By: An Optimist 🙂

It’s happened to everyone at some point or another. If it hasn’t happened to you yet … don’t worry about it, because this is a generalization, which means it’s notoriously imperfect (much like all of you reading this, I might add). You meet someone new, have a wonderful night out and ask them (more than once but less than a hundred times) to donate to Trump’s legal fund. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the following morning, they’ve stopped responding to your texts! Of course, it isn’t anything you said or did the previous night  — there’s only one clear and logical reason why this could have occurred: They have passed from this plane of existence and are literally ghosting you instead of doing so figuratively.

Upon further reflection, one can find even more comfort in theories that are by no means conspiratorial in nature. After all, they could have hit their head and developed amnesia, or perhaps were in a car accident and are now in a coma. Why, jumping to the conclusion that they’re dead would be absurd. Almost certainly there is some more plausible reason preventing them from reaching out and returning your messages. Perhaps they’ve been kidnapped and you need to rescue them from their captors! After all, what are all those Liam Neeson documentaries for if not to teach you the skills required to rescue your object of admiration?

UCSB’s psychology chair Sigmund Jung suggests, “These conspiracy theories are easily dismissed by Occam’s razor, or failing that, just common sense. I think it says a lot about the mental state of the person who is willing to believe them. If I had to guess, the most likely cause is that they have suffered some sort of childhood abandonment trauma and are unwilling to accept the fact that they’ve been ghosted. That, or the individual in question is as gullible as a 5 year old.”

But why would you listen to an expert? Psychology isn’t even a real science anyway, and you totally weren’t ghosted. They’re still out there waiting to be rescued! Don’t leave them chained up in that dark basement prison any longer.