Quiet quitting a workplace trend now affecting our relationships too

I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the phenomenon called quiet quitting that has swept the corporate world. Where employees who have become disinterested continue to put in the bare minimum of efforts to keep their jobs. Did you know that this sneaky little devil can also rear its head in your personal relationships? Quiet quitting a relationship is like ghosting, only slower and more painful. Zero stars, do not recommend. 

I recently experienced this phenomenon in my personal life. I had set my sights on catching flights not feelings in 2024 (and beyond) but the universe had other plans for me. Apparently I needed yet another lesson. 

I had sufficiently healed from my previous mistake and spent two years telling myself that I was in my alone forever era. I was happy and content with life and had zero desire to feel anything – enter a friend who unexpectedly and hastily turned lover and it was all over for me. 

It was easy to fall for this man who appeared all in on the surface, I was drawn to his heart, his mind and his soul. He was sweet, attentive, possessed a rare ability to communicate in a healthy way (at least at first), he made me feel safe and cared for, to the point that I actually thought that I was experiencing what I had always imagined falling in love was supposed to feel like. Something that has eluded me my entire life and now I’ll never know for sure. 

When you’ve never quite felt loved and you experience the safety of your besties arms, a first kiss that sends sparks flying, months of him saying all the right things and making plans for the future only to suddenly pull back, well, it’s a lot to process. 

It was slow at first with plans postponed or outright cancelled, but he said he was sick, so no reason to fully overthink the situation, how could he possibly change his mind over night? Our friendship and connection had to mean more than that, right? But, as the week progressed the messages that had been coming consistently and constantly throughout the day began to slow. 

Then suddenly, there was no more good morning beautiful and no more sweet dreams lover. There was still engagement and some interest throughout the day but the downward spiral began. Slowly he was slipping away and my heart (which before him was cold and dead) was breaking. 

I would initiate contact and not really change anything I had been doing previously, after all my feelings weren’t any different. There would be typical responses with undertones of the man I was falling for which would give me glimmers of hope but then that hope would disappear and I’d break a little more. 

The vibes were definitely off, was he really sic or was it something more? When he backed out of plans for the second time in a week I asked if everything was okay or if he wanted me to leave him alone, and the answer was not one no, but three. “No no no that’s not it, I just don’t want you to get sick.” he said. However there comes a point when it feels forced and one sided and you start to feel like you’re bothering the person who used to miss you the minute you left each others company and let me tell you that’s a nice sharp dagger through a freshly thawed heart. 

After a week (5 days to be exact, which is apparently “a long time” in boy years) of uncertainty, emotional turmoil, and stress to the point of physical illness the dreaded but by this point not unexpected message came. I had been hoping to have the conversation in person given we had plans to celebrate a big milestone in my career a few days later, but that’s just me wanting to eliminate any misunderstanding by not communicating via text seeing as how so many things often get lost in translation. This discussion was too important to be a text exchange. Nothing was lost in translation, it was clear I’m not wanted, needed or desired any longer. 

It was like we went to bed on Sunday still in our bubble of happiness and that bubble burst sometime in the night, by the time he woke up on Monday it was over. He didn’t fill me in though, he needed until Friday afternoon to withdraw and passive aggressively twist the knife to make sure I’d not come back from this anytime soon.

And just like that it was over as quickly as it had begun, and I am left in the deafening silence with a shattered heart wondering if he ever was as invested as he said he was a mere two weeks earlier, as he assured me our plans for the future weren’t a joke. This abrupt ending unfortunately feels exactly the way I thought it would and has left me torn between being grateful for the moments of pure joy and sometimes awe I felt with him and the tortured regret that I allowed myself to let my guard down at all. 

As any over-thinker worth their salt does, I have spent the past 3 days scrolling through photos, replaying moments together in my mind and re-reading messages, some so recent that my body still doesn’t know if I should be swooning or weeping as I desperately hope that this is a nightmare I’ll wake up from.