What do Singaporeans feel about their dates ghosting? A dating app finds out.

Photo credit: Getty

Imagine this. It’s 2006, and you’ve been dating someone for a few months now. It’s been fun going out with this person, but after getting to know them better, you just don’t see a future with them. What do you do? You steel yourself up for an unpleasant but necessary conversation, complete with as few or as many “It’s Not You, It’s Me”s as required.

Now fast forward ten years. It’s 2016, and you’re in the same situation. What do you do? For many people, the answer to that question is nothing. You stop replying texts, stop picking up phone calls, and pray that you fall off that person’s radar. You ghost.

This is the era of hanging out, of Netflix and chilling, and of not putting a label on things. Maybe it’s an unfortunate by-product of having technology (yes, we’re talking about dating apps) too readily available at our fingertips, but it seems like even as we’re going on dates we’re incapable of being vulnerable, and being fully present.

We don’t want to commit. We continue swiping whilst our dates are in the bathroom. We make sure we’re not too invested. And one, two or three months down the road when we decide that we don’t want to do this anymore, we neglect to communicate this sentiment face-to-face, if at all.

LunchClick surveyed 200 of its users on their thoughts on ghosting, as well as if they’ve ever ghosted or been ghosted. Here are the results.