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Is ghosting pretty standard on BM?

Succuboi

Succuboi

Moon
Joined
May 31, 2020
Pretty self explanatory by the title really. I haven't been here long, but so far my experience has been....disappointing to say the least. I've had five or six people, including an Admin, all just up and ghost me. Am I just getting the wrong group of people? Or is this just pretty common on this forum?

And how do you successful RP'rs avoid getting sucked into wasting your time building a plot, only to get ghosted? I'm a pretty experienced writer and Roleplayer, but it seems I have trash judgement because I can't seem to notice the warning signs.

What are some warning signs in your experience? Things to look out for?
 
I don't know if there are any true warning signs. I've been ghosted plenty and I just try to move on. It sucks if you get decently into a story but it does happen. You just have to keep pushing forward. Ive been able to find two great partners who I've been playing with for over a year. Don't let yourself get discouraged
 
Solo said:
I can't speak for everyone, just myself, but I've had people think I "ghosted" them, when really I'm just... busy. I don't think to pop on to update everyone on my posting schedule every single day, and I've replied to a RP after an amount of time and had someone go "oh, I thought you ghosted me". I think a lot of ghosting is just communication mix-ups, to be honest.
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I'll usually wait a week or so and give a nudge. What really lets me know if I've been ghosted is if I see them bumping their request thread, especially after I've already had to nudge them a time or two
 
I think ghosting is fairly common in RP in general. It's not unique to BMR, but the chance of it happening is higher on an adult forum like this due to IRL responsibilities and such. You may wish to discuss ghosting with your partner and make sure you're on the same page about it. Sadly, there's no way to really prevent ghosting.

As such, there are no 'successful RPers' that have avoided being ghosted. I'm sure everyone on this site can tell you of at least one time it happened to them. I am an experienced RPer and it's happened to me plenty of times. As such, I can confirm that there are no warning signs.

I would follow Solo's advice and keep trying. If you do, you're bound to have great RP's and those partners may return.
 
Ghosting is just something that happens and I assume it happens in all places you might roleplay. For a start, you never know what's going on in your writing partner's life, even when you talk ooc a lot you likely don't know everything so the circumstances of not getting a post in a while could be quite serious. Just look at the world we live in right now, pandemic in full swing in some places, things will happen, jobs lost, other priorities come into focus. It would be nice if they could spare time to let you know but quite frankly your RP or planned RP might not be a blip on their radar at the time.

Then there is fear of confrontation. Saying I'm not interested anymore shouldn't be a big deal but it can be made into one, I'm sure a lot of us have seen it happen. Some just find it easier to not get into it. It's very disappointing to be ghosted and on something you're very excited for it can be doubly so but like Solo says, I'd rather focus on the plots and stories that go well than those that don't start and if one does end, cherish the good parts of it and don't lament, because now you get to start that plot again and maybe it will be better the next time around!
 
Woof. This was a lot more feedback than I was expecting this fast. I suppose everyone has a point. I'll keep at it. Just a very disappointing start here.

Bodman: Yeah I tend to play around with similar timelines. If I see someone bump, and they won't respond to PM's, I kind of assume I've been ghosted. I don't need someone to reply every day, but all anyone has to do is let me know life is rough, and I'll gladly give space.

Solo: I think I generally agree with you. I just always try to be very open, and give people plenty of leeway as long as they keep me in the loop. But it doesn't seem to take in general.

True Grave: I guess It's good that its not just myself. But fingers crossed. I know I have specific interests and standards, but hopefully I can find some talented partners eventually.

Staine: That is very relatable. I try very hard not to be confrontational. So I wish people would be more comfortable communicating their troubles. Anyways. Hopefully I can get some of those good experiences to balance out these initial bad ones.
 
I'm sure you will find some fantastic people to roleplay with that will make up for it, some truly great partners! Just keep it up and while it is disheartening, remember it says nothing about you when you get ghosted. :)
 
I don't experience ghosting very often, usually it's the people that I contact rather than them contacting me. Due to this experience, I've set up an interview process in which I will have the person commit a certain amount of effort into the meet and greet process until they become a valid RP partner for me to really consider. I'll ask questions, they give a response, if the response leads to nowhere then I'll tell them things aren't working out. If they ask why, I deadpan my explanation about why, and that I don't have an interest in furthering my explanation.

Since establishing my interview process, I've ONLY experienced ghosting when I seek out a partner that's unsolicited by my own forum. Another thing I would comment is that dominants are a lot more likely to ghost on their partner if the partner is a sub. This is simply because of supply and demand, a dominant can replace their submissive partner in a heartbeat whereas a submissive will need to spend a lot more time finding their partners. This is because for every 1 dominant there is like 3, maybe more, submissives, and half of the switch base aren't even switches, half of the switches are really just submissives baiting for a chance at playing a submissive.

I rarely get to play submissive because of this population difference, and also because I'm picky. I'm much more likely to drop a submissive RP compared to somebody who can play a dominant type or more importantly, at least to me, somebody who is a legitimate switch.

Anyways, the interview process isn't exactly foolproof but it's worked like 90% of the time for me. There are still people who have ghosted me after a long-term RP, but I can't exactly explain why, because the contact is no longer able to communicate; and obviously they wouldn't value a discussion like that.
 
Ghosting seems to be pretty standard on a lot of RP writing sites these days. Ten years ago, not so much in my experience.
There are as many reasons as directions on a compass that people ghost. It just seems to be an accepted norm these days not to say a word when things come along that makes it not possible to continue to write. It seemed things were more polite ... at least in the circles I was writing in... back 10 years ago.

One of these reasons for ghosting I will point out is my situation on another RP site where the powers that be have decided that I required a 3 month ban. Not going to get into the reasons they used to justify it or my counter-argument, but I will say it was somewhat unexpected on my part to have the door shut suddenly. It in effect caused me to 'ghost' a half-dozen people I was writing stories with. Three months will kill any RP, so when I'm let out of jail I'll message all my partners who haven't heard from me and let them know what happened. It's the least I can do.
 
As someone who has been RPing for 28 years, ghosting seems to be something very much of current day and age. Before my latest return, after a short-ish hiatus, I had experienced it a couple of times per site I been on, but in the last 2 years I've had it nearly 200 times. For every 1 play that carries on, there's 15 to 20 that don't make 5 posts (in total).

Of course, there are those who have a genuine excuse. Life, health etcetera, but I am more and more convinced that youngsters (says the old man) find the idea of being on an RP-site and forking out an idea, doing some plotting, think that's all there is to it. And then when a starter is posted, they think 'fuck, I need to write now'.
 
I'm no saint and i'll hold my hand up and say I've done it to others on occasion. Whether from as others have mentioned, whether from not having time due to IRL circumstances all the way down to something petty like being sent a PM to plan something and I didn't like how it was worded, or going with wanting to play a male character when I don't search for that. Another reason being (and some that has happened most recently), having many PM threads going on that PMs just get buried and I forget to go back to them.

In some ways I guess it's fair that I happens to me as I've done it to others on occasion as mentioned, but something that does annoy me/make me wonder is when.. you can see that they've read the message but don't pop over a reply.
It's karma working against me, I know, but its quite the annoying thing when you find someone with an idea you enjoy and don't get the courtesy of getting any form of response back.
 
Tanakalian said:
As someone who has been RPing for 28 years, ghosting seems to be something very much of current day and age. Before my latest return, after a short-ish hiatus, I had experienced it a couple of times per site I been on, but in the last 2 years I've had it nearly 200 times. For every 1 play that carries on, there's 15 to 20 that don't make 5 posts (in total).

Of course, there are those who have a genuine excuse. Life, health etcetera, but I am more and more convinced that youngsters (says the old man) find the idea of being on an RP-site and forking out an idea, doing some plotting, think that's all there is to it. And then when a starter is posted, they think 'fuck, I need to write now'.
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^ This ^
I have a whole file drawer next to my character file drawer full of dud-starters. I usually recycle or cannabilise them for new ones, but the rate of ghosting I've experienced in my RP writing over the many years has been similar to Tanakalian.
 
Apocmyre said:
I'm no saint and i'll hold my hand up and say I've done it to others on occasion. Whether from as others have mentioned, whether from not having time due to IRL circumstances all the way down to something petty like being sent a PM to plan something and I didn't like how it was worded, or going with wanting to play a male character when I don't search for that. Another reason being (and some that has happened most recently), having many PM threads going on that PMs just get buried and I forget to go back to them.

In some ways I guess it's fair that I happens to me as I've done it to others on occasion as mentioned, but something that does annoy me/make me wonder is when.. you can see that they've read the message but don't pop over a reply.
It's karma working against me, I know, but its quite the annoying thing when you find someone with an idea you enjoy and don't get the courtesy of getting any form of response back.
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To me, this seems like some pretty weird cognitive dissonance. I understand that a lot of people don't actually act on what they believe in, but it still comes off as strange, to me, that people feel any kind of heat for behavior they themselves display. This would sort of be the equivalent of setting up a platonic date, not showing up and not informing the person, and then being upset when it happens to you the next day. And then going on a forum to say that you know that you've done this thing that you hate but it sucks when it happens to you. This feels like the Pikachu surprise face.

I do to people what I expect from them. If they don't keep up with this rule, then I just treat them however they treat me, and I let them set the precedent of how they want to be treated. I feel like this sets a healthy environment, because I doubt anybody wants to be insulted or disrespected in anyway. I have great appreciation for the person who lets me down softly instead of edging me on for hours or days just for me to take matters into my own hands and make assumptions.
 
Ditto to everyone else above. As far as warning signs go, most if not all of the folks who have ghosted on me usually have under-developed profiles and they'll usually contact me based on what they read in my RT. What I mean is they have no RT to be seen, no F-List, and a mash-up of a name spelled out lower-case.

I can't speak for everyone and anyone, especially those who are newer and haven't had the chance to develop their profiles, but there's something to be said about not building your profile to interest potential RP partners. I've been in quite a few conversations where we'll finally set-up the scene we want to play out, I will write the starter, and then nothing.

Anyway, those are just a few things I've noticed personally.
 
No warning signs, except maybe your partner doesn't sound as interested compared to discussing about the rp for the first time.

I've had partners who were doing extremely well, then they just disappear.
 
Excitement can be fickle. I can be so stoked to be playing as so and so and in a situation where so and so does this and that... and then... it's done. It's a terrible feeling.

I don't ghost, I just straight up tell my partner things aren't flowing and usually make a decision to either call it, or please give me a couple of days to refresh.

I will say the only warning sign I've recurrently noticed is when someone continuously tries to alter the general direction of where you guys wanted to go with this. I believe in structured plots, not free writing. This is him, that is her, they will do this, and get there... ALL the stuff in the middle is free for us to do with what we want. If they insist on certain things happening that you really weren't interested in, you'll soon realize they stop responding, especially if you're not for it.

I wanted to check something with a partner and they straight up left the conversation. People are very sensitive about their writing ability. It's an ongoing issue I've had with some players here. I'm not perfect. If you can help me (in a nice way) to improve, I can't be offended, I'd be thankful.
 
I think it's pretty standard in general. It happens in roleplay, I doubt it will ever stop. You have to just take the good with the bad. I can't really say there are warning signs to look for because you could find what you believe to be a wonderful partner only for them to vanish. I remember I settled down to read a message from someone with great plot ideas only to find out they left the conversation before I had a chance to respond.
 
If I remember correctly, I’ve ghosted five players so far. I wouldn’t name the reasons publicly, but anyone can feel free to PM me if they’re curious. It kinda makes me feel guilty whenever I post a comment in one of these topics =) But I guess, it’s not that bad considering how many RPs I’ve played. And yeah, I experienced it far more times than that.

I’d say ghosting is sadly part of role-playing. I’m sure it happens to everyone. It can be something you did, or just be solely about your partner and nothing to do with your input whatsoever. I don’t mind being ghosted, just accepted it by now I guess. Unless my partner disappears immediately after making me write a starter, that annoys me.

There can be warning signs, like posts getting shorter and less frequent, but it can happen abruptly as well. There isn’t really a way of knowing it, unless your partner explains it to you. But in that case, that wouldn’t be ghosting anyway =) If I think someone ghosted me, I honestly tend to not return to their RP requests after that. If they send a PM just to say hi, I would of course greet them back though.

No one should think there’s something wrong with their writing just because a few people got busy and ghosted on them. If you’ve lost a RP partner, you can always find a better player and a more intriguing plot~
 
That feeling when you get consistently ghosted by people, so you eventually decide to seek out a lot of people to play with at once, hoping that at least some of them will turn out to write regularly, finding four separate players and then having to wait long, boring days for a message from any one of them.

Sigh.

I know this complaint doesn't have a lot to do with the ghosting issue, just wanted to vent out and this seemed like a decent place to do so.
 
I'd say half of the RPs I start end up getting ghosted. I don't do so, I tell the partner that I am not feeling it anymore.
 
Just remember that being ghosted doesn't really reflect on you, it reflects on the person that ghosted you more.
 
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