Ghosting: "The act of suddenly ceasing all communication with someone the subject is dating (working with, pitching at), but no longer wishes to date (involved with). This act is done in hopes that the ghostee (you) will just "get the hint" and leave the subject (company, journalist) alone, as opposed to the subject simply telling them he/she is no longer interested (your story is shit, budget constraint, etc.). Ghosting is not specific to a particular gender (companies/clients/journalists) and is closely related to the subject's maturity and communication skills."

1.) The act of disappearing on your friends without notice.

2.) Canceling plans with little or no notice.

3.) Disappearing into thin air.

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Some of us probably had an unpleasant experience of being "ghosted" by a friend, stranger, someone you "talk" to, or blind date with whom you have "plans." On this post, I will talk about us, PR practitioner, who also deal with "ghost" on a professional level. Let me tell you, but it is a whole different scary this is.

Full disclosure though, I am guilty of plenty ghosting situation in both social and professional front. I mean who doesn't, right?

In our adult life, full of responsibilities, sometimes it's just too much! However, vanishing on a colleague or professional partner is a whole different game than disappearing on a stranger, a blind date or a friend. Why? It can chip away your credibility and obviously, you don't want to burn bridges in this PR industry where most of the time, everybody knows everybody.

Why are people so busy to the point where we cannot reply or response to someone? We have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 168 hours a week. Where has all of our time gone? As PR practitioner in an agency, I can conclude that most of my time spent on surfing the Web for clients related research, brush up my industry knowledge, managing internal affairs, etc, etc and staying on top of things.

I do agree that life as an adult requires a lot of demands and responsibilities, but heyy there's a difference between actually "not having time" and "not trying to make time," whichever your professional ghosting reasoning may fall into, it's just unacceptable. The way I see it is any communication is better than none because most of the time you are not representing yourself, but your company as well. Hence, to avoid any awkward interaction if your path ever crosses in the future, please type that email and say it, "Not at this time, but thanks."

Ps. I don't care nor judge how you manage your social life, ghost and date as many people as you want, no judgment!