We can all agree that receiving the silent treatment can be extremely painful. It leaves no space for discussing what the problem is and leaves those receiving the silent treatment distressed and feeling punished. In recent years, a new term—ghosting—has been used to describe the process of being cut off abruptly and without explanation by others. This can happen not only in dating situations but also between friends and family members. Because this happens so frequently and leads so many to feel the pain that rejection and ambiguity inevitably cause, researchers are trying to understand the process more thoroughly.

In a recent study conducted by Wu and Bamishigbin (2023), the interviews of 34 undergraduates who had ghosted others were analyzed. From this group, 68% of participants identified as female while 32% identified as male. Additionally, 65% of the participants identified as Latinx, 15% as Asian/American, 12% as African American, 3% as European/European/American, 3% as Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 3% as Middle Eastern. Clearly, this differs from the largely........

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