Ghosted

Walsh explores the psychological effects of the phenomenon of ghosting throughout the book. Through descriptions of the way the uncertainty that characterizes modern dating affects individuals, Walsh suggests that the primary reason that being ghosted is such a difficult experience is that it entails a complete lack of closure.

Throughout Ghosted, many characters address the role that technology plays in dating, and Walsh describes being ghosted as a common experience. Grappling with how out of character her own behavior feels to her, Sarah notes that: “I had seen friends do this. I’d watched in amazement as they claimed that his phone was broken; his leg was broken; he was broken, wasting unseen in a ditch” (38). The desperate search for an explanation for a romantic interest’s lack of communication is represented as the shared experience of searching for closure when it isn’t readily available. Characters in Ghosted describe this experience as being closely connected to technology. When Tommy tells Sarah that she’s “never done anything unbalanced like this before,” she replies, “that’s because I didn’t own a mobile phone when I met Rueben. Maybe it’s because the Internet barely existed back then” (173). The prevalence of different technological modes of communication throughout the book highlights the complexity and indignity of the experience of being ghosted, as Sarah uses email, phone, Facebook, and Eddie’s website to attempt contact. The sense that there is always another avenue to try exacerbates the lack of finality that ghosting produces. Walsh also emphasizes the lack of control. Sarah notes that she “craved control over this uncontrollable situation [...] I jumped on my phone with the frenzy of a starving animal when it buzzed” (22). This jump for the phone suggests that technology can both give and withhold romantic closure. For Sarah, who has coped with past trauma by creating a life in which she is capable, successful, and in control, this experience of uncertainty is a stark and deeply uncomfortable departure.

Characters in Ghosted also connect lack of romantic closure with humiliating and immature behavior. Sarah wonders:

Was there any humiliation greater than this? [...] A conversation like this, at the age of nearly bloody forty? This time three weeks ago I’d been a functional adult [...] And now here I was with less command of my emotions than the seven-year-old sitting next to me (19).

The contrast between Sarah’s competence as an adult and her emotional reaction to being ghosted suggests the sense of embarrassment associated with both being ghosted in general, and the lack of emotional control it can produce. However, Walsh persistently emphasizes the universality of the experience and that it can affect those of all ages. Tommy tells Sarah, “a silent phone brings out the very worst in us [...] All of us” (163). The ubiquity of technology in the novel, represented here by the “silent phone,” therefore also generates a sense that a lack of romantic closure is common. While the experience feels isolating and out of character to Sarah, Walsh suggests that the phenomenon and the emotions it produces are widespread.

Walsh provides a counterpoint to the difficulties of “modern” dating through Sarah’s conversation with her grandfather. Sarah tells him why he was lucky to avoid the experience of dating with technology: “Luckily you were spared the indignities of online stalking, growing up when you did [...] But it’s not a nice experience. It never delivers what you’re hoping for [...] It never gives you control of the situation” (141-42). He replies that he doesn’t condone her actions, which “sound asinine and entirely self-defeating” (142), but that he does understand. He tells a story of being convinced by his parents not to marry the love of his life, Ruby Merryfield, but grieving that missed opportunity for the rest of his life. Walsh emphasizes that need for romantic closure is both a key part of why being ghosted is so painful and something that is widespread. Similarly, in response to news of Sarah’s separation from her husband, her former English teacher notes that “if we didn’t have thousands of years’ writings on the pain of love—not to mention the questioning of faith, the loss of self it precipitates—I’d be out of a job” (62). The characteristics of questioning and loss of self are presented as universal and longstanding, but also applicable to the modern phenomenon of having been ghosted. Walsh therefore suggests that technology when dating exacerbates the difficulty of obtaining closure but people have searched for closure for “thousands of years.”

Overall, Walsh portrays the difficult experiences that technology in modern dating can produce when seeking closure. However, Walsh also highlights the prevalence of the search for closure to suggest that it is a widely experienced phenomenon. The focus on lack of closure highlights why the experience of ghosting is so difficult and why it shares characteristics of lost love that preceded the advent of modern technology.