So you clicked on a quiz about red flags, got told you're a ghoster, and your first instinct was probably... to close the tab. Which, honestly, is maybe the most on-brand thing you could have done.
Let's get something out of the way: ghosting, in your case, isn't about being cruel. You're not sitting there twirling a villain mustache while someone's double-texting you wondering if you died. At least, that's not the intention. What's actually happening is something much quieter and, in some ways, much more complicated.
You're an emotional flight risk. When things get too close, too real, too intense, or too emotional, something in your brain hits a very efficient emergency exit button. It doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like survival. One second you're in a conversation that's starting to require vulnerability, and the next second you're reorganizing your bookshelf or scrolling TikTok with the focused intensity of someone performing surgery.
Attachment theory has a word for this: avoidant attachment. People with avoidant patterns learned early on that emotional needs were either ignored, punished, or made to feel like a burden. So your brain adapted brilliantly — it decided that the safest strategy was to not need anyone. Or at least to never let anyone see that you do.
And ghosting is the logical extension of that strategy. If you never have the hard conversation, you never have to be vulnerable. If you disappear before things get serious, you never have to face rejection. If you leave first, nobody can leave you.
The tragedy of this pattern is that it works exactly the way it's supposed to — and ruins exactly the things you actually want. Because here's the secret that avoidant people carry: you want connection just as badly as anyone else. Maybe more. You're not heartless. You're hyper-protected. There's a difference, and it matters.
The people in your life don't experience your ghosting as self-protection. They experience it as rejection. That friend who texted you three times and got nothing? They think they did something wrong. That situationship who asked where things were going and never heard from you again? They're replaying every interaction trying to figure out where they messed up. And here's the real kicker — you know this. You KNOW it hurts people. And the guilt of that knowledge makes it even harder to come back, which makes the ghost even longer, which makes it even more awkward, which makes you more avoidant. It's a cycle designed by the devil himself.
Your growth edge isn't about becoming an open book overnight. That's not realistic and honestly, it would freak you out enough to ghost yourself. The goal is to start practicing what therapists call "small bids for connection." Instead of disappearing for three weeks, send a text that says "I need some space but I'm not going anywhere." Instead of going silent when things get emotional, say "This is hard for me but I want to try."
These small moments of staying — even when every cell in your body is screaming to bolt — are what will rewire this pattern. You don't have to become a different person. You just have to learn that staying doesn't automatically mean suffering.
Your red flag isn't that you need space. Everyone needs space. It's that you take it without telling anyone, and you leave people standing in the wreckage of a connection that mattered to them, wondering what they did wrong. They deserved a goodbye. And you? You deserved to learn that goodbyes don't have to be permanent.