5 men open up on why they ghost in relationships
Ghosting: Cutting off or ending all forms of communication with a romantic partner or a friend without notice or an explanation, and mostly for reasons the other person may never know.
Two individuals meet on a dating app and the conversations are so exciting, they move to WhatsApp. They begin to follow each other on social media and begin to make plans for an actual date. One of the two individuals hopes that this budding relationship outlasts the first date. And it does! They discuss a second date and things are looking bright. Maybe they can start a relationship, they have talked about everything from family to career and the future. But after date two, one person stops texting, calling or checking in. The other is confused and plays back all the events of date two but nothing went wrong so there’s absolutely no justification for this radio silence.
You or someone in your circle must have experienced the above scenario or a similar one at some point in their lives as adults. You must have been confused and upset, with a thousand and one questions on your mind. If you were ghosted by a man, one of such questions would have been “why do men ghost?”.
To help you understand why, we asked five Nigerian men why they ghost, and their responses will interest you:
Mark, 30
I think that men are very straightforward creatures. I have ghosted women on two occasions and my reasons for the “japa” were different both times. The first lady was asking for things she or her father could not provide for her. My only crime was a genuine interest in a relationship/sex with her. I had to run away. With the second lady, the definition of friendship changed, and I got upgraded to “boyfriend” without my consent. So basically, a sex partner decided to start playing the role of wife and suddenly started making demands on my time and life when it was never agreed. Again, I had to run away. My personal “japa” formula: Block number, then delete it, unfollow on social media too. Makes it pretty clear, in my honest opinion.
Damola, 31
For me, the question is why do people ghost? It’s not even about any gender per se. People understand that they are done with a relationship or getting what they want in a said relationship and they want to let you off without the responsibility of seeing the actual heartbreak. It might be subconscious, but its selfishness raised to the power of 2. The first is, leaving the person without explanation. The second is subconsciously running from the responsibility of handling the heartbreak and an explanation as to why you are leaving.
Adesola, 27
I’m not even going to mince words. I have ghosted women for the following reasons:
1. You meet a babe online looking all fantastic and shit; only for you to meet offline and she’s not half as lit as her IG feed looks. You can’t blame me, I fell for the lit page now I have trouble reconciling this reality to my expectation so I time out.
2. We meet, we chat, we go out, we end up in my bed because the vibe is good, then you start to give me relationship vibes which we clearly didn’t speak about, At this point, I simply walk away to avoid stories that touch.
3. We meet, we start to talk about various subjects, and I notice that her mindset does not align with mine or she has baggage from her past that I’m not willing to take on. I take a bow immediately.
4. Sometimes it’s all fun and games until I meet someone real. It goes without saying that I have to cut ties with the other chicks.
Attempting to discuss these things with the ladies involved might make me seem like a player so the easy option is to just walk away hoping she’d get it and move on too. We are not wicked or bad, it’s just what it is.
Chidi, 29
I believe sometimes ghosting is done when you’ll rather not go through the rather stressful conversation of tackling the “why” a friendship or relationship didn’t quite pan out. I don’t ghost people, and I also find it difficult to sever ties. But in this particular case, I just believed it served no one, least of all myself, to continue entertaining the relationship. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to articulate my leaving in a way it wouldn’t hurt this person, so I believed, and I’ll argue to this day that it was a right decision, ghosting was the best option. Or maybe that version of me was just a coward. Ah well, that’s why I ghosted. And I was at peace with it.
Stephen, 27
Some men go out of their way to lead a girl on and date her for a couple of months when all they really want to do is have sex. Many women will run if a guy says, “Hey I just want to have sex with you, no strings attached.” When they finally get to have sex, the only viable way they think they can get her out of their hair is by ghosting because they don’t have the cojones to break up and so it won’t seem like it’s sex they wanted all along. Also, when some men spend time in close proximity with a “potential bae” and they begin to notice some character traits that don’t sit right with them, many men instead of addressing the issue, tend to ghost so as not to hurt her feelings. Bottom line is men ghost because they aren’t ready to address issues head-on, most times to avoid hurting the feelings of the lady involved. It may not seem like it, but we do it for the ladies.
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