Monsters

Ever notice that sometimes you react to an abrasive text message in a calm, collected fashion and sometimes you launch into a vengeful rage?
 

I call this the text monster, and it exists in all of us.
 

The text monster reacts rather than responding. The text monster adds nuance and intonation where it may not have been intended and jumps into worst-case-scenario mode. The text monster is always present and will sabotage your friendships and relationships if given access to your phone.
 

Reacting and responding are different. I’m not the first person to distinguish the two, but for the sake of this section I’ll define reacting as the text monster. Texting is a great place to examine this behavior. We often perceive urgency with texts—it’s not a call, where we have vocal nuances, nor is it an email, where we have a moment of reflection before hitting send. It is a text message—an instant telegram we can fire back at without a second thought.
 

Or a first thought.
 

Many of us employ this reactive burn it down mentality to ending relationships—whether it’s after a pinnacle fight, storming out of an office building never to return, or posting something inciteful, dangerous, or toxic on social media. Burning bridges is a really effective way of ensuring that the other party keeps their distance—you’ve acted in such an immature or frightening way that they would never consider repairing the relationship.

Responding is so different from reacting. It is consideration and reflection, thoughtful and complete. Frankly, we rarely make the time for this. If we don’t burn down a relationship with a person or an entity, we often go to the other end of the spectrum: ghosting.

 

Ghosting

I did not fully appreciate the commonplace nature of ghosting until I started dating. Now I am quite familiar. When we don’t know what to say or have the skills we need to say it, we simply disappear. 
 

I really dislike this about us.
 

Perhaps you have a visceral reaction when a friend mentions being ghosted. Or maybe your feelings are stronger when you think of folks you have ghosted. Or maybe, like many of us, you feel equally gross when considering either one.
 

So why do we do it?
 

My answer? That’s the wrong question.

The better question is: how do we stop? And what do we do when we are ghosted? If you want to get into your whys, chat with your therapist. If you want to get into someone else’s motivation, you are in for a long winter. They ghosted you. This means they’re unlikely to want to sit down and have the meta-conversation about why with you....