These people don’t believe it’s possible for relationships to grow and change, or for attraction to deepen as time goes by they do not have a growth mindset about romance. Some people think of it as a way of finding the person they’re destined to spend their lives with and see their dating life as a targeted search for the ideal partner. In addition, ghosting can also be the result of a particular set of beliefs about dating. Ghosters, like my patient, often go through elaborate cognitive gymnastics to convince themselves that what they do is totally fine. Our brains naturally focus on information that confirms a preexisting belief about something, even when other evidence indicates that we might be wrong. And cognitive dissonance may play a role as well. Ghosting is sometimes referred to as a form of cowardice: the refusal to acknowledge one’s own misconduct. It also takes courage to admit when we’re wrong, or when we’ve knowingly hurt someone. Of course, if you’re always looking around for someone just a little better than the person you’re chatting with on Hinge, it’s a good bet that that person is doing the same to you - which could further reduce your likelihood of making a real investment of time or energy. Perhaps ghosters see the people they meet on the apps as if they're walking profiles, something they can just swipe away if it’s not quite right. Online dating is fast-paced if one option isn’t an immediate hit, you can move on to another immediately. With so many apps, each subscriber can find hundreds of people to date at any moment, so it might seem like a waste of time to treat each person with full politeness and courtesy. And it’s just as easy to meet someone new: There are hundreds of dating apps currently available - thousands, perhaps, if you count the small ones.

It’s altogether too easy to stop chatting with someone who can only contact you through your cell phone, which you can quickly set to ignore them. Her reasoning may strike many of today’s young adults as familiar.

She has that effect on me