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Freak Show

Reading these rules of etiquette made me feel like I have lived under a rock for the longest time.  Some of the rules are commonsensical this one stood out for me:

I don’t ghost people because abandonment is my central trauma and passive-aggressive has never been my style. (I’m more aggressive-aggressive.) I suppose I can understand the appeal of ghosting as an easy way to cut someone off for whatever reason, or for none at all. What I cannot understand is ghosting someone and then coming back several years later to request a favor that would have been a considerable ask even if we had remained friendly.

I have been ghosted a fair bit in my life and there have been these rebounds that came around to say hello. The first few times I had experience with rebounds, I told myself that the ghosting was on account of me being out of line somehow. So I was happy they thought to reconnect. I can't say these folks requested any favors from me but they were back out of curiosity - to see if I had ended up in the ditch as they had predicted would be my lot. If not yet in the ditch was I striking distance of such. Once those questions were answered they would promptly ghost me again. It took a while to understand that I as a person had no intrinsic value to these folks - I was more a freak show they checked in on at times. Something that they channel hopped to on occasion between their regular favorites just a status check.

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