Ask the Agony Uncle: Why does he stop calling me out of nowhere?

Last time, we discussed if a reader's boyfriend could or should still be friends with his ex. You can read the very frank answer here.

Now, let's hop to it. This came in from Rua, who says:

What’s the deal with men ghosting? You chat via text or online for a while, you meet up, all is going well. You’re definitely getting all of the good signals. He’s keen and he’s letting you know that. And then poof. He disappears. Never to be heard of again. Or in some cases to randomly text you again out of the blue weeks later with no reference to the gap in contact.

I had to Google and find out what ghosting was. As I understand, it's basically no word or text from someone after an initial contact. You could go on a date with them, have a drink, maybe even go a little further and then, nada.

Why is he doing this, Rua? He's basically not ar*ed. He's either got something else going on his life, possibly his job or another person that he's spending time with, and you don't figure into it. That's it. There's no mystery around it, he's not playing hard to get or trying to get you to text him or make you more keen. Well, if he's one of those pick-up artist bell-ends, then he is. If he's one of those types, f*ck him and don't text him back. Ever.

You're probably now thinking why didn't he just text me back and say that he wasn't interested or that he had someone else in his life? Well, he might want to check back in with you and see how things are. He's working off an understanding you both aren't taking this seriously, so why would he need to text you and tell you anything about his life?

I get what you're thinking, that it's rude not to inform somebody, but the truth is he's probably thinking something along the lines of, "I don't owe Rua / anyone an explanation, so yeah, whatever."

The key here is to respond in kind. In other words, if he doesn't bother texting you back and you're no longer interested, don't bother with him. You go on doing you and let that be it. If he doesn't give a sh*t enough to text you back, then that's that. The same applies to you in with someone else. If you're no longer having fun and you don't want to talk or text someone, just leave it be.

Nobody owes anyone an explanation.

If you've got a relationship question, get me at brian@entertainment.ie or you can leave a comment below.