Acid Horizon The Politics of Ghosting: Dominic Pettman on Absence, Intimacy, and Digital Life
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Sep 28, 2025 Dominic Pettman, a cultural theorist and author of "Ghosting: On Disappearance," dives deep into the phenomenon of ghosting, exploring its roots beyond dating into friendships and family dynamics. He discusses how hyperconnectivity and the attention economy normalize ghosting, connecting it to emotional fallout like paranoia and depression. Pettman uncovers the psychoanalytic dimensions of absence and its impact on identity. He also critiques the ethical implications of blocking and offers insights on reclaiming genuine social interactions in our digitized world.
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Disappearance Across Domains
- Ghosting extends well beyond dating into family, friendships, and work, producing similar feelings of abandonment.
- Sudden withdrawals create structuring absences that mirror older forms of disappearance and can be deeply traumatic.
Uncle Who Vanished To London
- Dominic opens with a family story about an uncle who changed his name and vanished to London for decades.
- That personal example anchors ghosting as a long-standing, real-world disappearance.
Ghosting’s Psychic Structure
- Ghosting sits between mourning and melancholia because the absent other remains a spectral projection.
- The loss often involves grieving an imagined self the other validated, producing prolonged psychic investment.
