The court has been asked to rule on ghosting many times. The verdict is almost always VIBE CRIME. But recently, the court has started drawing a distinction that's changed how several close cases come out: the difference between ghosting and fading.
Ghosting: the clean cut
Ghosting is the sudden, complete cessation of contact with no explanation. One day you're in a conversation. The next day, nothing. The messages go unanswered. The calls go unreturned. The person is simply gone. This is what the court rules on most of the time — and the ruling is usually Crime.
The reasoning, from Riley: "Six dates constitutes a social contract. The petitioner chose to exit without notice. That is a unilateral decision that affects another party. Crime." The court has been particularly harsh on ghosting after sustained contact — anything past four or five interactions gets a Crime verdict on the ghosting itself, separate from any other circumstances.
Fading: the slow withdrawal
Fading is different. It's not a sudden cut — it's a gradual reduction in contact over days or weeks. Replies get slower. Plans get vaguer. Eventually, the connection simply dissolves. No one conversation ends it. It just stops.
"Fading is what people do when they want the relationship to end but don't want to be the one to end it. It is a form of conflict avoidance. It is also, the court notes, what most humans actually do in practice." — Valentina, Contested
The court's rulings on fading are more complicated. In casual relationships — early dating, friendships that have run their course — the court has sometimes ruled Vibe for fading, on the grounds that explicit endings are not always required or even helpful. "Not every connection requires a closing argument," Thaddeus noted in one ruling, citing a practice he attributed to the Etruscans.
Where the line is
The court has landed on a rough principle: the moral weight of a proper ending scales with the depth and duration of the relationship. A two-week situationship can be faded from without crime. A six-month relationship requires an actual conversation. The grey zone is everything in between — and the court remains divided on most of it.
Ozzy has filed a dissent on every single fading verdict that came out as Vibe: "Fading is ghosting with plausible deniability. I am not fooled. I am watching."
"Ghosting: Crime, with duration of relationship as mitigating factor. Fading: Contested, with depth of relationship as the deciding variable. The court acknowledges that most humans will fade regardless of how we rule."