Forums » RP Discussion » Ghosting nuances - deleting anynomous characters

Hi Sanne,

Sorry that I was unclear, I was going by my overall impression from this thread. You in particular called it “clear communication”, I suppose I took it as a non-negative evaluation, but from what you’re writing now I was wrong and you were just describing one aspect that differentiated what happened from ghosting?

Hi Auberon,

Thank you for explaining further. I am respecting their choice, but basically I’m now anxious about futher RPs, where in similar situations I might like to block the partner to avoid future such interactions, but would not be able to. Which prevents me from drawing my own boundary.

Thank you for the reminder, I was trying to be general but let me go back and delete some specifics anyway in a way that will hopefully keep the thread making sense.

Because it's rude.

As a very long time veteran to RP, this has happened to me more than once both here and elsewhere. More times than I can count, actually!

Is it ghosting? No. Not at all. Others have already pointed out multiple times it doesn't meet the requirements or definition of ghosting and I echo those statements. Boundaries and intent were set, and while abrupt, all you can do is be thankful for the fun you were having and move on to find even more fun.

Is it hypocritical? No, because you do not know their reasons.



I think the majority would agree, if polled or something, that it was an impolite way of dealing with it. I've never enjoyed it, either. It simply doesn't feel good for someone to up and leave so suddenly, especially when you were enjoying everything. Lingering on it, however, does nothing except sow anxieties. What's done is done, it sucked to have happened, but time to move ever onward and upward - that's how I've learned to handle these sorts of things.

Now to play devil's advocate for a moment, about a thousand different things could have happened on their end. Maybe they needed any and all trace of their online presence completely wiped, maybe a banned user that snuck back in and knew they were getting caught, maybe life simply happened and that was the easiest way for them to handle it, maybe they simply weren't having the same amount of fun, maybe something bad happened and that character now reminds them of it - honestly I could keep going for hours.
Point is, no matter how much we want to think that "Well I'd never do something like that" applies to us, you never know what might crop up tomorrow.

So while it might be impolite and even a bit annoying, it is important to also keep in mind that sometimes that is the only choice a person may have. Obviously, even no reason is a valid enough reason since nobody owes us their time or explanations, but I'd honestly be willing to bet money on it that the vast majority of folks on this site don't make decisions like that easily. It takes time and effort and creative energy and passion and care to create a character and all of the things that come with it, to write them with another person. I personally have a hard time seeing anyone deleting all that hard work without an internal struggle. It's easy, when slighted, to think of actions done with little care or malicious intent but that rarely is actually the case. The less you can associate the sudden departure with you, personally, the easier it is to not let it bother you so much. There are 0 logical reasons it should end up haunting you, because a) they made no indication you were to blame and b) even if something major did happen on their end, that is not your problem to harbor worry over. It's perfectly alright to mourn the loss of a fun plot, but if this is something that is truly haunting and deeply bothering you then there are other issues at hand here that you aren't going to find answers to in an RP community.

To answer your original question of "Do people think this is normal and OK?": Yes it is normal for unexpected severance of communication and interaction to happen online. Because we do not know the reasoning, and because online situations aren't fairly compared to in-person situations, it is quite normal. (It is not the same as someone leaving you mid-conversation because you have visual and audio cues about whats happening, are together in the same environment, can actually follow/stop to ask, ect.)
Is it OK? While I personally don't like it, nor is it an ideal way of handling a situation, yes it is OK. Because, again, you don't know the reason for their departure and they don't owe you more than they gave.

At least I should hope if I ever did have to do this, the people I was RPing with (that weren't longtime friends, since that is an entirely different situational context) would accept that and go about their lives.

I think this is the crux of the issue here, really, because you're taking an argument on behalf of a partner who withdrew themselves from an RP. They're not here to say if the vibe was a problem or not, and here's an uncomfortable truth --

You can't know if the vibe was a problem or not. Could be vibe, could be IRL issues, could be writer's block, could even be they started the roleplay with one idea in mind and wrote themselves into a bad corner and that has nothing to do with you. What we do know is that the writer used an anon credit, for their own boundary, and ended an anonymous interaction with your character.

I understand an abrupt ending of a collaborative creative project can feel like rejection, and, worst case scenario it is exactly that. You have been rejected, the project has been rejected, the character you were writing has been rejected, it might all feel the same, like a rude and unexplained slamming shut of a door.

But listen. Whatever you've been taught of what's rude or not hinges entirely on an expectation of what you (and others) are OWED. Another word for that is entitlement, you feel entitled to further communication, simply to answer the discomfort of an abrupt end to an otherwise enjoyable cooperation.

It does take some practice, to find an easier acceptance of this uncertainty. Uncertainty is scary because it implies that there are hidden issues or problems or dangers; but uncertainty doesn't have to be uncomfortable if we can honor the full spectrum of possibility that it represents.

We aren't certain if your writing partner lost a feeling of vibe or not.

But that's okay.

We don't have to dismiss the loss of vibe as a possibility, either, we instead have to find our grounding in our own full spectrum of possible reality -- which means if YOU ever lose vibe, or for any reason whatever need or want to exit a roleplay, YOU too are granted full agency over whether or not you stick around to hash things out with the other writer.

I'm sorry if you were ever taught any different. Nobody in the world is entitled to your time and attention, but especially not for free on the internet.

I personally like to observe social graces in end-of-thread communications, but then I personally don't have social anxiety or any sort of conflict avoidance disorder (can you tell) so it's a LOT easier for me to face the possibility of disappointing someone else (worse, disappointing a writer i might really respect) with the limits on my time and abilities.

Thank you for your opinion. This just makes me want the blocking capability for such cases even more. While they don’t owe me anything, I equally don’t owe them a chance for futher RP if I’m willing to give up the chance for futher RP.

I already removed the details to protect my former partner’s privacy, so I will not read or respond to your post as your initial assumption is wrong.

Actually could I ask for a moderator to lock this topic? If there isn’t anything more to address in what I wrote that would be misinterpreting a post I was replying to, I think I got what I needed to understand people’s stances on this better and to better address similar situations in my future RPs.

So I’d like to prioritize not accidentally leaking any further details and creating a yucky potential situation that Auberon described, but that will cause people to just make their own assumptions about the situation and spend a lot of energy addressing aspects of it that never happened or that I didn’t ask to be addressed in the first place.

Fair! Locking this down as requested.