Ghosting is supposed to be the ultimate relational sin. Cowardly. Cruel. A failure of basic human decency. The discourse is unanimous: real adults have difficult conversations. They don’t just disappear.
I want to push back on this.
Not entirely. Ghosting someone you’ve been in a serious relationship with, someone who loves you, someone who deserves an explanation, that’s genuinely cruel. Vanishing after years together, after shared lives and real intimacy, is indefensible.
But that’s not what most ghosting is. Most ghosting happens after a few dates. A few texts. A brief connection that fizzled. And in those cases, I’m going to argue something unpopular: sometimes ghosting is the kinder option.
Here’s the conventional wisdom. When you’re no longer interested, you owe the other person a clear message. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, but I don’t see this going further.” It’s mature. It’s respectful. It provides “closure.”
But let’s examine what this closure conversation actually does.
First, it’s often a performance. You don’t actually care about their closure. You care about feeling like a good person. The “letting them down gently” text is frequently more about your self-image than their wellbeing. You want to be someone who does the right thing, and the right thing is supposedly the explicit rejection.
Second, it can cause more pain than silence. After two dates, they probably weren’t that invested. They might have even been planning to fade out themselves. But now you’ve sent a formal rejection, and they have to respond. They have to manage your feelings about rejecting them. They have to perform gratitude for your honesty. The whole thing becomes a production that turns a minor disappointment into an event.
Third, the explanation itself is often a lie. “I’m not in a place for a relationship right now.” “I don’t feel a romantic connection.” These are usually sanitized versions of truths that would actually hurt: “I found you boring.” “I’m more attracted to someone else.” “Your laugh annoyed me.” Is the polite lie really more respectful than silence?
The philosopher Immanuel Kant would disagree with me here. He thought we have a duty to treat people as ends in themselves, never merely as means. Ghosting, he might argue, treats the other person as not even worth a response. It denies their dignity.
But Kant also had a lot to say about lying. And the closure conversation is often a lie dressed up as respect. “It’s not you, it’s me” is just ghost energy in words.
The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas wrote about the “face of the other,” the way another person’s presence creates an infinite ethical demand. When you encounter someone’s face, you’re obligated to them. You can’t just treat them as nothing.
But here’s the thing: Levinas also recognized that we can’t respond infinitely to every face. We have limits. We have to prioritize. The person you went on two coffee dates with does not have the same claim on you as your close friends, your family, your partner. Treating every encounter as requiring full ethical closure would be paralyzing.
Not all relationships deserve the same level of ceremonial ending.
Think about friendships that faded. You had a friend in college. You drifted apart. Nobody sent a formal “I’m ending this friendship” message. You just slowly stopped reaching out, and so did they. Was that cruel? Or was it just life?
The same natural fading that we accept in friendships, we pathologize in dating. But why? If you went on three dates and neither of you texts for two weeks, the message is clear. Adding an explicit rejection on top is just narrating the obvious.
Here’s another angle. The demand for closure is sometimes a demand for control. “You owe me an explanation.” Do I? Why? So you can argue with it? So you can try to change my mind? So you can get the last word?
Some people don’t want closure. They want another chance to make their case. The closure conversation becomes a negotiation they didn’t consent to. Silence, in these cases, is actually cleaner. It’s a complete sentence. It can’t be argued with.
The writer Cheryl Strayed, in her advice column, once told someone: “You don’t have to explain your life to anyone. You don’t have to justify your choices.” This applies here too. You’re allowed to simply not want to continue. You don’t owe a PowerPoint presentation about why.
Now, let me be clear about when ghosting is wrong.
If you’ve been seriously involved, you owe a conversation. If they’re expecting to see you again and you just vanish, that’s cruel. If you share social circles and disappearing will cause ongoing awkwardness, address it. If they’re vulnerable in some way and your silence would be genuinely damaging, speak up.
The length and depth of connection matters. Two dates? Ghosting is fine. Two months? Probably need a conversation. Two years? You owe them a real ending, maybe even in person.
Also, context matters. If they ask directly, “Are you still interested?”, silence becomes cruelty. Once someone extends themselves that vulnerably, you have to respond. Ghosting after an explicit question is cowardice.
But in the early, ambiguous stages of dating, when interest is uncertain and nobody’s really invested yet? The slow fade is not a moral failing. It’s just human.
There’s also something worth examining in our culture’s obsession with explicit closure. We’ve therapized dating to the point where every interaction requires processing, communication, and formal resolution. But not everything needs to be talked to death. Some things can just end.
The pressure to always have the mature conversation is itself a form of performance. Look at me, handling this like an adult. The Instagram version of breaking up. But maturity isn’t always about having difficult conversations. Sometimes it’s about recognizing which conversations are necessary and which ones are just theater.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” This was about the limits of language. But it applies here too. Sometimes you can’t articulate why you’re not interested. Sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes the truth is just “meh,” and that’s not something that needs to be communicated.
Silence is a message. Everyone knows what it means. Pretending we need the words on top is sometimes just pretending.
So here’s my ethics of ghosting:
Ghost when the connection was brief and the investment was low. Ghost when explanation would be more performative than useful. Ghost when the honest reason would hurt more than silence. Ghost when they’re not asking and probably don’t care.
Don’t ghost when you’ve built something real. Don’t ghost when they’ve made themselves vulnerable. Don’t ghost when they deserve better because of what you’ve shared.
The distinction isn’t about courage versus cowardice. It’s about proportion. Not every ending needs a ceremony. Not every goodbye needs to be said.
Sometimes the kindest thing is to let it fade. To not make a big thing out of a small thing. To let silence speak.
That’s not cruelty. That’s just knowing when words would make it worse.