Go Ahead and Ghost Him

Out there in Therapyville every human communication gets reduced to some platitudinous formula. Worse yet, we are told, by eminent psycho authorities, that one size really does fit all.

This past Friday psychologist Jenny Taitz explained in the Wall Street Journal that we should not ghost people. If we want to reject them, she said, we should just come out and reject them, but with a good dose of empathy added, for taste. If we do not want to hire them we should tell them, straight up. If we do not want to buy what they are selling we should, presumably, tell them that we do not want to clutter our homes with their trash. But, nicely, with feeling.

Fair enough, there are times when it is better to reject people outright. But, Taitz and her army of experts has not considered the simple fact that saying No is rude and offensive. In Japan, for instance, it is considered rude to reject people outright. There, no one ever says No!

I recall an old story, purportedly true, of a New York art dealer who was trying to sell an art work to a Japanese collector. The collector did not want the work, so he explained that he would need to think it over. In Japanspeak that means that he is too polite to reject the work, and does not want to be rude. The art dealer did not understand the message, so she retorted: “What’s the matter with you; can’t you make up your mind.”

So, who was being rude?

For the record, and without having any special information, I believe that said art dealer will soon be completing her sentence in federal prison-- but that had nothing to do with the exchange with the Japanese dealer.

For another counterexample to the mania about openness and honesty consider an everyday exchange. Imagine that a young man asks a young woman out on a date-- or else imagine that a couple invites another couple to go out to dinner.

And let us imagine that the young woman in the first example would rather crawl over broken glass than spend an evening with the young man who has invited her on the date. Imagine the same, somewhat less picturesque reasoning in the second instance.

You know and I know, and all sentient adults who are not in the psycho world know, that the woman in the first example will politely explain that she is simply too busy to schedule any future engagements. The same might be the recourse of the couple in the second example. In neither case will the put-upon recipient of the unwanted invitation simply say, No, I do not want to spend any time with you. Or, I don’t care for your company because I find you boring and tedious.

In all cases the coded expression is designed to end the conversation without leaving too many offended feelings behind. It is common practice, and it is good practice. Otherwise, you will either be picking a fight or inviting an extended conversation about why you do not want to accept the invitation.

You can sugar over rejection with all the empathy you want, saying No directly and honestly is bad rhetorical strategy. Better to ghost the person and not to make an enemy. When you reject someone openly you risk making that person into an enemy. Most people know this; most people practice this; the psycho world has not yet caught up.

In fact, the point is so clear that most women, in particular, understand that it is better not to break off a relationship directly. It is better to allow the other person to discover that the relationship is over, and for him to break it off himself. You do not want to be the one doing the rejecting; you should prefer to be the one being rejected. It causes less drama and less conflict. And we mostly want to avoid conflict.

So, the psycho advice is more likely to produce more drama. Thus, it ought to be avoided. 

Anyway, here is Taitz, offering the best and the nicest bad advice, which sounds like great advice:

That’s why it’s important to let people in your personal and professional life know when to expect to hear from you, and also to say what you mean, clearly and kindly, even when it isn’t what they want to hear. As a clinical psychologist, I’ve seen that many people find the prospect of disappointing someone so cringeworthy that they prefer to skip a potentially awkward exchange and just disappear—a practice popularly known as “ghosting.”

So, you are going to become rude and offensive, to treat people badly, but you really want to be a compassionate and empathetic human being. You can be fairly confident that, in the first place, this is girl talk, and in the second place, that it is bad advice.

Though my clients often find it uncomfortable to deliver bad news, I encourage them to offer others the courtesy of certainty. Studies show that being left hanging or obsessing over mixed messages—when someone gives you reason to hope, then pulls away, known as “breadcrumbing”—decreases life satisfaction and fuels loneliness more profoundly than disappearing completely. Your job as a compassionate human being is to “Give people predictability,” explains Dr. Robert Sutton, who teaches organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business and is the author of “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.”

As I said, the purpose is to avoid drama and conflict. And yet, the compassionate and empathetic pose will produce more drama and conflict, and will show no consideration for the feelings of the other person. You do not want to be offensive and obnoxious toward other people-- because, no matter how deep your feelings are, straightforward and direct opens you to more straightforward and direct-- which produces conflict and extends an interaction that you do not want to extend. 

Once you explain that you do not want to see someone, your apparently honest insult opens the door to further conversation, along the lines of, what is there about me that makes my company so obnoxious. Why do you think that?

In principle, people ghost because they do not want to engage that level of conversation.

In any case, Taitz presents it all as a moral imperative. You have to respond, she and her expert witness tells us.

That’s why learning to say no with kindness is something we all need to practice. Though you don’t need to formally break up with someone after one meeting or reply to every message you receive on LinkedIn, “If someone you’ve engaged with contacts you, you have to respond,” says Dr. Guy Winch, a clinical psychologist and co-host of the podcast “Dear Therapists.” While at times you can’t help having to disappoint someone, reaching out promptly and offering compassion eases the sting.

It may ease the sting, but it also provokes conflict. Consider an alternative, whether you have to respond depends on the state of play. If you have ghosted someone and they start harassing you via text, you do not have to respond. If you do not want to engage a conversation about why you do not want a second or third date-- something about his bad table manners or her bad breath-- you do better to defer your response, and then perhaps to write a text to the effect that sorry, you have been very busy of late.

It becomes trickier in the business world. Again, Taitz goes all girly here and offers advice that no serious male would ever follow:

When my clients ask me for some sort of template, I suggest including an empathetic acknowledgment, a direct update and a warm parting. One rejection I received shortly after I applied for a position was so effective that I kept it to use as an example: “Thank you for your efforts yesterday. I think you did a great job. We all did. The fact that the group is planning to move to the next step with another therapist should in no way imply otherwise. I wish we could choose two therapists!”

This sounds charming enough, but I can assure you that the person who receives this missive will be far more likely to return to you, to keep in touch, to hassle you about future opportunities, to ask you to refer him to another place. Once you keep the line of communication open, you are going to be engaging with someone you do not want to engage with.

And then there are situations where an interviewee for a job will learn, before the interview, that if he does not hear back promptly, that means he has not been chosen. In truth, in our litigious society, you do not want to engage with people you are rejecting for a job, because it comports far too many legal risks. Your company would never allow you to do so.

Deciding whether someone is a good fit is subjective and you don’t want someone to walk away feeling like there is something wrong with them. Especially in the workplace, you could open yourself up to legal risks by saying too much, warns Dr. Sutton.

Taitz imagines that we all need to exercise our empathy muscles-- a decidedly silly locution, one that she should quickly retire:

Rather than delegate the task of delivering bad news to someone else, like the human resources department, you can think of doing it yourself as a chance to exercise your empathy muscles. “Part of your job is the ability to do dirty work,” Dr. Sutton says. Besides, it’s a small world and your reputation reverberates: “Ghosting creates lots of personal harm that others will remember.”

Ghosting does not create as much harm as a warm bath of empathy. The effectiveness of ghosting depends on whether or not both parties understand that it is a coded expression, one that adults should be able to read. 

If you, like Taitz, are dealing with vulnerable individuals, then you should reconsider how you choose your friends. Dealing with people who are that thin skinned, who are that hypersensitive, who are that easily triggered says something about you.

The people we interact with aren’t just email addresses or avatars on dating apps. All of us are vulnerable, and we all want to feel safe and seen. In these uncertain times, saying no to ghosting is one way to act like we’re all part of an interconnected community.

Precisely wrong. The whole point of ghosting a prospective dinner partner or a prospective new hire is that you do not want to connect with him, that you do not want him to belong to your community. If you want him to stick around, shower him in compassion and empathy. If not, ghosting is OK, but do it politely.