Polyamory, "Ghosting", Compassion and Friendship: One of these things is not like the other

[blackrosemoth]

Lately I'm coming to realize what an early adopter I was at the notion of public polyamory. While I made mistake after mistake trying to figure out how to be ethical and romantically involved with more than one person at a time, I was doing it before the term existed in the public lexicon. Now that the notion is picking up some much needed cultural

Comments

[doe_witch]

Hey, it's me-the-user-formerly-known-as-rauduskoivu, and it's totally your fault I'm back. In any event, it took me a moment to figure out what "ghosting" even meant, so at the ripe age of 28 I feel uncool, but in any case I feel like I have mixed opinions on it? It sounds to me like what you and the above commenter are describing is indeed an example of some people needing to develop better interpersonal skills. At the same time...

I realize I do this constantly. To most people with whom I am no longer interested in communicating. In some cases I want to say it's justified; in other cases I can recognize it's not, if I really take a step back from the situation. The justified cases are those wherein I've been categorically abused or it's an unhealthy relationship (of whatever kind) in which I'm too emotionally compromised to address it without stepping away for a long time. Of course, sometimes I forget to ever address it if I lose the means to contact the person at all, and I feel guilty about this. I'm sure the unjustified cases are those wherein, as already discussed, it just seems like too much psychological effort to tell someone why I have a problem with keeping them in my life.

As for why that impression of grotesque effort exists, speaking for myself I suspect a few factors. I easily tire of many people, but my empathic response to even people I dislike can mean I am afraid of processing their own disappointment if I actually tell them something bad about themselves. Also, I've been fucked up by various things in my life vis à vis allowing my own emotions to be displayed; if I dodge a potentially emotional conversation, I've somehow done good. And lastly, my empathy excess is combined with a poor ability to distinguish between platonic, romantic, and sexual attraction, for which I've generally compensated by not letting myself ever get too close with anyone to whom I could never be attracted on a more-than-platonic level. I see this coping strategy as a means of shielding myself from unwanted attentions, and as a means of preventing myself from reflexively developing crushes on people I shouldn't. But yes, it means I write off a lot of potentially worthwhile friendships- and yes, that's an especially big issue, which by this point I consider one of my primary reasons for therapy. I have deeply strange attachment paradigms. In any event, because I reject close friendship with so many people on this instinctive level, it means that it's very easy for me to forget they are relevant to me at all, even if I find myself largely enjoying their presence when we actually hang out.

Not sure where I'm going with this besides an explanation, but- if ghosting baffles you, maybe some of the above is why other people besides me do it. I don't know. I would sure like to stop.

[blackrosemoth]

Ghosting totally makes sense to me, and I'm guilty of it too. I think the particular bother of this case for me is that it's not just one person doing it. This is a full on ousting from a long-standing social group. I don't think it's necessarily a bad deal to reduce contact with a person, and especially not for one's own mental health or safety. But this is kind of a whole set of people doing this to one person at once.

I think your reasons for keeping your circles close and small are really interesting though.

[doe_witch]

Interesting is one word for it. I feel uncomfortable explaining it to most people because I worry about sounding creepy.

I definitely know what you mean about an entire social group doing it to one person. That happened to me a lot in school, and I don't think it was ever quite as targeted as what you describe here, but it was so deeply irritating to pick up that I was a fifth wheel and then to be stuck on my own trying to figure out why.

[blackrosemoth]

Not creepy to me at all. I think it's just a way of setting boundaries. And as I probably said above the thing that sticks out is just the poly lessons of compassion not applying across the board to everyone in someone's life. We all end up learning the hard way that communication saves a whole crapload of mess for everyone and usually makes endings (and beginnings, and everything in between) a lot easier than agonizing over feelings or deliberation or awkward removals. Again abuse is an exception of course. Non-close friendships don't necessarily warrant a huge chat when they aren't going much of anywhere. Yeah. Poly principles are useful everywhere. Ha. That's all I got.