The date went well. We ate Japanese and drank ciders before I watched his band play and he smiled at me from the stage. At the end of the night he kissed me on the cheek and said we should do it again the following week. He texted me every day after, asking how my days were and sharing stories about his – and then he abruptly stopped replying mid-conversation, and never contacted me again.

As anyone who's ever used the internet in a last-ditch attempt to fill their empty souls with a hollow imitation of intimacy would know, ghosting – a close relative of the slow fade – is when, after a date or hookup, one party suddenly ceases communication. When things seem to have gone well, words are exchanged about how you'd love to do it again (after bodily fluids may or may not have been exchanged) and you get ghosted. It kinda sucks.

As painful as ghosting is, there may be a time and a place for the relationship manoeuvre. Credit:Stocksy.

Captain Obvious here: sex and dates are not transactional. You're under no obligation to chit-chat with anyone after you've had a drink or doona danced together. I've had dates and hookups where we part ways and don't speak again, without any implication otherwise.

But why be dishonest and say you want to see someone again when you don't? Is it a platitude, like when you run into a high school friend at the supermarket in your trackies while buying a family-size bag of Doritos to eat in bed alone while marathoning The OC, and tell them you'd love to catch up soon? Is it due to fear of confrontation, or of hurting someone's feelings – even though you'll likely hurt them more by misleading them? Or is it because you're keeping them as an option among your many matches?