Avoidant Attachment and Ghosting: How Attachment Theory Affects Dating Behaviors
Dating can be a minefield. Many of us pour a lot of hope into romance, only to be repeatedly disappointed by incompatible dates. And even when a date seems to have gone well, we may be ghosted.
Ghosting causes a lot of hurt and confusion. It can make people second-guess themselves or assume the worst, and take a big hit to their self-esteem. Feelings of rejection can linger for a long time, and we can ruminate when we don’t have an explanation.
Fortunately, we can find some clarity in attachment theory, illuminating dating behaviors that baffle us. Attachment issues in romantic relationships are extremely common, with people repeatedly carrying out historical patterns of behavior in their close relationships.
Ghosting is particularly associated with avoidant attachment, which we’ll explore in this article by discussing:
- What ghosting is and why it hurts so much
- How different attachment styles date
- What to do when you’re ghosted
- What to do when you tend to ghost others
- How therapy can help with attachment issues
What Is Ghosting?
Ghosting is when someone stops all contact in a relationship without explanation or warning. It typically marks the end of a relationship, causing distress and confusion for the person who’s been ghosted.
The term gained popularity in the world of dating in the early 2000s, with ghosting commonly being experienced by people using dating apps. Additionally, ghosting doesn’t only happen in romantic connections. Sometimes people are ghosted by friends, which may bring up similar feelings of confusion and hurt.
Ghosting is a form of silent treatment, often digital, which typically serves to be defensive or punishing. It’s a passive-aggressive act and a form of emotional cruelty, even if people who ghost aren’t conscious of what they’ve done.1
Why Do People Ghost?
Ghosting’s nature means that the ghosted person probably never gets an explanation for why another person withdrew from the relationship, which is what makes it so painful and confusing. The reasons for using silent treatment and ghosting are nuanced, but they’re typically due to one of the following:
- Inability to understand, communicate, and express inner feelings
- Feeling humiliated, undervalued, untrusting, or unloved
- Wanting to be understood without communication (for instance, expecting someone else to be able to mindread)
- Emotional blackmail (such as guilt-tripping)
- Protective buffering (such as withdrawing to the safety of being alone)
There’s no justification for ghosting, but understanding these different explanations may give someone some relief after being ghosted.1
Why Does Ghosting Hurt So Badly?
Being ghosted can make people feel confused, disappointed, hurt, used, and disrespected. Ghosting can feel especially hurtful in more significant relationships, like long-term romances or friendships. It can also become more painful for people who have been ghosted multiple times, as they may wonder if there’s something specifically wrong with them.
Ghosting hurts because it is a form of rejection. It’s disrespectful and confusing to end a relationship with no explanation. So it’s completely valid to feel angry or hurt when you’ve been ghosted.
In fact, social rejection actually causes our brains to release natural painkillers because it’s registered in a similar way to physical harm. Unfortunately, this response is dampened in those with lower self-esteem, causing them to suffer more when rejected.2
Why Attachment Styles Affect Ghosting
Attachment styles impact our everyday lives. They influence our relationships with ourselves and others, comfort with vulnerability, and the ways we communicate. As a result, attachment is very relevant to understanding ghosting. This is because romantic situations can be particularly risky for those of us with attachment issues, as they can be reminiscent of our early relationships.
The affection and love we receive from our caregivers at a young age creates a sort of “blueprint” for all our future close relationships. Even if someone feels relatively secure in their daily lives, dating could still trigger attachment wounds and cause them to struggle with communicating and expressing their feelings.3
The next section breaks down how attachment can affect ghosting behaviors in more detail.
Which Attachment Style Is Most Likely To Ghost?
Securely attached people are less likely to ghost because they’re typically comfortable with intimacy and do not have chronic worries about their relationships. These qualities make them more likely to communicate openly and end relationships with respect and clarity.4
On the other hand, those with anxious and avoidant qualities face more emotional challenges in the dating world. The attachment style most likely to ghost is the avoidant style:
Avoidantly attached people often strive to maintain autonomy, independence, and control. They may doubt that emotional safety is even possible in close relationships and so withdraw from intimacy to avoid being hurt. Therefore, avoidant people are more likely to ghost romantic partners than those with any other attachment style because distancing themselves keeps them safe – even if they’re doing it unconsciously.4
Anxiously attached people are typically more likely to worry about being abandoned or underappreciated. They tend to have low self-esteem but think very positively about their romantic partners. Additionally, they’re often highly vigilant to signs that partners are pulling away, leading them to seek a great deal of reassurance.4
For these reasons, anxiously attached people are less likely to use ghosting to end relationships. However, they may occasionally ghost someone to protect themselves. Even though they desire closeness, they may reach a point in their dating life where their fears of abandonment become too great. Therefore, they may end romantic connections prematurely to protect themselves from threatening dynamics (such as perceiving someone to be unable to reassure them).
People with disorganized attachment switch between anxious and avoidant behaviors, making their patterns harder to predict. They may ghost if they’re feeling particularly fearful of closeness, but may not do this with everyone.
How Avoidance Affects Dating
You may realize you’re dating someone with avoidant attachment if they:
- Seem uncomfortable with commitment
- Tend to withdraw in moments of vulnerability
- Live very independently
- Don’t communicate their emotions
- Don’t identify your negative emotions
Despite the bad press, people can certainly have satisfying relationships with those with an avoidant attachment style. Though insecure attachments tend to result in certain relationship patterns, this doesn’t mean all avoidant people are going to be “bad partners.” Like anyone, they can be funny, generous, creative, and passionate. Plus, people can become more securely attached over time.
However, remember that it’s not your job to change an avoidant person. Their personal growth and healing are their responsibility. If they’re unaware of their attachment patterns and unwilling to change, you’re within your rights to end the relationship and look for someone more committed to cultivating a healthy dynamic.
When someone’s avoidant attachment style fully dominates their dating behavior, there are certain behaviors you can predict and expect.
Ghosting is one of these. An avoidant may ghost after a few dates because they can’t communicate their emotions. They may be feeling uninterested in continuing the relationship further or even frightened by how much they like someone. Either way, they may stop replying to your texts if they can’t face the discomfort of communicating the truth.
People who are single and avoidantly attached may not engage in dating much at all. They may be fiercely independent, preferring to be unattached. When they do date, they may have many short-term entanglements or fall into longer-term “situationships” that don’t have a committed label.
More expressive avoidant partners will communicate that they need space. They’ll sense their fear and discomfort in moments of conflict or vulnerability, but state that they need to withdraw before doing so.
What to Do if You’ve Been Ghosted
If you’ve just been ghosted, the first step in overcoming it is not taking it personally. This might feel impossible, but ghosting has everything to do with the ghoster. As we’ve established in this article so far, someone ghosts when they’re too uncomfortable with communicating their true feelings.
If you catch yourself spiraling into questions like, “What should I have done differently?” and “What’s wrong with me?”, take a pause. In these moments, remember to reframe the ghosting. It’s most likely a blessing in disguise; they’ve demonstrated disrespect and hurtfulness, qualities you want to avoid in a romantic partner.
Even though it can be excruciating not knowing what went wrong, you can come to fairly certain conclusions when you’ve been ghosted. For example, you can remind yourself that “They’re not emotionally ready for this relationship,” or “I am looking for someone more communicative.” While these statements don’t explain the why behind ghosting, they can still provide some clarity moving forward.
If you’ve been ghosted a few times and you’re wondering how to stop ghosting behavior, you might be blaming yourself. But you can’t control other people, and it’s their responsibility to treat you with respect. It’s almost impossible to tell from someone’s dating app profile whether they’re likely to ghost you, so it’s not really something you can prevent.
However, if you’re feeling particularly hurt after being ghosted, it might help to take some time away from dating to look after yourself. For example, seeing close friends, engaging in a hobby, and taking the time for self-love may be nourishing.
What to Do if You’re the Ghoster
Ghosting can be a hard habit to break if you’ve become accustomed to handling relationships in this way. However, it’s worth being curious about your pattern of ghosting, and it’s definitely possible to break out of it.
The first thing to do is to explore why you ghost people. What are you afraid of? It may help to write down a list of all the dates you’ve ghosted and a little note with your feelings about each one. Did they say something on a date to freak you out? Did they remind you of someone from your past? Why couldn’t you tell them the truth?
If you determine that you ghost people because it’s too uncomfortable to outright reject them, this is useful information for you:
Rejection and rejecting others are parts of dating, and it’s not “evil” to tell someone you’re no longer interested in them. Even if you let someone down in the most caring way, they may still feel disappointed, but this doesn’t mean it’s your fault. Additionally, if you’ve been dating someone who’s acting in abusive or frightening ways, ghosting could be the right thing to do to protect yourself.
However, if ghosting is a habit, this could indicate some emotional dysregulation. For instance, does having feelings for someone cause you a great deal of fear? Learning to process this fear in healthy ways could help you understand your impulse to ghost, but also enable you to communicate better with romantic partners.
When you’re ready, you could try communicating honestly with dates about your feelings when things come up. If you need support in breaking out of ghosting, you might want to work with a therapist.
Mission Connection: Get Therapy For Attachment and Relationship Issues
Being ghosted is one of the most painful things to come out of our modern dating habits. Yet, no matter how hurtful it feels and how much you blame yourself, you’re not disposable; you’re worthy of love and respect.
At Mission Connection, we understand how avoidant attachment and ghosting impact the self-esteem and mental health of people navigating relationships. However, it is possible to heal with the right support. We offer a range of mental health treatments for relationship anxiety, including attachment-based relationship counseling. Get in touch with our team of professionals to start your personalized treatment plan.
References
- Agarwal, S., & Prakash, N. (2024, January). When silence speaks: Exploring reasons of silent treatment from perspective of source. Akal University & University of Delhi. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377187686_When_Silence_Speaks_Exploring_Reasons_of_Silent_Treatment_from_Perspective_of_Source
- Hsu, D. T., Sanford, B. J., Meyers, K. K., Love, T. M., Hazlett, K. E., Wang, H., Ni, L., Walker, S. J., Mickey, B. J., Korycinski, S. T., Koeppe, R. A., Crocker, J. K., Langenecker, S. A., & Zubieta, J.-K. (2013). Response of the μ-opioid system to social rejection and acceptance. Molecular Psychiatry, 18(11), 1211–1217. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2013.96
- Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(3), 511–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511
- Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 19–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2016.04.006
