Forums » Smalltalk » Ghosting or not responding after you agree to rp.

Me personally: I have been deemed as too nice. Especially because I will give people at least a month, before I hit them up with an OOC post asking what's up?

Yes. People have had the ghosting issue long before this virus showed up. But now it's especially a difficult time for everyone. Most get so caught up in their rl, they tend to forget to say something. It's not always intentional that they say nothing, sometimes it can't be helped.

Does it make it any easier? No. But you at least learn who actually is busy and needing time, and who actually doesn't care. I've sent out many OOC posts asking people if they are okay, and I get nothing. Thus I will toss the rp's out of my archive folder and into the deleted folder.

But it's up to you yourself to decide, how long you are willing to wait before saying: Hey haven't heard from you in x amount of time, are you okay?

It's always good to check if the role player themselves are okay, as no one is a mind reader.

That's my 2 cents on the whole thing.

When I first discovered this site I was thrilled! Because I didn't know other people enjoyed RP like I did. I was on here almost 24/7. And responded quickly .. but the past year I've been guilty of ghosting a few writers and I feel extremely terrible..

I have suffered from severe anxiety and depression and that will cause me to quit writing for a while

then I am too scared to write my old partners because I feel I have upset them. So I did what was best for me and quit the site for a little while and to stop trying to write... It only ended up with ghosting people and that wasn't who I was. even tho I was trying really hard to reply to them....

Don't be afraid to message your partner and just check in on them is my final point.

I've had this happen to me before! Sometimes I read too much into it. For example if we have a minor OOC chat in the IC (()) above the IC RP, and I reply, and they don't get back to me, my mind always goes to 'was it something I said?' 'Did I not respond properly in OOC?' and I even go to wondering if I did my RP style wrong. There are so many RP styles. First person, third person, one liners, one para, multi para, multi page. If someone RPs differently then you, all you can do is try to make sure they are ok with your RP style. It's definitely not an answer to just ghost them, but that's what I see some people do anyway

You all have good points

I agree. Life and emergencies happen. Sometimes you just can't let someone know. Unless you literally can't, it's rude and inconsiderate as well as irresponsible. I don't get ppl who join games and think it's ok to up and disappear or take weeks to reply. There are so many flakey people in this hobby. Don't take on more than you can handle, communicate with others, and keep up with what you commit to or don't sign up. It's unfair to waste other people's time.

These sorts of complaints (not you specifically, ghosting complaints in general) seem to tend to focus on assumptions that there's more choice in the matter than there might actually be. Even those who acknowledge difficulties more frequently do so in a way that doesn't sound sincere, more like they're just trying to avoid getting chewed out and still seem to assume most or all ghosting is done intentionally. I'm sure that in many cases, how it comes across isn't accurate and that many of those folks are plenty more sympathetic towards struggles than it may outwardly appear in those moments; at the same time, I think it may actually drive many to be more likely to ghost, if anything, especially since it can be extremely hard to determine what qualifies as "literally can't" and that can massively amplify stress for everyone involved.
Disappearing generally isn't something people just "think it's ok" to do. Sometimes it's their sense of guilt from thinking entirely the opposite that leaves them feeling too ashamed to say anything. Others, it ends up being the least of "evils" among the options an individual feels they have. Others still, it's just plain entirely unintentional for any number of reasons - many of which folks may have come to expect an even worse reaction if they say what it is.

Also, there's a lot of us for whom weeks to reply is just... standard. Even necessary at times. This may be something to work on discussing expectations on more clearly during initial planning. Some folks just won't have compatible playstyles or expectations, and maybe there should be a greater effort (throughout the community) put into making it clear that that's okay and that it's likely better to accept it and look for someone else rather than trying to force oneself to conform to another's expectations.
Hobby. Are there other hobbies that are supposed to be treated as obligations...?
One or two replies a month, sometimes even less, sometimes is all that someone can handle. And I guess in my experience, those folks tend to be better about communicating such things than those who expect frequent replies. Plenty people are also in situations where how much and how frequently they have time available for RP is entirely unpredictable. Myself as an example, sometimes I can easily get out multiple responses in a day. Other times, I'm lucky to manage one a week, and I'll still have times where I won't even manage to realize how long it's been since I managed to reply until it's been days, weeks, sometimes months. (A major part of why I encourage checking in; if you don't at least attempt to check in, you're arguably wasting your own time.) Comments like this are more likely to drive someone away from rp and/or RPR entirely than to encourage them to be more active or mindful.

Being upset that something isn't moving as fast as you'd hoped or that people seem to suddenly vanish away from something you'd gotten excited about is absolutely valid and understandable. Feeling a need to express the frustration from that is, too. That expression also kinda has to be mindful too, though.

Hey gang, this topic was started before our ban on pet peeves topics. We were hoping it just wouldn't get revived, but since deleting posts from it today hasn't worked to keep it off people's radars, I'm going to lock it.