Ghosting

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Does anyone get ghosted frequently or have a very high ratio of being ghosted when trying to make friends?
It's rare that someone doesn't ghost me. It's usually as quick as after 2-3 messages. I'm generally not negative. I'm not so quick to bring up Autism, and it still happens.

I also get misjudged frequently, like if I say something and sincere (but not taken to be disrespectful in anyway), people act like I'm not, but rarely has someone accused me of not being sincere or honest. Maybe the people where I live are just very judgemental? I feel like it is me personally, like something about me, a curse, strong insecure feelings that others can sense and registers as negative energy or something. I can't figure it out, but it feels like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Maybe I just have horrible communication skills, and I'm not picking up on how my words can be misinterpreted. It could be that and talking to the wrong kind of people.

Is there anyone else who this happens to or gets what I'm saying?

Yes, and I'm not able to work out where I've gone wrong. Maybe I need to meet more autistic people, who knows, the ones I have met have been really easy to get on with. You say the people where you live might be judgemental, is it a very conservative area?

It's usually just one message, for me

It doesn't seem to matter how much thought I put into the message, either. So now I feel like writing long messages to people is just a waste of my time.


I haven't noticed a difference, personally. I get ghosted here. I've been ghosted by AS girls at OkCupid. I get ghosted by aspies or suspected aspies all over.

Sorry to hear that. This is the only site that I frequent but it seems to be going under

This has happened to me a lot, in that I have been accused of things that weren't true, had things I said be taken the wrong way, etc.

I have been ghosted in the past but I've also done the ghosting several times. The reason I ghost people is because I get exhausted by them and struggled to muster the energy to interact with them, mostly NT people. I don't think I've ever met another aspie nor conversed with one with the intention of developing some kind of relationship.

I lack the need for these kind of relationships for the most part, apart from the select moments when I feel lonely and wonder what it'd be like to have a friend or partner.

I assume a lot of people that have a habit of ghosting people are spoiled for choice. This, I believe, is why a lot of men get disheartened when trying to meet women on dating sites such as OkCupid, because the women get 20x the amount of attention that men do thus they can afford to ghost a lot of the males that show interest.

I don't know, things are getting a little better...but a lot of members are already gone, and probably not coming back.

Honestly, I feel like I'm wasting too much time online.


The only people that I can think of that I've intentionally ghosted, were because they were creeps and/or psychos.

...which really has me worried: have I become a creep? Is that why people ghost me? =(

I'm perfectly fine with being "weird", but being a creep is not something I want to embrace at all.


Look around you

A creep is something a lot of people unintentionally come across as. It depends a lot on the way you make a first impression. I don't have enough of a sample of your interaction patterns to accurately critique your potential creepiness, so I can't really answer your question on that topic. Also, I hate to say it, but creepiness factor can be further enhanced by the way someone looks, I know I've gotten 'creepy vibes' from the way people look in the past. Though, perhaps that has more to do with the way I read people rather than the actual look of the person.

People do this a lot in general, doesn't even have to do with you. It's strange.

It can be a person who likes attention and when someone shows interest, they just cut them off. Met a few people that did this quite often. Also, people just often don't click, nothing wrong with that. Especially when on the spectrum, it's even harder to find a connection with people.

Personally, I find it cowardly. People need closure. If they did something wrong, just tell them, so they can learn from it at least. If you want to stop contact for other reasons, just explain. Ghosting someone can really have a devastating effect on someone's mental health.

Please, if it happens to you, try to think it is showing of their own bad character, low empathic ability and cowardice. It doesn't necessarily have to be because of you. You can analyze the conversations and see if anything was wrong, but try not to overthink it too much.

In the course of human history, texting is such an incredibly new phenomenon, that it should be no surprise that there is a lack of etiquette around it. (What I say here is true of email as well, but I think usually when people discuss ghosting they are talking about either private messaging, or electronic posts as comments on another person's social media platform.)

I would suggest that texting is an appropriate method of communication between people that already know each other, and that texts from a virtual stranger or near-stranger are going to be seen as intrusive. The fact that a small number of people meet and build a relationship by texting would not contradict this, as I bet the percentage of times that happens is exceedingly small.

We feel as though "ghosting" is rude, but let's examine this in the context of a relatively new social medium. In the pre-electronic age, if you found someone uninteresting to you, you could just avoid being around them, or if they spoke to you, smile politely but not converse. Or you could be "busy" and that solved that. If you did begin to have a connection, but then either (a) got way more involved with someone/something else or (b) had grave doubts about the connection that was forming, you could, again, avoid, or send a polite letter explaining your limits, or have your big brother go beat the person up. (Reserved for truly bad people like womanizers.)

Your expectation that nobody should ghost you and people should always respond to your texts in a relatively short time is unrealistic, and it overlooks the modern condition of information overload. Letting yourself feel bad when it happens is just setting yourself up for pain.

If you are trying to build connections by means of texting or electronic comments, I suggest you shift to a different way of meeting and interacting. I know that for shy, introverted, and/or autistic people, texting feels safer, but that does not mean it will be effective. If my perception stated above, that texting is appropriate only for established or partially established connections, is accurate, then that implies you should only use texting within these contexts.

A modern etiquette for texting would be that you shouldn't ghost others, but rather should state your limits (except in scary situations), and that you should not take the lack of response as an insult or a judgment. The etiquette should show respect both for the sender and the recipient of a text.

If you do need to text someone who is a near-stranger, you should preface it by an acknowledgment of the recipient's needs. For instance, "I don't know if you recall meeting me at Sandra's party last month. But I remember you saying you liked opera, and I have an extra ticket to La Traviata this Sunday. Would you be at all interested in going?" (Sorry if opera is outside the price range of readers here - it's outside mine, too, perhaps not the best example.) This text acknowledges that the connection is very slight, acknowledges that the recipient may not even remember you, and gives the recipient an easy way not to continue the conversation, which can range from "Sorry, I don't remember you, plus I'm busy that day" to "Of course I remember you! I'd love to go to that opera, but I have a prior commitment. Some other time, perhaps?"

Another example: "Hi, I'm Susan's brother - from work? How's it going?" This acknowledges that you scarcely know the person. However, in not giving much of a basis for a response, it has an increased likelihood of ghosting. A better text to a near-stranger might be "Hi, I'm Susan's brother - from work? You have such a pretty smile! Hope you have a great day." Now the recipient can at least reply "Thanks, you too!" That is not ghosting you, but it's also not overly encouraging you. If they WANT to encourage you they can respond "Awww... I like your smiles too. How nice of you to reach out to me!"

Yeah - I kind of feel that it is, too. Still, there are people here I like and try to encourage. I enjoy when they respond in kind, and I butt out of their face when they tell me to.

So I take it that your first impression of me is "not creepy", then?

Scale of one to ten!


Most people on the Internet don't know what I look like, though.

OkCupid, maybe, but I've only had compliments on those photos....which...really should be updated, except I've lost interest in that site.


Just to be clear, I don't blame the site itself; a lot of forums and chat rooms are being depopulated thanks to social media.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most creepy I'd say a 2. I guess you're lucky enough with looks that you don't need to worry about LOOKING creepy then.

Yes it does, but most people don't care, they literally don't care if it breaks the last straw. There is so much hate, judgemental, and ignorance. When it happens, my emotions get overwhelmed and I risk getting into trouble, because I can't contain my emotions. I tell them how I feel, why what they do is bad, etc. Most likely, they don't read it, if they do, they don't care, it's like it doesn't even concern them. It scares me.

I'm sorry this has happened to you. I understand all to well what you are saying. It is scary to people like us, who are not like that.

The process is quite horrible. Checking your messages a few times a day, re-reading your message, asking yourself if you said something wrong, it is a nasty process, a snowball-effect that just keeps getting worse. At some point, you can even get angry. Have reacted impulsively a few times in the end, and that is a bad thing to do.

You put your trust in someone, tell your story, share your life (which all is already difficult for me), and they put you aside like you're nothing. That hurts tremendously.

Well that's a relief!

...but then it still leaves me wondering...