Ghosting is spooky but unfortunately common. From romantic interests to prospective job opportunities, people online lament about never hearing back from the one person they want to hear from the most.
But what if they do?
Not only is ghosting seemingly ubiquitous in today’s society of online connections, but so is a ghoster reappearing. Like a cheap movie fright, a text can come out of nowhere. Mashable spoke to ghostees who have experienced this and experts to understand why ghosters come back from the dead.
Post-breakup jump scare
Mandy (her name has been changed for privacy reasons) had hooked up with a Hinge match three times at the tail end of 2023, and they were making plans to see the Emerald Fennell film Saltburn together.
“We never solidified those plans, and then we never talked again,” Mandy told Mashable.
As a non-monogamous dater with a partner, Mandy has rules for mutual ghosting: if you both silently agree not to follow up after the first encounter, “it is what it is.”
But after having sex three times? “There is just an etiquette, or a courtesy, to just be like, ‘I don’t want to see you anymore,'” said Mandy. “I really respect when people are very honest with me.”
Still, this man wasn’t. Mandy asked what date worked to see the movie, and then sent a TikTok video, but he only responded to the TikTok video instead of the date. As the proposed day inched closer, she asked him to let her know if he still wanted to catch the movie.
He didn’t respond — until over a year later, around Christmas 2024.
“Uncalled for apology time,” he texted, and went on to say that he didn’t expect a response, but that he had begun dating someone else seriously at the time and had done a poor job communicating that to the other women he was going out with.
Mandy replied, saying she appreciated the clarity and apology, and expressed hope that he and his partner were doing well.
“It did not work out,” the former match said.
“I was just confused,” Mandy said. “I had a lot of mixed feelings.” She replied anyway, saying she was sorry to hear that, and hoped all was well with him then.
“I don’t know if I really need an apology from you after you committed to ghosting on a relationship that was, for the most part, just casual,” Mandy said. She sent the text to several friends, asking questions: Was he trying to rebuild his roster post-breakup? Did he want to see who was back and available?
“Is it for your own ego, or is it for more ulterior motives, like you want to have people to see casually again?” Mandy asked now. “I don’t know, but it just made me feel really weird.”
Mandy never talked to him again.
A long overdue explanation
At the end of 2017, when writer Sarah Freedman (who has written for Mashable) was preparing to move from New York to Los Angeles, she met a man on Tinder and had one “really intense night” together.
“You meet and then you’re together for 24 hours,” she described the date.
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She tried to meet him again, and he said he wanted to see her, too. While they kept texting, plans never materialized, and it made Freedman anxious. She eventually texted him that she felt like she was being strung along and wanted to hear where he stood.
She never heard back.
Whirlwind, day-long first dates can be a “mindfuck,” Freedman said. You feel like you’re in a movie or a TV show, and that you have an amazing connection. “And then, you never hear from them,” she said. “It’s so painful…I think it really kind of underscores how little you know someone.”
Despite whatever beautiful connection you had, you don’t know the other person and have no idea what’s going on in their life, she said. Evidenced by the long text she received from this date four years later. He was going through recovery for alcohol addiction and apologized, and he wanted to write Freedman a letter.
“I got the text when I was literally sitting on the toilet,” Freedman said. “You know, when you get these things, you remember exactly.”
Freedman found the text admirable, showing significant growth and maturity. It taught her a lesson, one that stuck with her, and she wrote about herself on her Substack: She took the ghosting so personally, but it had nothing to do with her.
This instance made it easier for her to understand that the way someone treats her doesn’t necessarily have to do with who she is.
“Especially in these brief, fleeting moments where you’re connecting with someone and you don’t know each other that well — how much can it really be the way I’m behaving around this person?” she asked. “I just have a lot of sympathy for him, and it just put it in so much perspective.”
Freedman responded with her address, but he never sent the letter. “He ended up ghosting me again,” she joked.
Still, it didn’t lessen the impact of the apology.
“When you’re ghosted, you just feel like you don’t matter, right? You feel like no one thinks of you. No one cares. You’re not even worthy of a response,” she said. “Then have this and be like, ‘Actually, I stayed with him. Actually, what happened weighed on him.’ It was healing. It was really healing to hear that.”
Why ghosters come back
People may ghost others as it is a non-confrontational — albeit immature — way to terminate a relationship or interaction, according to Dr. Beth Ribarsky, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois Springfield.
When you’re ghosted, you just feel like you don’t matter, right?
“In a world where so many of our relationships are built and maintained via texts, calls, or social media, it is incredibly easy to simply stop responding to or block others” rather than risk confrontation or conflict, said Ribarsky, who specializes in interpersonal communications and romantic relationships.
Mandy echoed the sentiment. “We have gotten to a point in culture where we don’t like confrontation and we don’t like direct conversation and communication about uncomfortable things,” she said. But that’s part of life — we have to talk about uncomfortable things, even if it’s “I don’t like you anymore” or “I don’t want to see you again.”
“Sorry if that’s harsh,” she said. “It’s better than leaving you guessing.”
A ghoster might reappear because of guilt and loneliness — or boredom, Ribarsky commented. It depends on the situation.
When Joy Ofodu, host of the Dating Unsettled podcast and comedy creator, was single, she once had a ghoster apologize with a two-paragraph letter. They had been dating for two months and were even discussing family and goals. “I was genuinely surprised to have been left on read at the time,” she told Mashable.
With an apology, “I think it’s thoughtful but also kind of a protective self-preservation measure — they don’t want to ruin their reputation within intimate friend groups, group chats, anonymous reporting communities, or apps, and know that ghosting doesn’t get you far.”
“Like alcoholics making amends, some of them may be in a place of deep character reflection and wanting to do an upheaval — that can involve an apology tour,” she continued. In Freedman’s situation, this was literal.
“Other times, as I’ve unfortunately also experienced, it’s an apology to halfheartedly reactivate a dating conversation and see if the recipient is still open to your BS — a little ego boost to feel good again and go on their way,” Ofodu continued, which is what Mandy suspected.
But sometimes, Ofodu said, you may find yourself the ghost. She had to issue her own apology after she let a dating app conversation dry up when she was busy with work and graduate school. Even her now-partner said sorry for ghosting when they first matched.
“We mutually, uncharacteristically ghosted each other on a first meet-up we’d set because we were juggling too much — then he came back, apologized, and hopped on a FaceTime with me just to meet each other,” Ofodu said. “Without that apology, we may not be together today.”
“Ghosting always sucks,” said Freedman, and she knows how it feels — so she makes it a point not to ghost people. It would be easier not to respond, but she said, “I can take three minutes out of my day and send someone a nice message that also says, ‘You’re a cool person and I wish you the best.'”
Apologies for ghosting can be genuine or manipulative, Ofodu said, but thinks they’re best accompanied by either blissful absence or action. “When in doubt, I think it’s better to apologize than not.”
Mandy believes her instance of a returning ghost is emblematic of our culture. However, she added, “I kind of appreciated it for the giggle it gave me.”
