The term ghosting refers to vanishing completely without any warning: it’s like you’re watching a movie and all of a sudden, it’s over. So far, the movie might have been very exciting to watch, the story was about to unfold, the message was starting to come through but all the laughing and enjoyment is gone together with the prospect of a happy ending - the screen goes blank and you never know how the story ends.

You’re left hanging, it’s over, you must leave the theatre. Adjusting to the sunlight takes time but you must go out and melt into the crowd and return to your daily routine. There’s no sequel and you can’t rewatch it. It’s not your fault, still, getting to terms with such an ending is so hard since it was going so well.

Commitment phobics have a very weird way of seeing things: they might make long term plans for their careers but when it comes to relationships, they panic and feel the urge to come up with an exit strategy after a couple of dates. It has very little to do with the girls: these men usually hang out with beautiful, intelligent and entertaining women but, thanks to their fine-tuned commitment detectors, they sense if things are about to get serious and they vanish. I mean the I-never-even-existed kind of vanishing: you can’t reach them, they never pick up their phones, their friends say they haven’t heard from them, they simply ghost. You’d better forget he was ever a part of your life, telling him how he made you feel will not change anything.

Even if he sticks around a little longer, he’s never fully committed. You can please him all the time, tell him how you feel about him, a commitment phobic will never be as invested as you are. He might move in with you after two weeks but his motives are always very practical: he might have to drive like an hour to get to your place and it’s much more time efficient this way. Do not fool yourself, he would never let you move to his place. Do you know why? It’s HIS place. No one gets to stay there long, not ever. He might spoil you with gifts but you’ll never get his heart - affirmations or cuddling are not his thing.

He’ll always leave you wanting more - more affection, more honesty and real commitment. He’ll have power over you but as you get more and more invested, he’ll draw further and further away from you. You’ll always have to beg for his love no matter what you do: you can lose weight, gain weight, dye your hair red, nothing will ever change the fact that he’s not boyfriend material.

He’ll see anything you do as a warning to run before it’s too late. A family dinner is like getting the flu: inconvenient and painful. It’s like torture. Once you make him attend something like that, he’ll refer to an evening with your family like “that awful night” he barely survived. He might not verbalize it but all he was panicking all night for it was a serious ordeal. He’d rather not see your friends either, those gatherings are just too intimate for him.

You might not want to see it but a relationship like this is for a limited time only: you can cry and beg for him to stay but he’ll constantly be looking for a way out. A commitment phobic cannot be helped and letting him into your life is nothing but a mistake. If he does not ghost, he’ll most definitely do something to ruin your relationship completely. You might go home one day only to find him in bed with some other girl, in the bed you paid for with your money, and that will open your eyes. You’ll try hard not to cry in those eight minutes they leave your apartment but you’ll see your relationship was wrong all along. So do not mourn the loss of it, he had to go.

So what signs tell you that you’re dealing with a commitment phobic? Well, even though he might seem like The One in the beginning and might pretend that after all those failed relationships he’s now ready for a real one, and make you believe that he’d do anything for you, a ghoster will quickly panic as soon as you’re getting invested. As soon as you start falling in love with him and you show signs of a serious commitment, he’ll draw further and further away from you until one day, you’ll never see him again.

• breakup ghosing relationships

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