Forums » Smalltalk » What do you after having been ghosted?

Admittedly, I have previously made some forum topics about the experience of ghosting others or having been ghosted by others. Recently, a question came to mind which made me curious, so I've been wondering since.

What do you do when you've been ghosted?

I'm not asking how it feels because I know it really sucks as nobody wants to be ghosted but I'm curious as to what others do when they've been ghosted; do you reach out to new players to potentially start a new roleplay instead, do you take a while off from the site to do some self care in real life or do you simply just let it go? Feel free to tell me, I would love to know!

I've come to accept this as a way of rp. I think something that really helps me is the many years I've spent at emotional control for personal reasons, which has lead me to a place in life where a lot of emotions I have come to be able to simply let go of and shed them from myself like a coat. So letting go of the frustration, fear, etc after being ghosted is a routine thing for me as a result.

That being said, I just let it go usually. I reach out to them if and when they go dark but if they don't respond then I just let them go too. Just as I have every right to my own bubble so do they, and even if I am not someone who would come down hard on them, I don't blame them for the apprehension of a response. Still I wish everyone would communicate their problems to me openly, though.

Then I find new partners, and sometimes you get one that becomes a very good friend or a very good rp partner or both. Those diamonds, to me, are worth sifting for.

On a story related note, if a character or plot is not panning out, I consider writing about it myself. Be it a short story or novel or whatever, just to get that writing out. It's unlikely any of that work will see the light of day, but truthfully that's all for my anyhow, so whether someone else sees it or not is currently irrelevant to me.

I try to check in once or twice, one or two weeks after last having heard from them. In my last message to them I usually try to mention that I don't blame them and understand that they must have their own reasons for not getting back to me. I try to reassure them that whatever the reason is, I don't mind but it would help me plan my RPs better if they can let me know what they expect for the near future. If I don't hear from them after that I let them know I'm moving forward without them because I haven't heard from them, but if they still want to RP at a later time, they're welcome to say hi and hit me up for another one. No hard feelings.

If I see ghosting as a negative nuisance, it makes it a lot harder for me to be compassionate about a situation I don't have enough details of to criticize. So these days, I see ghosting as equal to someone having a personal emergency they're unable to communicate to me at the time, and perhaps never. Whether it's true or not, I've found that most reasons for ghosting are some sort of personal emergency, including 'I'm too overwhelmed to let someone know I got stuck and can't respond'. It helps me be understanding while also setting a boundary for myself to protect my capacity.

Well, I usually just poke them after two weeks or a month, and if they don’t respond after two months or so, throw that roleplay to the trash and move on. I’m going to be frank, since most of my roleplays hadn’t been that satisfying, and there is only a handful of people I actually would want to roleplay with repeatedly, so I don’t really care much if someone ghosts me?

However, if someone that I am particularly fond of, or I consider close with, ghosted me, I would just poke them every once in a while, maybe asking how they are, sending memes, but keep the record anyways, but in the end, I’d just put it at the back of my mind, file the roleplay/interaction in a folder, move on and roleplay with others instead. If they eventually come back, great, but if they don’t, then welp.

I don’t wanna sound heartless or that I don’t value those I met on RPR, but honestly, it is not as if we can read their mind and know why they ghosted us, so for me, it is really just easier to regard the experience as a fond memory instead of thinking too much about it.

Depending on the post frequency of the rp, I’ll Give them an ooc message a couple weeks to a month later. If I don’t hear from them I move the rp into a ‘dormant’ folder and concentrate on my active ones.

Sometimes they come back to life after an extended period of time. If I see them around on the site and they haven’t bothered to get back to me, I note it on my personal ‘Don’t RP’ list and move on.

The first couple times it happened to me here on RPR it bugged me, but I’ve come to pretty much expect its a possibility with every rp I start anymore.

I try checking in if the person still has an account, although my brain insisting that I'm annoying sometimes makes that difficult. Actually, I usually check back on the rp itself, first, to ensure I didn't just forget that it was waiting on me. But when I check in, I try to make it clear that I'm just checking in to see if they forgot, or need more time, or if it's just not working for them. I go out of my way to be gentle, to encourage communication.

And if they want to drop it, or don't respond, or I can't reach them... Yeah, it sucks, but I'm actually pretty used to letting stuff go. I might try seeking out someone else to play with, but it's not uncommon for me to have sorta disconnected from the rp myself by then.

Back when I actually rp'd regularly, anyway. I keep thinking I'm on the cusp of getting myself back together, and it keeps falling apart again. For over a year now.

I rarely check in with people who have gone dark. Not unless ive known them and their habits for a while.. like if we talk a lot ooc next to the rp or are more or less friends.

People have so many reasons to ghost that are not always related to you, the rp or anything.. sometimes real life pulls them away and RPR just isn't their priority.

So more often i just move the rp to a "gone dark folder" if its been 2+ weeks since their last pm or reply. If its been more then a month i will message them and politely close the rp... More for my sake of closure... And then move it to my "closed rp" folder.

I dont practice deleting Rps. Its pretty rare for one to light up again. So far i feel its an effective way to handle it that doesn't involve me chasing other people who didn't want to message about it. I guess its my way of respecting their wishes to drop communication.

Though sometimes people post on their main profiles whats going on too. If thats the case i just leave them in the gone dark folder usually

-shrug-

I may / may not poke the person who has ghosted me, depending both on my personal mood as well as how deep into the RP we are (ex: if we're only like, 12 replies in, I'm less likely to poke and give a "Hey, still interested?" then if we're, say, 100 replies in, where I'm much more likely to do so) - mood comes into play because I tend to be nervous about bothering / poking people most of the time

Either way, I tend to just... move on. I used to take ghosting very personally, and to an extent it still sort of bothers me (I'd rather just be given a simple "Can't RP this anymore" than nothing, but as someone with anxiety, I understand that anxiety can sometimes cause people to not do this), but for the most part, when it comes to ghosting, I just sort of... move on about my day.

Whether I throw myself into another RP or not depends both on how overwhelmed (or not) I currently am with RPs and also my current mood where RP is concerned... EX: I have enough RPs going right now that if one dropped off, I probably would not throw myself into another RP, because I have enough that I very often get to the point of "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" when my replies pile up lol I don't need another one xD

But for the most part, ghosting has long since stopped bothering me 90% of the time

It happens but I got some reliable dependable freinds and roleplayers I've been writing with for a long time. Ghosting doesn't bother me that much anymore.

Depending on how invested I was in the RP, feel sad for a bit, go do something else.
Or I might not care at all and consider it a dud, it's energy well saved to invest in better roleplays. I won't message them if it's like this because it's likely they won't bother responding anyway and I'm not going to chase after people like that.

I've been ghosted more times than I can count and as of now all of my groups have become wastelands.

Don't lose hope! At least for the Shadow one... I think little to no activity over the weekends is going to be common. I certainly haven't abandoned the game!

---

For my own way of dealing with ghosting: I started a new system for my 1x1 games a few months ago and so far, so good.

I treat my Inbox as my 'ToDo' queue. And as soon as I reply to an RP, I archive it. That way, I quit stressing about my partners replying. If they do, great! If they don't... or if they simply take awhile to reply, that's completely fine too.

As soon as my partner replies, the message thread automatically gets unarchived and re-added to my queue.

Perhaps one con to this method is that I don't really have a definition for 'active' RPs any more. But I've found it doesn't really matter (at least to me). Just... how well am I keeping up with my 'ToDo' queue.

Been ghosted a ton myself and it happens to everyone really. I'll generally try to poke them once or twice since it's possible that they have forgotten about it, thought they posted, but hadn't, or real life got in the way. If I don't hear back from them, then I just delete my pms with them and possibly look for a new partner if I think I have room for another rp. Do I get annoyed, eh...it depends on how interested I was in that particular rp. The more interested I was in the rp, then the more unhappy I'll be about being ghosted. Though generally it's more disappointing than anything.

One consequence of all the ghosting however is that I am no longer willing to make profiles for one shot characters unless it's for a group rp. Gone to the effort to do so, only to be ghosted very shortly after that too many times that I'm just not willing to put the effort in to do so anymore.

I'm very introverted and let most of my partners come to me, so when I've been ghosted I'm usually too anxious or nervous to try to find out why, so my best course of action is usually just to accept that it happened and find a new RP partner.

I have a nervous breakdown, drown in self-doubt, become destructive to the self and those around me, in the psychological sense, quit enjoying the genres I like the most, stop writing altogether too. That for about, hmm, the course of three to four months.

Oh, and I completely erase any and all link I had with the other party in the subtlest way possible.

Honestly, the only thing that you can do is to accept that it didn't go and that it is nothing personal. Some people ghost because its hard for them to tell the other person that they're not feeling the roleplay. I also know that life can take a toll and people just stop roleplaying and never get to say anything.

Typically when I'm ghosted, I reach out to the person to make sure I know that this is 100% not happening, but I kind of am ready to write it out then and there.

Roleplays unfortunately don't last forever. So I suggest to always come up with ideas and keep searching for potential partners that won't ghost you!