The Date with Confidence Podcast - What It Really Means When You Get Ghosted

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

EPISODE 10: What It Really Means When You Get GhostedGetting ghosted can be a bewildering and disheartening experience, but before you let it shake your confidence, let's break down what's really happening behind those silent screens and unanswered messages.In this episode of The Date with Confidence Podcast, we dive into what it really means when you get ghosted by someone and the key thing you need to remember the next time it happens to you.Here are the key topics we cover:1. Ghosting Experience: I share my own personal experience with being ghosted by someone I’d agreed to go on a first date with - what would have been my first date in 7 years!2. Burnout and Ghosting: I reveal how my own personal challenges with burnout led to me unintentionally ghosting someone after a first date.3. Learning from Experience: I reflect on my actions and how it helped me to understand what it really means when someone ghosts you - spoiler alert: it’s not about you!4. The Courage to Be Honest: I emphasise that ghosting often stems from a lack of courage to communicate that you're not interested and the important thing you need to remember if you’re ever ghosted again in the future. 5. Remember Your Worth: We reinforce the idea that being ghosted is not a reflection of your value and that you deserve someone who treats you with respect.Remember, if someone ghosts you, it's their loss, not yours. You’re brilliant, you’re amazing and you deserve someone who recognises that!Get Involved!You can contribute your stories to the Date with Confidence Podcast here. Share your best or worst dating stories, your biggest icks, dating tips you think everyone should know or ask me anything about my dating life or a burning question you need an answer for.  ResourcesThe Breakup Bounce BackAttract on the AppsThe Confidence KitThe Confidence CourseGet weekly-ish updates, exclusive offers and access behind the scenes gossip when you become a podcast insider.Visit The Date with Confidence website here.Follow The Date with Confidence Podcast on Instagram + follow your host Rebecca Hawkes here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If someone ghosts you, it's their fucking loss. You're brilliant. You're amazing. Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support, and stories that'll either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that'll provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date, alongside lighthearted catch-ups where your host Rebecca, that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life. You are guaranteed to end each episode

feeling less alone in your dating struggles, empowered to never settle again and confident that the best is yet to come. And if it all falls to shit, there's a special first season dedicated to breakups. You are welcome, my friend. Subscribe, review and share with your single friends. to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups you are welcome my friend subscribe review and share with your single friends when i got back in the dating game after seven years

so i hadn't been single for seven years i had been in a relationship for five years i've been single for a couple of years and i decided that i was ready to start dating again. Got chatting to a few people on the apps, got up, like, was chatting to this guy, like, all day. He was, like, sending me photos, sending me voice notes, telling me when he'd been out with the guys, he'd got home and was like, oh, babe, I'm black, all that jazz.

And we'd been at it for a few weeks, and then he was like, oh, we'd, like, arranged a date. I think it was, like, a bank holiday. I'd'd arranged a date we were going to go out during the day I can't even remember what we're going to do now but he'd been like non-stop chat up until this point two days before the day stopped talking and I think I messaged him I was just like are we still on for Thursday bearing in mind we'd been chatting for about five six weeks at this point so it wasn't even like we'd chatted for a couple of days and do you think he answered me no he didn't I got zero response and I was just like oh so this is what ghosting is this is what ghosting is because, oh my god, I literally feel so old saying this, but ghosting

was like something that came into, like the name of ghosting was something that came in whilst I was in a relationship, so it'd never been something that I'd experienced before, so I got ghosted and I was like, wow, that's kind of annoying because it's the first guy that's asked me on a date since my breakup and the first date I was gonna go on for like seven years that's mad but also the amount of work that I've done on myself I was like oh well his loss I'm fucking brilliant so that was that was also fine I was in a very good space of I don't really care he's definitely not for me anyway and then and then now we need to be really honest I need to be really honest with you then I went on a date with a really nice guy he was very nice it was the first date

that I've been on in seven years it was a big deal for me he was lovely really chatty we had good crack laughed a lot had a few drinks I think can't remember had a nice time went home carried on chatting and then I fell off the face of the earth because I did I hit a massive burnout a few weeks after the date and I kind of just when I hit burnout which happens regularly which is ADHD related which I now know at the time I didn't know it was ADHD related I didn't know I had ADHD then but it happens I fell off the face of the earth to everyone not just people I was chatting to online but like all my friends didn't see anyone spent a couple of weeks in bed like it was bad and then it got to the point where it had taken me so long to respond to this guy that I just didn't so yes it was a dick move I apologize

I won't do it again I promise fast forward six months I'd taken a break from dating got back in the dating game and I'd been on a few dates with a couple of different guys and then I just realized that they weren't for me they were lovely guys we had a really nice time a lot of fun, good chat, laughed, went to some nice places. They were good dates. They were really nice guys. And like actual nice guys, which maybe is my problem because I'm not used to dating nice guys. But I came to the conclusion that they were not going to be for me. We just weren't compatible. Nothing against them. to myself how am I going to have to say like I don't want to go on a date with you I felt really nervous it made me feel a little bit sick to be honest because we'd agreed to the next date so a second date and a third date we'd agreed to

go on those already and I was like okay this is gonna be great and part of me was like I don't want to back out I don't want to be a dick because I've said I'm gonna go on these dates and I don't want to back out and this is me like massively overthinking everything because I'm just a overthinker although I like to say deep thinker rather than overthinker but I didn't want to back out and say do you know what I've changed my mind the easiest thing to do and the more comfortable thing for me to do would have been to just stop speaking to them and to just ghost them but it's also a dick move and it's the coward's move so what I realised from that experience was the only reason people ghost you is because they don't have the confidence and the courage to actually say to you I don't want to see you again because it does

take balls to say to someone I'm just not into you because Because maybe not for everyone, but for people like us who are compassionate and who care about the response of the other person, we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. And by saying to someone who we've really got on with, I don't want to go on another date with you, we can be worried about how that's going to come across. Now, let's not get too deep, because at the end of the day they're probably not going to be that bothered we're not that well some of us are I joke I joke but really we're not at that point where any either of us are invested enough in a relationship or in a connection to be heartbroken around not seeing each other again but we do worry we worry about what's their reaction going to be are they going to be okay are we going to really hurt their

feelings are they going to be upset so yeah it takes confidence and it takes courage to actually say to someone i don't want to go out with you. So the next time someone ghosts you, remind yourself that's about them. They haven't ghosted you because you're not good enough or because you're not fun enough or pretty enough or attractive enough or just the best fucking person ever. They've ghosted you because they don't have the courage to say you're not my person because they don't want to have to deal with whatever your reaction could be and they don't want to then feel like a bad guy if they do upset you so don't worry about it if someone ghosts you it's their fucking loss you're brilliant you're amazing you deserve someone who treats you like the best thing in

the world someone's ghosted you they're not that they were never gonna be that so fuck them and move on I'll see you in the next one thanks so much for listening to the date with confidence podcast I hope you've enjoyed this episode subscribe rate and review and share it with your single friends you