{"id":13167,"date":"2026-05-17T04:06:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=13167"},"modified":"2026-05-17T04:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:06:26","slug":"whats-behind-the-ghostlighting-dating-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/?p=13167","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Behind The \u2018Ghostlighting\u2019 Dating Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\u201cGhostlighting\u201d is when someone you are dating suddenly disappears with no warning and then reappears a while later with no apology or explanation, acting as if nothing happened. (Photo: Getty)<\/span><\/p>\n

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You may have heard of the term \u201cghostlighting,\u201d as the portmanteau of two very spooky dating behaviors\u2014ghosting and gaslighting. In fact, you may have even already witnessed such \u201cboo\u201d-rish behavior. But what may still be haunting you is why. Why do people ghostlight and what is the psychology behind it?<\/p>\n

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What Is Ghostlighting<\/h2>\n

Well, I\u2019ve already written in \u201cA Funny Bone to Pick\u201d for Psychology Today<\/em><\/a> about how doubly troubling ghostlighting can be. Ghosting is when someone you\u2019ve been dating or relationshipping with in some way suddenly disappears without warning or explanation. This naturally can leave you feeling quite bewildered in a \u201cwhat just happened\u201d type of way. When someone ghosts you, he or she may end up never communicating with you ever again. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the case with ghostlighting, though. Here the person does return after a period of time and begins the oh-so-fun gaslighting phase. Taken alone, gaslighting is when someone continues to makes deceptive statements to you in a way that makes you question your own judgment, perception of reality or even sanity. Step on the \u201cgas\u201d and add the \u201cghost\u201d to get ghostlighting, and the deceptive statements become about not offering any apology or explanation and instead acting as if nothing happened and potentially even blaming you for their absence such as saying, \u201cHey you didn\u2019t try hard enough to reach me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a recent conversation with relationship expert and podcaster Sarah Hensley, PhD, who has been dubbed the \u201cThe Love Doc<\/a>\u201d and \u201cThe Dating Decoder,\u201d she added other examples of such gaslighting statements, \u201cIt\u2019s rewriting the narrative like saying \u2018I don\u2019t know why this is a big deal\u2019 or \u2018I was just so busy\u2019 or \u2019I don\u2019t think you should be that upset about it.\u2019” She went on to say, \u201cThere\u2019s just no excuse for having a consistent connection, dropping off for a sustained period of time and then coming back and acting like it was no big deal. It\u2019s manipulative.\u201d All of this can leave you wondering yet again, “What just happened?\u2019<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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How Common Is Ghostlighting<\/h2>\n

A question, then, is how often might this happen? In other words, how common is ghostlighting? Well, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn\u2019t have a ghostlighting surveillance system. There\u2019s no formal blood test for it. And people may not be willing to admit things like \u201cOh, I\u2019ve ghostlit five people so far, six if you count the person who ghostlit me before I could do it to her.\u201d So, for right now, we have to rely on indirect measures and anecdotal observations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very common, because I think we\u2019ve the science shows us that we\u2019ve seen a pretty noticeable rise in dismissive-avoidant attachment, and these are the folks that really do this a lot,\u201d Hensley related. \u201cAnd since we\u2019ve seen a rise in it, we\u2019re seeing more of that behavior. I would say the majority of folks I work with who are putting themselves back on the dating market maybe after a breakup, are noticing that they\u2019re coming across people who do this.\u201d Don\u2019t dismiss her mention of dismissive-avoidant attachment just yet as we\u2019ll get back to it. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I asked Hensley why she thinks ghostlighting has gotten more common. \u201cI think it\u2019s dating apps [in part]. I think it\u2019s our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, that\u2019s our attention spans in connection, as well,\u201d she answered. \u201cSo people are seeking more and more novelty and clickers. So they might get bored with a connection clicker and drop off and kind of try to go find something else and then get bored with that and then come back to the old connection.\u201d Yeah, dating apps have certainly transformed dating in many ways, including a number of bad ways, as I\u2019ve described in Forbes<\/em> previously. But\u2019s it\u2019s not just the apps that have contributed to ghostlighting, as Hensely emphaized, \u201cI think it has to do with a lot of factors, including the rise of dismissive-avoidant attachment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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What Are The Reasons Behind Ghostlighting<\/h2>\n
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Ghostlighters can have dismissive-avoidant attachment, where according to Sarah Hensely, PhD, “They avoid their own emotions as well as the emotions of other people so that they tend to dismiss other people’s emotions.” (Photo: Getty)<\/span><\/p>\n

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OK, you can\u2019t avoid the fact that Hensley mentioned the dismissive-avoidant attachment now twice. So, let\u2019s get to it. \u201cIt\u2019s a romantic attachment style, where they are they\u2019re avoiding their own emotions as well as the emotions of other people so that they tend to dismiss other people’s emotions.\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s really well-validated psychological science that shows that our earliest experiences with our caregivers really predict how we will show up in intimacy in our adult relationships. So these people who had parents who really focus on achievement and responsibility and don\u2019t focus on how their kids feel, they kind of shut down their emotions.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hensley added, \u201cSo then they learn that intimacy and vulnerability are just generally unsafe and they develop sort of this hyper-independence where they just aren\u2019t really that capable of sustained intimacy over time. They can kind of be good in the beginning and early in dating relationships, but when things just start to become more connected, that’s when they drop off.\u201d <\/p>\n

She also described how those with dismissive-avoidant attachment can be particularly attractive at the beginning of dating: \u201cThey can look like a really good match because maybe they\u2019re very successful in their career. Maybe they\u2019re very in shape because they tend to be workaholics or hobbyaholics., so a lot of times they\u2019re big into fitness.\u201d Hensley elaborated on how this fits into the picture of them fearing closeness, \u201cTheir work and hobbies can exist to kind of keep them distanced from their own feelings and keep them distanced from relationships. If they\u2019re super busy at work and they\u2019re super busy at the gym, then there\u2019s not much left of them for a romantic connection. They can use it as an excuse like, \u2018Oh, well, my work life is just so busy.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone with more emotionally distant parents will necessarily grow up to have dismissive-avoidant attachment. And not everyone with dismissive-avoidant attachment will end up ghostlighting. Plus, not all ghostlighters have dismissive-avoidant attachment. Some may ghostlight you, for example, simply because they do not think much of you specifically and just assume you will always be around as a backup plan. <\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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How Should You Handle Ghostlighting<\/h2>\n

Regardless of the reason behind the ghostlighting, Hensley recommended that you deal with ghostlighting by setting up good boundaries,”Just being like, ‘That behavior doesn\u2019t work for me.\u2019 And if you\u2019re in the dating phase and it really hasn\u2019t been consistently exclusive, I would honestly walk away because that is a huge red flag that someone is going to be inconsistent or emotionally unavailable in a relationship.” When I asked Hensley whether she can think of any situation where ghostlighting may be excusable, she replied, \u201cI would say 99% of the time it is a big enough red flag to just completely cut things off in the dating phase unless they\u2019re in some kind of accident and they can’t communicate.\u201d <\/p>\n

In other words, being ghostlit is the opposite<\/em> of a lit situation. When ghostlighting occurs, your relationship or whatever you want to call it may not have a ghost of a chance of being healthy. <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n


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\u201cGhostlighting\u201d is when someone you are dating suddenly disappears with no warning and then reappears a while later with no apology or explanation, acting as if nothing happened. (Photo: Getty) getty You may have heard of the term \u201cghostlighting,\u201d as the portmanteau of two very spooky dating behaviors\u2014ghosting and gaslighting. In fact, you may have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brand-spotlights"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildgreenquest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}