The Digital Ex Girlfriend

About a year ago, my good friend Danny went through a rough break up with his girlfriend of three years due to something he labelled as a “distance issue”. He claimed that during the last year of his relationship, he and his girlfriend’s main form of communication was Facebook messenger and Snapchat. When he split with his girlfriend, she cut off all contact with him and blacklisted his phone number which created a huge empty gap in his life, in which he spent many hours blankly staring at his cellphone expecting texts from his ex-girlfriend. Danny admits that he was in a state of “psychological distraught” because he believed that he was still in a relationship with his ex, and he even went so far to believe that he was even communicating with her via text messages. Now this is where the story gets interesting; how on earth was he able to talk to his ex through text messaging when they cut off contact months after their breakup? Well, Danny was going through so much emotional trauma during this time period that he was fully convinced that he was still in a relationship with his girlfriend. But how do you explain Danny’s assertion that he was still texting her? Although he never admitted that a “cyber ghost” was communicating with his through his cell phone, the same idea can be applied in this situation. Danny claims that his girlfriend had sent him ordinary/casual text messages such as “I miss you” or “let’s go to the movies” or “let’s hang out”. Clearly, Danny was so intent on the fact that he and his girlfriend were still in touch, but from a rational standpoint, his belief seems implausible, as his number was blocked on his ex’s cell phone. This situation raises the question whether Danny’s conversations with his girlfriend is just a manifestation of his psychological and emotional state, or was really a unknown cyber entity that participated in Danny’s imaginary relationship.

From Danny’s perspective, a loved one who was a major part of his life suddenly ceased to exist, and an event as abrupt as this resulted in serious consequences to his mentality. The fact that his girlfriend sent him texts could be an unsettling “cyberghost” phenomenon that sent Danny text messages as a cruel ploy to make him think he is still in a relationship. More realistically, this “cyberghost” was merely a creation of Danny’s imagination as a coping method to deal with the emotional pain. Nevertheless, the fact that Danny received text messages from his girlfriend who blocked all forms of communication is a very intriguing and interesting story to be discussed.