For a long time, ghosting has been the worst thing that you could do to someone you just started seeing. You see a person for a few dates, and then proceed to vanish completely from their lives, leaving them hanging and with no idea why you left them. However there is a new trend on the block, and it’s absolutely awful. It’s called “Mosting”

What Is Mosting?

There is a fine line that separates ghosting and mosting. Ghosting predominantly revolves around a person vanishing of the face of the earth, mostly after you’ve hooked up. It’ll revolve you casually meeting, texting frequently, a lot of flirting often culminating with you hooking up. The only downside is, you don’t get to see that guy or girl afterwards ever because they’ve conveniently gone AWOL.

Mosting is similar to this but much much worse. It’s like a subset of ghosting, wherein your prospective partner does everything to make you believe that you’re “The One”. Even if you’re clear that you’re only on the lookout for something casual, all they will be concerned with is making you feel special, convincing you that you’re the real deal that you’re the one person that they’ve been waiting for their whole life. 

“It’s very difficult to explain the difference, but certainly mosting is much worse. Because it’s something you don’t need to do, I’m perfectly alright with just a hook-up. The fact that you constantly try to make the other person believe that they’re something more, with all the fake compliments and the grand gestures, and then just vanish after it, has worst repercussions than ghosting” said Jhanvi, who came across the term after reading it in an article.

That is actually how the term got coined. Tracy Moore, a journalist for MEL Magazine coined the term. An article in New Your Times echoing a woman’s story of how a man called her the girl of his dreams, spent the entire day with her and then proceeded to vanish from her life prompted her to come up with the term.

The Psychology Behind Mosting

While almost all will agree that mosting is a terrible dating trend, no one seems to quite understand why do people do it. Even in a country like India, where the dating scene is nascent, you will find people that are always up for casual relationships and sex. So why the need to lie about your feelings and then just run away at the first sign of commitment from the other person?

Several theories have tried to explain why “Mosters” as they’re called, do what they do. “ I just feel men are just too afraid to ask straight up what they want. So they just resort to lying about their feelings and intentions, using fake compliments and confessions of love. Once they’re done with the relationship, they just vanish because it’s just easy that way” said Sana, talking about her mosting experience with a guy she met off Tinder.

However, another notion is that people resort to mosting because that’s the only way we’ve been taught how to build relationships and seek human contact. People may feel that the only way to get into a relationship is by professing your love or over the top attraction for someone. Similarly, a commitment-phobic person with a sense of detachment may feel that the only way to get into a relationship is to do so by lying about your feelings. Another argument is that the feeling that one feels during the initial meetings with a new person simply burn out, causing them to just back off from the connection entirely.

“Sadly, I’ve been guilty of mosting. I’ve done it only once though, I felt too bad after it though. So I had gone through a tough breakup and I met this girl on Tinder. We started to talk and really hit it off. I really liked talking to her and maybe it was just the mental state I was in after getting out of a long term relationship, I really went strong on her you know, with all the compliments, sharing my feelings and actions and stuff. We even met and had a good time, but after it, maybe I realised it was just a rebound so I just uninstalled Tinder and forgot about the whole thing” said *Vishesh

So if after reading this, you realise that you’re a moster, you can probably dial down the uncountable compliments you dish out on the first day. You may probably be doing that with the utmost good intentions, but maybe just take some time to be sure of your feelings before blurting your best dialogues out?

And if this piece makes you realise that you’re a mostee who gets mosted frequently ( Yes I just coined that term right now), be careful the next time and don’t believe everything you hear on the first date. Maybe just lookout for the red flags, to avoid future heartbreaks and blank calls!

Always remember that mosting is the result of immaturity and is an awful thing to do. It not only is an unhealthy activity in itself and also affects others around you. When unsure of your feelings about a date, make that clear rather than just blurting out things you don’t believe in and may regret saying later on. Honesty is the best policy for a reason you know.