Before I begin, let me set an all too familiar scene: after days of deliberation you have finally decided to make a move on your crush. You’ve strategically liked their Instagram photos, created committees with your friends to decide when to send a friend request on Facebook, and even went as far as to check to see if you were astrologically compatible (by the way, a Taurean couple is one of the best matches you can make). So, you send a message, or you make a comment, or maybe you even slide into their DMs. Then you start talking and everything seems like it’s going your way…until it doesn’t.

I managed to make a move on one of my crushes, albeit at a glacially slow pace, and for a while everything seemed to be going swimmingly. We even went on a date! Then out of the blue, BAM, ghosted.

For those of you who do not know, ghosting is the act of ceasing communication with another person without any sort of explanation. This essentially removes your existence from their lives entirely as if you were to evaporate into thin air.

So what’s the deal with ghosting? From stories I’ve heard from my friends, I know that I’m not the only one that this is happening to. Even worse, I learned that my crush wasn’t the only one committing this crime either.

According to Fortune.com, a survey released by the dating website Plenty of Fish found that 78 percent of “single millennials” have been ghosted at least once. However, another survey released by the Huffington Post found that only 16 percent of millennials actually admitted to ghosting people that they were talking to.

The fact that this is not an isolated incident is not at all surprising. Living in an era of increased social media involvement and technological advancement, we have the luxury to be seen, or remain invisible, as we see fit. In other words, we can start fights online with family members who don’t share our political affiliations or we can easily avoid talking to someone that we have gone on a date with for the sake of avoiding conflict. It’s that simple.  

Though the action itself might be simple, the aftermath is a bit messier. When you ghost someone you are leaving them in a state of romantic purgatory, essentially leaving them without any sort of closure in the relationship the two of you have created be it sexual, romantic, committed, etc. It’s pretty selfish to ghost someone simply because you don’t want to confront the issue head on or because you are afraid of conflict. You are not the only one that this is affecting.

Of course there are extenuating circumstances to this rule. Say you have already expressed your discontent in your relationship but the person you are talking to won’t leave you alone. Or say the person is making unwanted advances that make you uncomfortable or even unsafe. In instances such as these, you have my full blessing to ghost if you feel that that is your safest bet out of your current situation.

Dating today is hard enough with social media interfering and with everyone wanting to play games with one another in an effort to see who looks like they could care less about the other. Don’t make the entire process hard and hurtful by ghosting someone. Be the bigger person, confront your issues, and together we might just be able to stop ghosting.