I have a couple times. The last time was a couple years ago with someone I met online who I was getting to know but didn’t like after the first date. They asked if I felt like watching some movie and I didn’t respond and they didn’t follow up. Tbh, I probably would’ve answered if they had sent a second text. I guess I avoided telling them the truth but it stuck with me like a pebble in my shoe and I feel bad thinking about it.
I am a ghost.
I’m extremely introverted and non-confrontational, so if a situation is too unpleasant or stressful, I vanish. It’s what I’ve pretty much always done. I have no idea how many times I’ve had someone say to me, " Hey - what happened to you? I just looked around and you were gone."
It’s sort of a trap. A lot of it is that, in addition to being introverted and generally non-confrontational, I’m hyper aware of people’s emotions, so if I expect that they’re going to be angry or hurt, I especially don’t want to deal with it. But of course, then I introduce the chance that they’re going to be angry or hurt because I “ghosted” them (or as it was most commonly known before the social media era, I “blew them off”). And yes - I feel bad about that.
All in all though, it’s still generally less unpleasant than the alternatives.