By Looi Ee Xin (26S03M)

Have you ever impatiently looked at Blue Ticks (possibly Grey Ticks)? Or anticipated a reply to your email but ended up waiting for months and months? If you have experienced any of these scenarios, I am here to deliver bad news. You have been a target of – ghosting. 

As a professional ghostbuster, I will be covering all there is to know about ghosting and how you can bust those ghosts. Rest assured; these ghosts will not touch you with a 10 foot pole after you’ve employed these tactics. 

To know how to bust these ghosts, we start by understanding what they do. What is ghosting? Ghosting is the act of suddenly ceasing communication with someone abruptly without reason. 

Most of us have witnessed such paranormal activity, whether it be that one Project Work groupmate who seems to be active in every group chat but yours, or the string of emails you have sent left unanswered. It seems that this paranormal activity is prevalent in many aspects of our life, and we just cannot get rid of it. 

Next, we explore the types of ghosts you can see in the wild. There are primarily 2 categories of ghosts, that being the unintentional ghost and the intentional ghost. Both can be equally frustrating, but I find the latter to be more problematic than the former. 

Before we move on, the reason ghosting occurs, whether it be intentionally or unintentionally, can be due to psychological and mental reasons that I believe we should show grace towards. Jumping to conclusions is never good, so do remember to always find out the reason the ghosters are ghosting you before jumping to conclusions. 

The Unintentional Ghost. 

This ghost has no ill intentions, it’s just a chill ghost. An unintentional ghost could be in deep sleep, locked in at the library or out touching grass. Something that the author is attempting to do. They mean no harm, they just don’t see the messages turning up on their phone. Truly tragic, but it is hard to blame them. 

The Intentional Ghost. 

The intentional ghost is a much more chilling threat, sending shivers down anyone’s spine. Their supernatural ability to ignore all attempts at communication, truly is a spook-tacular sight. Some ghosts find it awkward to contact you, some ghosts just lack a sense of responsibility, and the worst – a hater ghost just wants to incur your wrath.

After getting to know all the ghosts you might meet, here’s how to bust them. Take notes. 

A popular option that many ghostbusters try is spamming. Spamming multiple messages at one go, tagging them in messages, is a desperate attempt at getting the ghost to respond. However, the effectiveness of such a method is questionable, and honestly, the chance of success is ghastly low.

Another go-to option is to contact these ghosts through their living friends. Try asking them to summon the dead, and you might stand a chance at reaching them. The success rate is decent if the ghosts have a stronger connection to the living. Of course, these two methods work better with unintentional ghosts as these ghosts are not mean-spirited. They could have genuinely wanted to reply.

People who unintentionally ghost you can be frustrating to deal with, but helping them reduce their tendencies to ghost you is possible. The author finds meeting them face to face is the most efficient method. During the meeting, you can ask them why they ghost the team, and let them know gently that you would appreciate them to check their messages, at least once a day, so everyone is up to date. Most of the time, this works, as you can target the exact reason behind their ghosting and it does come off as a non-confrontational method. Treat this as a talk with a friend to help them improve on certain habits! 

However, when dealing with intentional ghosts, we have to resort to more boo-rish methods. Calling intentional ghosts can make for a haunting experience, and it’s not for the weak. It’s certainly worth a try, as this might spook the unintentional ghost, but it might not end well with the intentional ghost since they can simply hang up. 

Now, the ultimate method of all time. Am-booshing them! Find them in real life, catch them at their usual haunts. Block all exits, do not let them float away. This once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity grants the ghostbuster an opportunity to request transparency. 

However, to really resolve these issues, it is important first to call out their behaviour and make it clear that it is irresponsible and unacceptable. Give them a chance to explain why they have been ghosting you and work on solving the issue together. Sometimes, this may be hard to resolve, and it might require a third party, preferably a trusted adult, to step in. 

If you want to delve a little bit more into the research behind ghosting, an interesting research done into ghosting by Park and Klein yielded interesting results that may help guide your understanding of ghosters better. Most often, those ghosted, the ghostee, underestimate the chances of the ghosters ghosting them due to a noble intention – to protect the ghostee’s feelings.

The ghosters feel a need to protect the ones being ghosted from being faced with a hard truth or a difficult conversation that the ghosters do not know how to carry, and this can cause them great emotional conflict, leading them just to abandon the conversation. 

Don’t let ghosts dampen your spirit! With this trusty ghostbusters’ handbook, you, too can see right through them!