Have a Great Weekend.

Gretch, you are right, I live in a very touristic city too, and I always wait for friends from abroad to visit those places!

Jenny you are a rockstar!!

Thank you! I could never have survived without my community of women, including here.

Carrie,
You are so correct and brave to cut your father out of your life. I have a toxic father and have gone to counseling for a very long time. Actually, I still see him (not often) but finally tell him that’s he’s inappropriate.

yes, well said. Wishing you wellness and peace of mind.

Right?! When I began to scroll through the article, I was looking for validation of my often very introverted self. But after scanning through a few paragraphs, I found myself rolling my eyes. Relationships take thought, consideration and work. Answering a text message or an email is sometimes a chore, but it’s a small gesture. Obviously I don’t *owe* it to anyone, but a response is kind and considerate, and I will always choose that above all.

I’m with you AB. Love, compassion, and empathy mean there will be times (potentially LOTS of times) we go above and beyond and sacrifice our tired and overwhelmed selves to interact with people when we might otherwise prefer to disengage or set up boundaries.

Make no mistake I’m not a believer in martyrdom – I don’t put myself out there from people who are regularly selfish “takers”, manipulative or abusive. My life is rich in friendships and family where we often go that extra mile for one another and it is a beautiful and fulfilling way to live.

I agree with your overall comment. I expected the article to be about street harassment, not friends ghosting one another. I understand that we now are bombarded with texts and emails, which is a challenge and can be overwhelming. Maybe that’s why people shouldn’t have 500+ friends on social media. It’s one thing to ignore messages from people you don’t know or don’t care to have in your life. But to not to respond to an invitation from a friend, or not give a “thank you” is so rude. Who would want to be around someone like that? This is especially annoying after all of the articles this summer about how people with depression just need to “reach out for help.” I guess nobody owes you a response if you do!

Couldn’t agree more. Lately, there has been such an emphasis on “turning inwards” and prioritising your own needs that, I think, we’re starting to forget that our interactions with other people are the most important things in our lives. Compassion certainly does not mean being available 24/7; at the very least it means offering an apology when we’re genuinely overwhelmed (that’s an interaction in itself) but it can also mean being there for somebody even if it might not suit your schedule. “Sometimes, not interacting is the most loving choice” is what people who ghost others must believe. There is nothing loving in ignoring someone.

100% agree with you both, AB and Carrie. It takes but 20 seconds to acknowledge a message with a simple: “I’m not in a position to help, I wish I were. Take care & best of luck!” That kind of simple humanity keeps people off the ledge, y’know? I wonder how Caroline Garnet McGraw would have gotten her writing career off the ground without someone who didn’t feel like it emailing her back, making a phone call on her behalf, and giving her feedback over coffee. Probably *many* someones did this. Dressing selfishness up as “self-care.” That’s rich. Easy to do when one never has to imagine what his/her alternate life would have been like . . . as a barista.

Hence the rise of Ghosting!

Absolutely agree. You very well might be overwhelmed and too tired, but your friends are going through things too so don’t be surprised if too much has passed for them while you spent time checked out. You have every right to check out, so long as you understand that they also owe you nothing on your return.

though I should stress that this perspective is about friendships, not strangers or people who you’re being polite to for the sake of it.

AB, yes to what you’re saying, but also yes to what the article is saying. I wholeheartedly agree with where you’re coming from, but I may have understood the article a bit differently.

When it comes to relationships I’m in with family, with friends, with my significant other, my colleagues, neighbors, etc, I go out of my way to respond, and in a timely manner. I’m cultivating something there.

However, I have a number of ex-flames who I still hear from, at least monthly (it’s been over a year since I last engaged in a two-way conversation with them), and I still receive emails in my spam folder trying to elicit a response from me. Those doors have been closed and I was certainly clear and respectful in that communication, also clear and respectful when I requested to be left alone. As a lifelong people-pleaser, I always wonder if maybe I SHOULD respond. Maybe I should have another conversation about how I’m not available/interested/have moved on. But instead, I remind myself that just because they are choosing to engage, doesn’t mean I HAVE to choose to engage with them. I think the article was addressing these types of interactions, where there’s an undercurrent of toxicity that’s just not good for one person or the other. There is something very loving (self-love) going on when I choose not to respond to a man who knows I’m in a relationship, but continues to send me provocative emails.

And all of this comes from a millennial who never ghosted a single man I met online, even the worst of dates. I simply told them I didn’t see a future with them and wished them luck on their journey to find their person :) This also comes from someone who was stalked by an exboyfriend (and had to get the police involved) because I felt I always owed him an interaction (and an interaction too many led to him showing up at my yoga class twice).

*Also, if anyone is wondering why I haven’t blocked these guys, it’s because the police advising me during my stalking incident told me that unwanted emails/texts are proof of harassment. All you need is to say, “please do not contact me anymore. any contact you make with me after this message is considered proof of harassment” and there you go!

100% agree with this, AB! Also I love what Ana’s comment below (or above?) mine says–“There is nothing loving in ignoring someone.”

i interpreting this much different. you owe FRIENDS AND FAMILY interaction but not virtual strangers who email you for work advice or bc they think you’re pretty or whatever other reason. maybe it depends what your field is, but i get So Many Emails from strangers and i cannot possibly answer them all. i used to feel extreme guilt but this article and others like it were so liberating.

I second this. I WANT to be available for my family and friends 24/7 when they need me and I want them to know it. And of course in some way I want them to be available for me too. That’s how relationship works I believe. And people in need, I want to know that to certain limit, I will be there for them too. And I never heard such kind and giving people like volunteers helping people ever feel deprived from helping others, instead they feel fulfilled. That’s how humanity works I believe. I think the article is kind of misguiding… I can understand where this is coming from, but I disagree that interactions are what we have to cut. Maybe it’s busy-ness we have to cut. Or mindless shopping. Or unfulfilling race rat career… I don’t know. But I believe that interaction is the base of any form of relationship.

Totally agree! It’s really disappointing to see this kind of behavior becoming normalized. I’m certainly an introvert, but people seem to be turning inward to a point that is unhealthy (humans are social creatures after all and if you read anything about Blue Zones, it’s clear that quality relationships are integral to a healthy life and longevity). I hope society takes a turn and becomes more social again. On a positive note, I will say that when I lived in Brooklyn, I experienced so many groups of people who were actively social and hosted great get-togethers in their tiny apartments. It’s good to know that still happens :)

I think the only exception is when a person in your life is toxic, in which case they should probably be let go of completely if possible.

This all figuring you are dealing with mentally balanced, normal people. Good relationship ARE a give and take, you need to suck it up and put in the work. But not all relationships are worth it. Some are need to cut from your life like the cancer they are because all they do is cause devastation. EVEN FAMILY.

I agree. “You don’t owe anyone an interaction” ought to have been “You don’t owe everyone an interaction.”

I think the writer is talking more so about making yourself a priority, instead of handing your entire life over to others. She’s saying it’s okay if you can’t respond to a few things here and there — especially if the communication is draining you, or the relationship isn’t worth it.

She doesn’t suggest we ghost on friends or not send thank you cards. In fact, she says she *is* polite and does send thank you cards. It’s definitely not okay to ghost, but it is okay to make yourself and your time a priority. And not feel guilty about it.

I find discussions about email and text etiquette sort of fascinating. and agree that communication with friends and family is a priority, a way to love and support each other, and key to building maintain meaningful relationships. But I think this article may be describing a different issue….although it is a little confusing. My interpretation was that it was about feeling obligated to respond to messages from someone who is not a friend but wants to engage in some unwelcome drama that doesn’t directly concern the author. She specifies that she was receiving “troubling emails” from someone she “didn’t feel comfortable keeping in touch with”. That’s not ghosting friends, it’s about discerning which relationships are worthwhile, and who you allow to take up your time and occupy space in your head and your life. (Seems like that piece would have benefitted from some more thoughtful editing.)

Yep exactly! I think it should be “You don’t owe anyone an interaction immediately.”

If you’re too tired to respond, wait a couple days or the next morning. You don’t have to be instant.

But not responding at all? To a friend? It’s so hurtful. I just had a big talk with someone who was a close friend, I messaged her on 3 platforms over the course of a couple months with no response, at all. Finally she surfaced and we had this big talk where I had to tell her that her ignoring was really hurtful. She was going through some tough stuff, but she could have said “sorry I can’t talk right now, I’ll reach out to you when I’m ready” and I would have been totally fine with that. There’s nothing wrong with giving people space when they need it, but there is something wrong with ignoring the people you claim to care about when you just don’t feel like it.

That being said, I don’t owe strangers or casual acquaintances interactions at all. Like no, go away.

I agree mostly with what you all are saying here, you don’t owe EVERYONE an interaction, nothing owed to those who are toxic, even if family, and social interactions are what make us human. I could have written an entire article on not owing anyone selling me something from a MLM scheme an interaction. Because I was a doula and birth educator and homeschool mom for decades I count hundreds of lovely women as friends on social media. But the selling of MLM crap makes me want to run screaming and I absolutely don’t reply to the many messages I get that go something along the lines of this : “hey! How’s it going? Been a long time! I want to let you know about this amazing new……….” No, they don’t want to connect or know how I’m doing. They want to sell me crap or even worse suck me into selling their crap. I absolutely don’t respond because I am generally kind and polite and I just couldn’t be if I did respond. Ignore is my only option there, even for women I otherwise like.

Right?? Wow.

Apparently hers was the first Vogue cover shot by a black photographer. What in the actual F? Its 2018!!

I am afraid to google this term. Can someone explain? ?

i knowwww!

Lol likewise not wanting to look it up! There are some things it’s probably better not to know, for me and my nursing mama belly ;)

Louisa, it means “fat upper p*ssy area.” It’s definitely not a polite term, and not something you would normally see in Vogue, although I think it’s become a word in it’s own right more than just an acronym at this point.