I have high hopes that one day, in the year
5000 and something, there will be a whole
wing of the British Museum dedicated to
the curiosities of early phone and social
media use. Preserved relics of when
ancient millennial man entered the digital
world and spent the following 100 years
losing their minds. “This is something
called ‘a selfie stick’,” the guide will explain
to a group of schoolchildren. “They came
into fashion in the mid-2010s and were
phased out after there was a fatal jousting on Westminster
Bridge between tourists fighting for their position in
front of Big Ben.” When he gets to the glass cabinet on
dating, he will see your letter: “Ah, ghosting in its typical
five-act structure.”
Your story may feel humiliating but it follows an arche-
typal pattern. He chases you, you get together and he’s
really into you, he suddenly disappears, he comes up with
the excuse of you being “too intense”, you’re left feeling
icky and ashamed and like you can’t shake him off, even
though getting together was all his idea. Throw into the
mix the fact he is an actor, and therefore a man who
should come with a pamphlet’s-worth of health warnings,
and you’re f ***ed.
Being ghosted in this particular way really is an irrita-
tion that buzzes around you like a fly trapped in your
body. It’s like the memory of that thing you bought on
holiday and then left in the overhead storage on the
flight home. The unfairness of it is maddening. The
retrofitted analysis of how you could have gained
rightful control is persistent: if only I’d said this, if only
I hadn’t done that, if only I’d CHECKED THE OVER-
HEAD STORAGE LIKE THE AIR STEWARD TOLD
ME TO. It is why I’ve often told people that the best
way to deal with ghosting is to get in touch with the
ghoster. It stops them from becoming an omnipotent
demon in your head. You have the power to break
their spell of silence, which is to ring them or message
them and ask for an explanation for some sort of
closure. Of course we don’t do that, for the very reason
you’ve written to me. Because no woman wants a Alexandra Cameronman going round town saying, “She’s
obsessed with me.”
I have confronted a ghoster before.
Once, in a very extreme case. It brought
me immediate catharsis and hope that he
wouldn’t do it to another woman. But if
I’m being totally honest, I think he still
probably goes around town saying, “She’s
obsessed with me.” That’s the thing you
have to be prepared for: if you speak to
him, it may bring you closure, but it won’t
stop him from having a little story about you. If anything,
he might have some pathetic extra chapter he can wield
about. “Mate, she’s so obsessed with me that when
I ghosted her she harassed me!!!” There are many battles
to be had in this life, but you’ll probably always lose this
one, and I’m not sure it’s the best use of a woman’s energy.
I’m going to give you a piece of advice that I really
shouldn’t give because I really don’t follow it: “Other
people’s opinions of you are none of your business.” The
hypocrisy pouring out of my fingers and onto my
keyboard as I write this, my God. The nerve. But it’s some-
thing I’ve had to learn as a columnist (hello, my weekly
commenter baes!), as a memoirist and, most terrifyingly,
through being mostly single until my early thirties and
therefore having dated a lot of people. There is no way of
editing and censoring other people’s versions of how they
see you or their account of an interaction with you. You
just can’t do it, and to try to do it is the biggest, ugliest
waste of your life.
BUT. Here’s the magic trick I’m still in the process of
learning — a way of not letting it bother you. Have faith in
yourself. Know your own truth. Believe yourself when you
know you did the best you could. Forgive yourself for
being human. (Googling someone you’re dating is
normal! Everyone does it! What is he, some medieval
cobbler who has never used the internet?)
Be preoccupied with the opinions about you held only
by the people you love or respect. Do you try to be a good
friend, family member, partner and citizen? Then you’re
golden, my girl. That’s all the work that’s required of you.
And there isn’t a lot of time for much else. ■Your love, life and friendship dilemmas answered
by Dolly Alderton
Dear Dolly
To get your life dilemma answered by Dolly, email or send a voice note
to [email protected] or DM @theststyleLast summer I was in a play and had a brief romance with one of the other actors. It was
a feverish fling that ended with him ghosting me. I was upset at the time but have moved
on and am now in a new relationship. Then a mutual friend said she had heard he told his
new girlfriend that, when we were seeing each other, he’d noticed I’d googled his name
on my phone and as a result says I was obsessed with him. I feel exposed, humiliated and
angry. I never chased him (in fact he pursued me first). Should I confront him?42 • The Sunday Times Style*