

Just… gone.

At the time, I did not think much of it. We had not met. We had barely spoken. It felt like part of the nature of online dating.

And sometimes, I still believe that is true.

Not every conversation requires closure.

If two people exchange a few messages and neither one continues the conversation, I would not necessarily call that ghosting. Sometimes a conversation simply ends because there was never enough there to begin with.

But dating has taught me that there is a difference between a conversation fading away and leaving someone wondering what happened.

I have experienced both.

There have been men I knew rather quickly were not right for me.

One date made it very clear that certain boundaries were not going to be respected. I did not disappear. I told him I did not think we should continue.

Another man and I shared an enjoyable evening, but afterward there was very little effort or communication. Eventually, I unmatched him. There was no dramatic ending because, quite honestly, there had not been enough of a beginning.

Then there was someone I went out with twice.

He was perfectly pleasant. Nothing terrible happened. There was simply no connection developing for me.

And sometimes that is actually harder to explain.

It is much easier to say goodbye when someone has behaved badly.

It is more difficult when the truth is simply, “You seem like a good person. I am just not feeling what I hoped I would feel.”

But I said goodbye.

Because once I have sat across from someone, shared a meal, spent hours talking, perhaps shared a little affection, that person no longer feels like a profile on a screen.

They are a person.

And then, of course, dating eventually gave me the opportunity to experience uncertainty from the other side.

There was someone I spoke with every day for several weeks.

We talked about our lives, our families, our work, our schedules. There were plans to meet. There was familiarity. There was enough consistency for the connection to begin feeling real.

Then something shifted.

The communication changed.

And there is an uncomfortable place between rejection and silence where your mind begins trying to fill in the blanks.

Did I say something?

Did something happen?

Did he lose interest?

Was any of it what I thought it was?

I eventually ended that connection myself.

But I walked away understanding something I had not fully understood before.

Silence feels very different when you have become emotionally invested.

That experience did not make me angry at everyone who has ever ghosted someone.

If anything, it made me more understanding.

People avoid uncomfortable conversations for many reasons. Some do not know how to say they have lost interest. Some are afraid of hurting someone. Some simply do not want to deal with the reaction.

And, occasionally, people probably convince themselves that disappearing is kinder.

I am not sure that it is.

I am Buddhist, and I believe in karma.

Not as punishment. Not as a spiritual scoreboard keeping track of every dating mistake I have ever made.

For me, karma is much more connected to intention and awareness.

How did I treat someone?

What did I leave behind?

Did I behave in a way that aligns with the person I am trying to become?

That does not mean I believe every match deserves a carefully written farewell.

If we have exchanged four messages about coffee and the weather, I promise I am not preparing a closing statement.

But I do believe there comes a point when another human being deserves acknowledgment.

Maybe it is after a date.

Maybe it is after weeks of conversation.

Maybe it is simply when you know the other person has begun to care.

I do not think the line is exactly the same for everyone.

But I think we usually know when we have crossed it.

Dating has changed me in ways I did not expect.

I began by thinking mostly about what I wanted from another person.

Attraction.

Compatibility.

Conversation.

Consistency.

Effort.

Those things still matter to me.

But somewhere along the way, I also began thinking about how I wanted to show up in someone else’s life.

And perhaps even more importantly, how I wanted to leave it.

Because character is not only revealed by the way we enter someone’s life.

Sometimes it is revealed most clearly by the way we leave.