“I Guess I’ll Never Know…”: Non-Initiators Account-Making After Being Ghosted
Ghosting describes a popular contemporary dating disengagement strategy that abruptly ends communication using technological medium(s). For the target of ghosting, the non-initiator, the action usually creates an incomplete account of the loss. This investigation explores the non-initiators’
retroactive rationalization of ghosting as loss. Utilizing Amazon Mechanical Turk, we conducted two studies. In Study I, non-initiators (N = 189) provided reasons for why they were ghosted. Utilizing analytic induction, eight themes emerged from non-initiators accounts.
In Study II, (N = 169), the themes were further examined to determine validity. The retrospective rationalizations determine the incoherent account-making processes in post-dissolution from ghosting.
Keywords: Ghosting; account-making; breakups; non-initiator; romantic dissolution
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Communication Studies, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA; 2: Department of Communication Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA; 3: Department of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Publication date: 03 July 2020
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