What To Do When You Get Ghosted (And What It Actually Says About Them)

I’ve been ghosted. And if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you have too.

You think things are going well, then the messages stop. You start replaying everything, wondering what you did wrong. But here’s the truth I learned after living it: ghosting is never really about you. It’s about them.

So let’s break it down, what to do, what not to do, and what ghosting actually says about the person who disappeared.

Q1: What does it actually mean when someone ghosts you?

Ghosting isn’t a mystery. It’s avoidance.

“The person doing the ghosting didn’t value you or your time enough to give you a reason as to why they stopped responding.”

They didn’t want to have an uncomfortable conversation, so they took the easy way out.

Most people who ghost aren’t cruel. They’re just immature. They think silence will make things easier. It doesn’t. It just transfers the discomfort onto you.

If you ever find yourself tempted to ghost someone, don’t. A quick, respectful message shows more confidence and emotional maturity than any perfect date ever could.

Q2: Why does ghosting hurt so much?

Because it hits where confidence lives, in uncertainty.

“When they stop responding, that hurts. That feels like shit when somebody decides they’re no longer into it.”

Ghosting hurts because it’s emotional whiplash. One day you’re connecting, the next you’re invisible. There’s no closure, no clarity, and no control.

It’s not rejection that hurts the most. It’s the silence. The unknown. The unfinished story.

But here’s the mindset shift: if someone can vanish that easily, they were never your person to begin with.

You didn’t lose something real. You just got clarity faster.

Q3: Should you ever reach out after being ghosted?

Sometimes you want to send that one last text. Something like, “Hey, just checking in. All good?”

Here’s my honest take: if you feel like saying something for your own closure, go for it once. But do it with intention, not desperation.

Send something simple, clear, and confident. Then let it go.

“At the end of the day, you have to put yourself out there in order to get anything in return. And sometimes that means getting ghosted.”

You can’t control what they do next. You can only control how you respond.

If they reply, great. If they don’t, that’s your answer.

You’re not texting to get them back. You’re texting to close the loop for yourself.

Q4: How do you stop overthinking after being ghosted?

This one’s brutal because your brain starts filling in the blanks with every worst-case scenario. You start thinking, “Maybe I said something wrong. Maybe I was too into it. Maybe I wasn’t enough.”

I did the same thing.

“I was overthinking every little thing I had said and done, the ways I could have done something different or said something different. Maybe I should have texted back faster. Maybe I should have texted her less.”

Here’s how I stopped that spiral: I realized that overthinking doesn’t lead to clarity. It leads to self-blame.

Instead of asking, “What did I do wrong?” start asking, “Why would I want someone who can’t even communicate?”

That’s how you flip the power dynamic. You go from wondering what made you lose them to realizing they already lost you.

If you’re working on building that kind of self-assurance, read How to Overcome Gym Anxiety, where I talk about handling discomfort without self-criticism.

Q5: How can you move on from being ghosted?

The fastest way to move on is to stop looking for reasons and start focusing on patterns.

People show you who they are by how they leave, not how they arrive.

“Ghosting is less so about the person that it’s being done to and more about the immaturity of the person that is doing the ghosting.”

The closure you’re looking for doesn’t come from them. It comes from you.

Once you decide you deserve honesty, ghosting stops being confusing. It just becomes disqualifying.

You don’t need revenge. You need self-respect.

That’s the same mindset shift I talk about in Ruin The Friendship, the power of saying what you mean, even if it feels risky.

Q6: What should you learn from being ghosted?

Every time it happens, you get better at recognizing emotional immaturity early.

“Putting yourself out there to try to meet somebody is a really vulnerable and embarrassing thing to do inherently.”

That’s the point. Ghosting teaches you how to stay grounded even when things don’t go your way.

It teaches you to stop taking rejection personally.

The more you get comfortable with vulnerability, the more confident you become because nothing can shake you that you’ve already felt before.

Q7: How do you know when you’re ready to date again?

You’re ready when you stop looking for closure and start feeling curious again.

“If you’re not dating and you want to start and this part of it scares you, that is totally understandable. But know that there is somebody here that is also trying to make it work.”

That’s what I love most about this episode. It’s not about pretending rejection doesn’t hurt. It’s about learning that hurt doesn’t define you.

When you can look back and laugh, or even just shrug, you’ve already won.

Dating isn’t about perfection. It’s about showing up as yourself, again and again, even when it doesn’t work out.

That’s what real confidence looks like.

Listen To The Full Ep

You’ll hear the full moment that changed how I think about rejection forever and how I learned that ghosting says nothing about your worth and everything about someone’s maturity.

Want more? Check out What Getting Ghosted Really Means for the full feature story or 7 Lessons I Learned From Getting Ghosted for a practical breakdown.