It was 8:00 p.m. on a Friday and Sarah was staring at an open book but not reading it, too busy glaring at her phone out of the corner of her eye. Sarah had dinner plans with Ed. They’d met on Tinder a month earlier and had gone on three great dates—always drinks or dinner in their shared neighborhood in Brooklyn, and then back to her apartment for sex. They’d made plans over text on Wednesday to have dinner on Friday, but hadn’t discussed a specific time or place.

She considered texting him multiple times throughout the day, but didn’t. “I wanted him to text first because I had initiated the past few times we spoke,” Sarah said. At 6:00 p.m., she started getting antsy. “I didn’t really care, because I knew we had plans. I wasn’t freaked out. I was doing my own stuff. Like, I have a life. My dog had a yeast infection. I was very busy.” At 7:00 p.m. came the mild panic. “I was like, ‘Do I get in the shower? Do I not get in the shower? What is the point of anything?’ But eventually I convinced myself that I was probably due for a shower anyway, so I got in.” At 7:30 p.m. she was in a towel, and still no text. “It was a nightmare. I was like, ‘Do I put on the light moisturizer that I use before I apply makeup, or do I put on my night cream and sweatpants?’ I’m in crisis mode here! My skin feels tight and I don’t know what to do!”

Eventually, she gave in and texted him: “Are we still on for tonight?” He never responded—not only that night, but ever again. She hoped it was because he had died. Unfortunately, the next morning, he Instagrammed a photo of himself at brunch.

Ghosting (noun): a modern dating dilemma in which one person suddenly ceases contact with another, with no explanation of why. Scarily, it can happen at any stage in a relationship: after a single date; on the evening before a romantic weekend upstate; even years into a relationship, according to some horror stories I’ve heard. And as many of us know firsthand, it’s psychological torture, because when someone straight-up ghosts you, you’re left to come up with a zillion explanations on your own, from your hideously overgrown roots to your choice of restaurant to that stupid thing you said on the subway about how Rand Paul is, like, sort of hot, right? Before the spiral of self-loathing comes a period of denial—we assume that our lover is just in the shower or at a movie or in a sensory deprivation tank or in a coma. And then we get real and remember that it’s 2015, and it’s more likely they have been abducted by aliens than they haven’t looked at their phone in two hours.