Calling Out Someone Who Ghosted You: Good or Bad Idea?
Picture this.
You’ve been seeing someone for about a month and have gone on four or five dates together.
It’s going great!
You two have a lot in common and enjoy spending time together. The relationship recently became intimate, and you’ve even talked about your future and meeting each other’s friends.
Suddenly, it’s radio silence.
One minute you’re making dinner plans for Friday night, and the next, you’re trying to figure out why they didn’t text back.
It’s been five days.
You have a sick feeling in your stomach they’ve ghosted you. But why? And how dare they?
You want to fire off an angry text and fill it with the craftiest expletives you can string together. But also, you want an answer.
Things were going well. Right? What the hell happened?
Every fiber of your being wants to call them out for ghosting you. But is that a good idea?
Let’s discuss the pros and cons of calling out someone who ghosted you and help you decide.
The Argument FOR Calling Out Someone Who Ghosted You
PROs:
It denies the ghoster the ability to avoid confrontation, which is what they hoped to achieve by ghosting you. Calling them out means they don’t get let off the hook so easily and have to face their bad behavior on some level.
Whether or not you should proceed with calling out someone who ghosted you largely depends on the relationship. Was it something serious? Or more casual?
You can consider calling them out if it was at least semi-serious or leading in that direction. If it was more casual? Don’t.
Based on relationship advice from the experts, this is the metric I would use.
There are some caveats.
If you decide to call someone out for ghosting you, keep in mind the following:
- Don’t have an agenda.
- Don’t reach out hoping to salvage the relationship.
- Cut off communication immediately after saying your peace.
The only good reason to call somebody out is to deny them the confrontation avoidance they sought by ghosting you. Your ghoster’s behavior is not okay; they need to know that. You will say your peace, stand up for yourself, and then move on.
If you are motivated by anything beyond that, delay reaching out until you’ve had time to cool off and process everything.
Tips For Calling Out Someone Who Ghosted You
Okay, so you’re doing this. Let’s talk about how you can call out your ghoster while maintaining your dignity.
1. Keep it brief.
Do not write this person a text novel.
For one, they don’t deserve it, and two, it makes you look bad. If you need to write a draft text first to get it all out, go ahead.
But whatever you hit ‘send’ on to your ghoster should be concise and to the point.
2. Focus on their behavior, not your feelings.
This tip is mainly out of self-preservation. If this person cared about your feelings, they would not have ghosted you.
When someone hurts us, it is natural to dream up a fantasy where we tell them how we feel, and they instantly regret their behavior.
That isn’t going to happen.
Your message to your ghoster should only focus on calling them out for their behavior. Save the rest of those feelings for your friends and support network. Your ghoster doesn’t deserve that information from you.
Here’s an example of a text you can send to a ghoster:
“Hey, so I was disappointed when I didn’t hear from you, but I can see now you’re ghosting me. I thought you were a respectable person, but now I’m mostly embarrassed I hung out with as long as I did. Good luck out there!”
Brief. Simple. Calls the ghoster out for being an immature prick, and you walk away with your dignity intact.
However, you’re not done yet.
3. After calling them out, immediately block their number.
Their response to your text is none of your business. You said what you had to say, and now it’s time to move on.
As soon as you hit send, block their number.Â
Remember the part about not having an agenda?
It’s natural to want to see if your message stung, but more likely than not, you will get an infuriating response, if you get one at all. The point of calling out someone who ghosted you is NOT to start a dialogue with them.
Do not put yourself through that. You made your point. Block them and meet up with friends later to vent.
The Argument AGAINST Calling Out Someone Who Ghosted You
CONs:
If you get ghosted, your main priority should be preserving your dignity. This is someone who does not respect you and lacks the emotional maturity to be direct about not wanting to see you anymore. Calling them out will only set you up for more rejection and make you look bad.
To be honest, I think not calling ghosters out should be the default in most scenarios.
However, this is especially true for casual ghosters – people you only hung out with a couple of times, and they do not deserve an ounce more of your energy.
It is still painful and disorienting if someone you are casually dating ghosts you. It is also natural to want to confront them and vindicate yourself, but it’s not a good idea.
People ghost because they lack the emotional maturity to handle difficult conversations and fear confrontation.
There’s no good reason to confront someone who does not respect you like that. However, there are a ton of wrong reasons to do it.
More>> Those ‘Best Ghosting Responses’ Articles Are All Terrible
Terrible Reasons for Calling Out Someone Who Ghosted You
If you’ve gotten this far and are still mulling over whether to fire off that text, make sure you’re not doing it for any of the following reasons.
1. You want them to feel guilty.
The majority of ghosters do not feel guilty about their behavior. Some even think they are doing you kindness by ghosting instead of rejecting you more directly.
That’s the kind of childish person you’re dealing with.
A person cannot feel guilty if they do not respect your feelings or opinions. This person does not respect you, so nothing you say will make them feel bad about their actions.
If anything, you might look emotional or crazy to them, which will only reinforce their decision to ghost you.
It’s not a winnable scenario for you.
2. You want them back.
If you’re feeling this way about someone who ghosted you, you may be enamored by the idea of who this person could have been.
Don’t worry. It happens to the best of us.
Give yourself space to see them objectively. This is not someone you want in your life.
Calling out someone because you have an ulterior motive and believe it will make them see you differently is a terrible idea, and you will get hurt.
Do not do this.
Lean on your support systems, and talk to your therapist. But whatever you do, do not reach out to this person.
3. You want closure.
Our need for closure is fueled by a desire for an answer and a sense of resolution when something ends.
Ghosting robs us of that.
That makes it hard for a lot of people to move on. We become consumed by the “not knowing” inherent in all ghosting situations, and this is especially true for people who like order and predictability.
Ghosting throws us off our entire game. We don’t like ambiguity, so this situation is particularly infuriating.
Unfortunately, calling out someone who ghosted you will not give you the closure you need.
Chances are the ghoster will not respond satisfyingly, and they will either ignore you or come up with some lame excuse before ignoring you again.
Relationship expert Matthew Hussey has some great advice on this. He says, “Let the ghosting be your closure.”
He means that the act of ghosting is all the information you need to move on. The behavior is the answer; ghosting says way more about them than you.
Your closure is the knowledge that you dodged a bullet. Somebody tricked you into believing they were a good person and potential mate, and they showed who they are by ghosting you.
Now you can breathe a sigh of relief and move on to a more stable partner.
Need a bigger pep talk? Check out this video:
Related Post: Do Ghosters Come Back (Should You Let Them)?
Healthier Alternatives To Calling Out Someone Who Ghosted You
If you’ve decided it’s not a good idea to call out your ghoster, you might still need an emotional outlet to process what happened.
Here’s a list of things you can do instead of calling out someone who ghosted you.
- Draft a note or text to them laying out everything you wish you could say. Then toss it in the trash.
- Invite a close friend or two over to hang out and spill the tea. Tell them what happened and let them be a sounding board for how you feel.
- Talk about what happened in your next therapy session.
At the end of the day, you need to talk about what happened and feel heard. Your ghoster won’t provide that to you.
Any time you’re feeling emotionally vulnerable or processing something terrible like ghosting, it’s important to lean on your support network so that you don’t catch yourself sending a regrettable text thread to someone as undeserving as a ghoster.
Maintain your dignity and hope that karma takes care of the rest for you.
You don’t have to figure this out on your own.
