The new embarrassment: when you talk about him, he ghosts

Last week, British Vogue said that having a boyfriend is embarrassing now, in a piece written by Chanté Joseph
I laughed, because… they’re not wrong. But not for the reasons they think, in my opinion.

It’s not that being in love is cringe or that single girls have rebranded solitude into status.
It’s that the second you admit you like someone (even just to your best friend) the universe hits delete. He fades, forgets how to text, or simply evaporates.

“Say nothing, post nothing, jinx nothing, keep it private until it’s real. Except nothing ever becomes real.”

Halfway through the year, I actually started to believe in someone again.
No ick, no chaos; we clicked or at least I thought. Then came the plot twist: he disappeared. Not shocking, just sad.

I tried to break the ice, to stay friends at least, only to be reminded that modern connection has the attention span of a TikTok video.

And even when it fizzles, you still catch yourself checking your phone or, let’s be honest, checking story views.
Not because you’re desperate, but because you want to believe something real existed, even just a friendship that didn’t end mid-sentence.

“Ghosting has become the polite version of honesty, and I still haven’t mastered this new language.”

People say “just communicate,” but apparently “I don’t see this going anywhere” is harder to send than silence.
Ghosting has become the polite version of honesty.

Of course, that’s not exactly helpful for people like me — the ones who like context, who are curious, who just need an answer. Especially from people who swear they’d never ghost.
I’d rather get the brutal truth, a bullet-point summary, or even a PowerPoint explaining why I’m unbearable than eternal ambiguity. At least then I could archive it, label it “closure,” and move on. (And yes, I have a sad playlist for it.)

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You know what’s really embarrassing, though? Even with all that effort (the presence, the profile) sometimes you can’t even get a proper like.
People match, follow, maybe flirt for two messages… then vanish.
And I can’t help but ask: what’s the point of being “online” if everyone’s pretending not to exist? Why am I paying for a dating app just to gain a few followers?

This summer I did a cleanse, removed the half-hearted followers, the ones who led nowhere. My IG count definitely noticed.
But honestly, what’s the point of digital validation if it’s all ghosts behind the screen?

Men behave like this constantly, but I know women aren’t perfect either.
Still, I try to reply. Quickly. Kindly. Because somewhere between the seen and the silence, we all forgot that there’s a human on the other side.

“Maybe what I miss most isn’t romance, it’s presence.”

Not grand gestures, not labels, just someone who shows up and stays.
Or at least checks in, or if we’re in the same city, says let’s catch up, grab a coffee or let’s have dinner one evening?

Even as a friend.

So maybe the real embarrassment isn’t having a boyfriend.
Maybe it’s believing someone might want to be the one (boyfriend or friend) and still, somehow, keeping a little faith that they could.