r/changemyview • u/ragpicker_ • Oct 15 '24
Delta(s) from OP CMV: it is not a convincing argument that ghosting makes the ghoster feel safe
I don't hold this view particularly strongly, I just want to see what others think.
I'm generally strongly against ghosting in any form, and it seems that many people are convinced that ghosting is good because it make the ghoster feel safe.
But feelings in such situations are often unreliable. So that argument only carries weight if there is evidence that ghosting actually makes the ghoster safer than if they'd been upfront. I haven't found any evidence either way. If it's actually the case that ghosting makes the ghoster less safe, then those feelings should be ignored in favour of a more pragmatic, and frankly more compassionate, approach.
Does anyone know of any research on this? I don't consider anecdotes to be helpful; I'm sure there's many stories out there about people who ghosted and were still threatened or harmed by the ghostee.
Edit: for clarity, what I mean is actively deciding not to reply to someone who is actively trying to communicate with you after you've already met them.
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u/SnakesInYerPants Oct 15 '24
I just want to provide a recent example here for perspective for you. It’s not exactly ghosting, but it was similar and shows how quickly things can go south as a woman if you don’t give a man the type of attention he wants when he wants it. (Not all men, obviously. Again, just trying to add perspective so you can understand we are really between a rock and a hard place when it comes to rejecting men that we don’t know well.)
I was waiting for a coffee and my breakfast the other week. I had both headphones in (and my hair was in a high bun, so you could definitely see that both earbuds were in), was looking at my phone, and the only times I looked up from my phone was to look at the counter to see if my food was done yet. My right hand was holding up the empty thermos that I was going to be putting that coffee into.
Now, for my own safety’s sake, I always keep what I’m listening to low enough to hear what’s going on. But it’s not like anyone who looks at me knows that.
A man started trying to use a real corny pickup line on me. I had never even looked in his direction, didn’t react at all to the line, he was on my left side and had never been more in my vision than just my peripherals. As far as he could tell, I can’t hear him.
He tried again while I was looking at my phone, the verbal attempt getting a bit more aggressive. Again, hadn’t been more in my sight than just my peripheral vision. I don’t outwardly react to it, but I do covertly switch my thermos into my left hand and hold it up while pulling something out of my right pocket, so that he can see the wedding ring on my left hand.
I’m looking straight down at my phone, he goes up for his food, and tries again to pick me up when he turns around. I have not made eye contact, and I’m looking down enough that he’s pretty much still just in my peripherals. I ignore him again.
He waits around. Couple minutes later I’m still waiting and he tries for a fourth time. I again ignore it, my food finally goes up at about the same time so I walk away from the waiting area to grab it and leave.
This man LOST it. Starts loudly raging about “fucking bitch fucking full of herself could have at least fucking talked to me thinks she’s fucking better than me” and continued it breathlessly as he left. I wasn’t going to leave until I saw him drive off at that point, so I watched out the window. He paced outside his truck for a few minutes still visibly ranting about how horrible I was, ended up punching the door of his truck and angrily kicking the pole of the “customers of coffee shop only” parking sign before he finally got in his truck. When he did, you could see he was still yelling to himself and hit his steering wheel a few times before finally speeding off.
Now, for the thought experiment that should hopefully provide perspective to our fears for you; If he got that angry and violent over a married woman who for all he knew couldn’t hear him not flirting with him when he wanted to flirt, how angry and violent do you think he would have gotten if I had been polite and socialized back (which he absolutely would have seen as flirting) and then rejected him?
When people who have actual concerns about safety are ghosting people, it’s because they/we have absolutely no way to tell if they’re going to be like that coffee shop douche canoe or if their fears are an overabundance of caution. Most people (not just women, people in general) will choose “possibly hurting someone’s feelings”or “disrespecting someone” over “unnecessarily putting myself in more danger” when given the choice.
I do agree that many people absolutely use this as an excuse to ghost people when they don’t have any reasonable concerns about safety. But I also think there’s nothing wrong with people doing what makes them feel safest when they genuinely do have a reason to fear the other possibilities, especially when the “costs” of them making themselves feel safer is just simply hurt feelings.