We need to talk about my ghosting. I don’t want you to go through the same pain.

Have you ever tried to be “intentional” about making new connections and friends?

I have over the past few years and found the process exhausting and challenging – particularly as I have discovered, I prefer deeper relationships than just superficial connections.

When I moved back to Melbourne a few years back, after over 15 years away, I did not have an old life to pick up. Most of my friends were interstate and I missed them keenly.

I needed to create a new life and try to find new friends.

And try I did with this person.

Let me introduce Milo.

I met Milo through a MeetUp event I attended with a mutual friend. We all had coffee and got along well. I suggested to Milo it would be nice to catch up. She smiled and agreed. So we exchanged numbers.

But I did not reach out and nothing happened.

Two years later I bumped into Milo at the local market.

The same “we must catch ups” were exchanged between us.

This time I reached out over email and suggested a coffee.

Ten days later, when I had forgotten I had reached out – her reply came back “sounds good when?”

That small interaction became one of those moments that are telling in hindsight.

Looking back, it was the first red flag – a revealing moment, and an interaction I should have viewed in the same way the famous American poet Maya Angelou suggests: “when someone shows you who they are – believe them the first time.”

Milo and I went to see some jazz.

She was charming and funny.

She shared a lot of herself as did I.

It felt like we would become more friendly.

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As she was alone for her birthday with all her family in Italy, I suggested we celebrate it with my family and a few friends.

Everybody loved her.

But I had a nagging feeling I had overstepped a mark in making that invitation – that this gesture for some reason, was too much too soon and would be something I would regret.

But we caught up a few times to see live music, which was fun.

The friendship seemed like it was cracking along.

But cracks began to appear when Milo started online dating.

I started to feel really triggered watching her dating play out.

I think this was because I was still reeling from a toxic relationship from a few years prior. The other person whom I had cared about had not actually cared about me. He had continued to date other women, while I poured all my heart and effort into making it work. He had kept me waiting on the promise that something better would eventuate.

When I met Milo, I had been working hard to recover from my experience. I recognized why it happened. I sought out counselling to understand myself and my patterns. I tried new experiences. I  read self-help books and listened to podcasts. I took up swimming.

Milo, giddy with excitement from seeking and receiving the attention of numerous men at one time, was exhibiting some of the same characteristics as the person I had dated. It seemed to me she was behaving like she did not much care about the experience of those she dated.

She was behaving like the person I was trying to recover from.

It also now felt like Milo was keeping me in reserve in this friendship, as the back-up plan for when a date did not come through.

She’d chat happily away on text and accept an invitation to come out to see music, then announce when she got there that she was waiting on a potential date to confirm and may have to leave early.

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Other times she’d sometimes not answer my invitations for days – and then pop back up as if nothing had happened.

I felt like I was put on hold, while she was organising and confirming her dates.

It was like our catch ups were being squeezed in as an entree around the main course for the day. We’d have a quick catch up to fill her space gap, where the real time was reserved for creating a relationship with a significant other.

None of this may be fair – it’s my interpretation.

But my feelings were real.

I was feeling triggered.

But I kept fighting through the feeling of resentment, thinking that this is what typically happens when a friend is seeking a relationship. Other friendships take a back seat and I need to be a bigger person.

So, I kept putting effort into the friendship, telling myself it’s mature to accept someone has other priorities and we all have a right to build a life that made us happy. I need to be happy for her.

I made a big effort to listen to Milo, to continue the friendship and be supportive and encouraging.

When Milo and I did catch up, we talked a lot about her dating.

My interests and life experiences always came second, if at all.

In the end, all her dating paid off.

Milo fell for someone who put her on a pedestal.

Our contact dropped off. I’d send her the odd message. She’d take her time to reply. Sometimes she did not reply at all, until, breaking a long period of silence, she reached out and asked for my help with a government job application.

Then she went silent again.

Milo came back into my life 18 months later via LinkedIn. She liked one of my posts, suggested a catch up and offered to help me with my business.

She told me she’d broken up with her partner and what she’d been experiencing.

But tellingly there was no “sorry I have not been in contact.”

There was no explanation at all.

However, because she’d suggested it and had been the one to make the effort, I said yes to coffee.

I was even more encouraged that she might be in the headspace for a better friendship when she told me she was no longer looking for a relationship to make her feel whole. She’d sought out a psychologist.

So, thinking she was in a different space, knowing how lonely lockdown was, I reached out a second time later thinking she might enjoy another virtual coffee.

But then the same thing happened that had happened before.

She ghosted me.

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Now when I write this, I can see a big pattern.

The way Milo had behaved the first time we met, then the disappearing when she was dating, the popping back up as if nothing had happened, was a pattern that had played out in our entire friendship.

I had felt like I was put on hold – because I was being put on hold.

And in response, I was having an anxiety reaction – because I wanted a deeper friendship more than she did.

When I was being put on hold, I thought I had to try harder to make it work. I needed to reach out more often. I had to try to be a bigger person. I needed to be a better listener. I had to try hard to understand Milo and my own reaction, so I could manage it better.

Truthfully, I needed look at my own behaviour more deeply.

Milo didn’t owe me a friendship, no matter how much effort I put in.

I needed to stop that level of resentment, recognize that friendships are freely given, and find someone who wanted the same thing.

You might recognize yourself in my behaviour, if you’re looking for a job.

Because if you think about it when: “alone and looking for connection” meets “charming, but indifferent” is what often happens on the job hunt.

If Milo was an employer, and I was looking for a job – she was dangling the promise of employment, taking her time to get back to me and keeping me on hold while seeing other candidates she found more interesting.

How would you respond in this situation?

How do you respond?

I say this because your response to rejection or ghosting in your life situation is a good indicator of how you’ll respond on the job hunt.

I’d like you to know this.

You don’t have to be an overanxious, over-trier like me – wearing yourself out and tying yourself up in knots.

What worked for me, in the end, was to acknowledge what I could control.  It was pointless trying to control my anxiety. I could not control the behaviour of other people. The only thing I could have some power over was my behaviour.

So I did keep reaching out to other people and I kept trying to be a positive version of myself.

I looked for people who seemed to want the same things I did.

I found my tribe and am much happier for it.

If you are experiencing an anxiety reaction to rejection, somewhat like mine – come make one small change to the way you may ordinarily respond to setbacks.

Don’t try to change your world on your own.

Come join our tribe by live every Friday on Career Care Package at 12pm Melbourne time.

You can get feedback on your job hunt, ask any questions you want  (find out what to do if you get ghosted), and most of all you get the support of people who want you to be successful. Click here to get notified of what’s coming up.

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We give you 47 ways to boost your chances of not being rejected on the job front.