Imagine that you are getting ready for a date. 

You pick out that gorgeous red dress that you’ve been waiting to wear for a special occasion, you take an hour-long shower so that you feel super clean and put on your best-smelling perfume. 

After all, you want to make an impression.

This is someone you have been talking to for weeks, smiling at their texts, waiting by your phone until you hear it ring, endless FaceTime calls until the early mornings, all for this special person who has come into your life.  

It’s as if you never needed them and then one day you couldn’t imagine life without them. 

As you get ready to text them to meet at the local Italian restaurant, you notice that when you send your text your iPhone message turns green. You think that your phone is broken so you turn it off and back on, only to realize that your phone is not broken. Your date that you’ve been texting and FaceTiming for weeks has blocked you. 

With no explanation. 

You're confused immediately you run to all your different social media accounts to see if you can find their page, only to find that their accounts, “no longer exist.” What happened? Just a few hours ago you both were planning to see each other and now you're confused, sad and maybe even a little heartbroken. 

You’ve been ghosted. 

Thriving Center of Psychology reports, “About 1 in 4 have been ghosted after the first date or after a couple of dates. Shockingly, 1 in 10 shared they’ve been ghosted after a couple of months of dating! Ghosting has made it such a pain that 30% of singles are fed up with dating in 2023.”

Getting ghosted is a frustrating experience that many people unfortunately have to deal with in today's dating world. It can be really confusing and hurtful when someone suddenly stops responding to your messages or calls without any explanation. It leaves you wondering what went wrong and if you did something to cause it. 

However, more often than not, getting ghosted has nothing to do with you. “I think a lot of us ghost others because that can feel like the “easiest” option at the time with the resources we have,” explains Marriage and Family Therapist, Lindsay Huckaba. 

Whether you are getting ghosted or doing the ghosting, one thing is clear.

It's not a reflection of your worth. Sometimes people just lose interest or have their own personal issues going on that have nothing to do with you. It's best to try to move on and focus on finding someone who will appreciate you and communicate with you openly and honestly.