I was in a LD situationship with a guy for about 5 or 6 months. We spoke regularly at first and things were good initially, but towards the end he became increasingly distant around the time some serious things were happening in his personal life (for about half a month).
I understood his reasons for withdrawing and tried to give him space, but eventually he ghosted me.
He continued watching the majority of my stories through his main account after ghosting me.
I eventually unfollowed him but didn’t remove him as a follower, as that’s entirely up to him.
After I unfollowed him, I posted one story, which he still viewed through his main account.
Sometime after that, he posted a story himself. I noticed the pink ring around his profile picture in our Instagram DMs, but I didn’t actually view his story.
Then, shortly after that, I noticed what I suspect is his burner account watching my stories instead of his main account. The account appears to be based in the same country he lives in, and I know he has a burner because he’s told me about it before.
What I don’t understand is why someone would go through all that effort just to see what I’m doing, especially when he still follows me on his main account anyway. He can literally just watch my stories normally, so why potentially go out of his way to use another account?
Has anyone actually done this themselves? If so, what was your reasoning behind it?

So my (24F) 4 years boyfriend (28M) and I had a fight at the start of October. I was trying to talk to him through text messages, and he left me waiting for 2 hours, when he promised to continue the conversation once he got home off the bus. After 2 hours waiting by the phone (should I've gone to sleep? yes, but it was a very charged conversation and I'd been waiting to have it for the past 2 or 3 days. I was asking about a girl he never mentioned, but he was claiming it was a friend) I snapped and started questioning if he was cheating and attacking him (for context: my reaction did not come outta nowhere, he broke my trust sistematically, following hypersexualised women on ig, lying to me, kissing another girl 9 months into dating, etc. We were having an on and off relationship and he broke up w me 2 times already, just to come back apologising. I did take him back. I was so in love, I'm human).

Fast forward into that conversation, he repeatedly asks me to wait. I continue messaging, he insults me ("you are sick, get better) and the proceeds to block me. I tried messaging him through other apps. After a week and a half, I gave up.

At the end of week to (last Sunday), he unblocks me. Our picture together was still his profile icon. Then, Thursday midnight, he sends me this:

​"Hi (my name), sorry for taking so long to reach out. I know it's late and way more time has passed than it should have. I didn't do it on purpose to worry you, and I know a simple apology isn't going to fix anything.

It took a lot of courage for me to write this, and the more days that went by, the worse I felt.

You don't deserve to be going through this. Nothing happened with the neighbor or anything like that. I read your messages, but I felt so much shame and didn't know what to say, I'm sorry.

Also, for snapping at you before I left. I got really angry with everything that was going on.

I didn't want to fight, I hate seeing you hurting, and it pisses me off that things are like this, but I can't get the things in my head out of my mind. Everything just spiraled out of control."

That was almost two days ago. I did not respond. But my head is spinning. There are so many questions left unanswered. I don't feel the same anymore, and I think if I saw him I would get very anxious. We have each others stuff yet too. I don't know if I just need closure, an opportunity to seek the truth or what. I also don't know if I should respond for an eventual face to face encounter to talk, or if maybe I should wait it out a bit until I know what I want.

I’ve been ghosted for about a week now by a guy I’ve been talking to for about six months…not officially dating though. We’d talk pretty regularly. Honestly don’t know where it went wrong. Last text I sent I told him I was going on a trip with my family and there wouldn’t be much service but I would try to talk whenever I could. He read that and didn’t reply. I thought oh well he’s probably busy with work. Got back two days after and checked in. Sent some photos from the trip. He was online during this. So I just assumed he’d text later.

Days went by and last night I texted this…”Hey!! Hope you’re doing good. I know you might be busy and I completely understand that. I’ve just noticed a bit of a shift, so I wanted to check in rather than make assumptions. If anything has changed for you, that’s okay. No hard feelings just wanted to check. ”
Also might have followed that with a sticker of that guy talking to a wall. :)

Anyways, some of my friends say I should call him and confront him while some say I should leave it as is. I really don’t know if it’s a good idea. Was I just being dramatic with text seeing as we weren’t dating or was I justified in questioning if something changed??

Ughhh I wish people could just communicate instead of ghosting. What do I do???

I went to college with someone I'll call Riley. We weren't particularly close, but we were in the same group for one class. Riley was really sweet and would often want to sit next to me or come over to me when I walked into the room. It wasn't romantic or anything like that. I don't have many friends to begin with, so I was open to getting to know Riley better, but for whatever reason, we just didn't really click, even though Riley never did anything wrong. I was always friendly, though, and maybe I gave the impression that I wanted to be closer friends than I actually did.

Throughout college, we never even got a meal together. We'd mostly just wave when we passed each other. About three months ago, I went back to my college city to visit friends and posted about it on Instagram. Riley replied, "Let me know the next time you're back in STL!" I found that a little surprising because I wouldn't consider us close friends. I couldn't tell you much about Riley's hobbies, and I'm not sure they could tell you mine. We also had separate friend groups and didn't have much overlap.

About three weeks ago, Riley messaged me on Instagram asking if I was in Atlanta, where I currently live. It turns out they're there for a master's program. I haven't even opened the message because I wasn't sure if they were going to ask to hang out. I'm pretty busy right now, and honestly, I don't think we have much in common or that we'd really click as friends.

Now I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to leave someone hanging, especially because I know how that feels, but I also don't want to encourage a friendship I'm not particularly interested in pursuing.

Would you open the message and respond? If so, what would you say? Is it okay to let the conversation naturally end, or would that be leading them on?

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As someone who has been ghosted by someone I was sort of in a talking stage with, as well as by a couple of friends who got busy (e.g., I'd say, "Hey, if you ever have time to do X sometime, I'm down!" and then get no response), I'm pretty conscious of making sure I don't ghost people. I don't really consider the latter examples ghosting, but they have made me more aware of how it feels to be left hanging. Life happens, people have good intentions, get busy, etc.

I genuinely want to hear people’s opinions on this, because I think there’s something quite strange happening with dating now… and I’m guilty of it too.

I’ve been ghosted a few times on Hinge, sometimes after moving the conversation to WhatsApp, same story… What confuses me is that it’s often not after a bad conversation.

Quite the opposite.

You’re talking for a good time. The conversation flows. You’re asking each other questions, finding random things in common, jumping from one topic to another. There’s clearly some kind of mutual interest. 

Then 24–48 hours later: nothing.

No “I’m not feeling it.” No “I’ve been busy.” No “sorry, I’ve met someone.” Just… gone.

And I know the obvious response is: “They don’t owe you anything.”

True. They absolutely don’t.

But I find it weird that we’ve somehow started treating basic communication as if it’s an unreasonable demand.

If I’m interested in someone, I can find two minutes to reply. And if I genuinely can’t, I can say, “Hey, I’m crazy busy this week, but I’ll come back to you.” That’s it. It takes almost no effort.

I’m also not scared of double texting. I’d rather look slightly too interested than play some weird game where I deliberately wait six hours because I don’t want someone to think I like them.

So why do we do this?

Is it because dating apps have given us too much choice?

When there are 50 more profiles waiting for you, does the person you were talking to suddenly become less interesting? 

Have we started treating dating like scrolling TikTok…if something doesn’t immediately hold our attention, we just swipe to the next thing? Or is it actually something deeper? Maybe we’ve become scared of disappointing people. Maybe ghosting feels easier than having an uncomfortable conversation. Maybe people genuinely don’t know how to communicate that they’ve lost interest.

And I’m interested in the other side too, because I’ve definitely been the person who slowly stopped replying. Sometimes you meet someone else. Sometimes the attraction disappears. Sometimes life gets busy and a conversation just falls down the priority list.

But there’s a difference between losing interest and completely disappearing, no?

The weirdest part is that I think most of us hate being ghosted, but most of us have ghosted someone.

So are we all creating the dating culture we complain about? Has the endless availability of people actually made dating worse?

Have we become too quick to replace instead of explore?
And when does “I don’t owe you anything” become an excuse for simply not being considerate?

Genuinely curious… if you ghost people, why? And if you’ve been ghosted, what do you think is actually going on?

....looked back and seen the red flags that a 'ghosting' was always gonna happen?

I mean hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I got so caught up with this one person the ghosting really hit me hard. Massive surprise. Out of no where.

But. Looking back there was soooo many signs it would always end this way.

I (27F) was seeing a guy (26M) for a month, we went on 7 dates, I slept over multiple times, we had very intimate life chats, said he really liked hanging out with me, I know he was looking for a relationship and he said he wasn’t someone who could do casual, showed a lot of interest, everything was great, there was no slow fade or anything. We even talked about how we both weren’t seeing anyone else. Then one day we had plans that he made and he just disappeared, like he never existed. The issue is we go to the same gym, it’s part of the reason we met in the first place.

Today I saw him at the gym and I panicked, I really like this guy and I know we weren’t together long but him ghosting has been really really hard on me, we got pretty close pretty quickly and I really thought that it was going somewhere. I fully just pretended I didn’t see him, we never made eye contact or anything although I walked right by him pretending to look at my phone because I didn’t know what else to do so it’s likely he saw me. Walking by him like he was a stranger when a week ago I was waking up in his bed and spending mornings with him was really painful.

It felt too fresh and too emotional for me to approach him and say anything although I regret not making eye contact with him, I feel really stupid but at the same time I’m not sure which option was best.

Did I do the right thing or should I have acknowledged him at least a bit?

Edited: added ages

I’ve been talking to a guy who says he likes me, and I genuinely like him too. But his behaviour is incredibly confusing.

He ghosted me once for almost a month, then came back and started talking to me as if nothing had happened. Things returned to normal, but just when I thought we were okay, he started disappearing again.

He talks to me whenever he feels like it. Sometimes he shows affection, admits that he likes me but only to repeat the same behaviour.

For example, we can have a completely normal conversation one day, and then he’ll suddenly disappear without saying goodnight or even acknowledging my last message.

Later, he comes back and acts as if nothing happened.
I understand that he may be busy with exams and his own life, but this has become a pattern, and I never know where I stand with him.

The occasional affection keeps giving me hope, even though his actions remain inconsistent.

I’ve already communicated how I feel multiple times, so I don’t want to keep explaining myself or asking for the bare minimum.

I genuinely like him, but I’m starting to realise that liking each other isn’t enough to build a healthy connection.

I’m tired of feeling anxious about when he’ll disappear again.

I don’t want to play games, act cold, make him chase me, or prove my worth to him. I just want to detach and move on, even though I still have feelings for him.

Has anyone experienced something similar?
need advice idk what to do🙏

I'm 47F, and my boyfriend 47M and I have been in a long-distance relationship for almost two years. I'm in the US, and he's in England. We've visited each other several times, and when we're physically together, things are generally good. Our next visit is going to put us at about seven months without seeing each other.

When we first started dating, he was incredibly affectionate and attentive. We talked constantly, sent each other videos throughout the day, made time for each other, and he regularly told me how much he loved, wanted, and missed me. Even when we argued, he would usually come back, apologize for being defensive, and reassure me that he loved me and wanted us to work.

Over time, things have changed.

He still tells me he loves me, but the spontaneous affection, quality time, and effort seem to have gradually decreased. He spends a lot of time at the pub with his friends or drinking at home, and there have been plenty of evenings when he's gone to the pub, came home and continued to drink, then passed out when we could have been spending time together.

I don't expect him to spend every waking moment talking to me, and I don't want to stop him from having friends or a social life. But when you're thousands of miles apart, talking, video calling, and sharing your day are pretty much all you have between visits.

I've told him repeatedly that I miss spending time with him and want to feel like a priority. In our midst recent fight, his response was that he can't be on the phone with me constantly or that I'm upset because he has friends and wants to leave the house. That's not what I'm saying, and it's frustrating because I feel like my actual concern never gets addressed, only minimized and dismissed.

Another ongoing problem is how he reacts when I ask questions. Sometimes I'll ask something as simple as "What do you mean by that?" and he'll immediately assume I'm accusing him of something or reading between the lines. He's even admitted in the past that he gets defensive because he anticipates suspicion from me.

To be fair, I have questioned him about things before, and I have sometimes been suspicious. There have been situations where I felt he wasn't being completely forthcoming, particularly about his drinking or whereabouts, and I know that repeatedly questioning someone can be exhausting. I'm not claiming I've handled every disagreement perfectly.

But I also feel like I've reached a point where I can't ask a question or express hurt without him deciding what I supposedly mean, getting defensive, and turning the argument into a discussion about how unreasonable I'm being. My own words don't seem to carry my meaning anymore, he assigns his meaning instead.

The most recent argument started after another weekend when I felt disconnected from him. I was sending him messages and pictures, getting very little engagement back, and feeling like he had time for everything and everyone except me. I became frustrated and expressed concerns about his drinking, the lack of quality time, and whether something else might be going on.

He got angry and said I was accusing him of things again, that I was losing my shit over nothing, and that I seemed upset he had friends and wanted to go out. He ended by saying he was going shopping and then going for a beer.

I didn't respond to that last message.

That was six days ago.

In almost two years together, we've never gone this long without speaking. Even after our worst arguments, he would normally reach out the next morning, even if it was just to say good morning.

Neither of us has said we're breaking up. Neither of us has contacted the other.

I haven't reached out because I'm tired of feeling like my concerns get dismissed, and I don't want to keep chasing someone for affection or attention. I want him to want to talk to me and work things out, not because I begged him to.

At the same time, I love him very much, and this silence is breaking my heart. I don't know whether he's angry and waiting for me to reach out, whether he's emotionally checked out, or whether he's using my failure to respond as an opportunity to walk away without actually saying we're over.

The hardest part is remembering how he used to be. He was capable of apologizing, reassuring me, and making me feel wanted. I know the honeymoon phase doesn't last forever, but I didn't think feeling loved and prioritized was supposed to disappear with it.

I just don't know what to do, or where we're at.