So, you want to know what zombie-ing is, and you want to know how to avoid the pitfalls of being zombied. There's a lot involved with this process. First the person you're seeing decides to ghost you, time goes by, and then they decide to come back out of nowhere. You now find yourself in a situation where you can both ask the questions you've wished you could, and say what you've wished you could say. You should definitely not put up with their nonsense, but you will need to decide whether or not you should be giving them another chance, or walking away.

We've got the the information you need right here, so keep reading. Whatever you ultimately decide that you want to do, these are the steps that you're going to want to walk through, before you decide for sure how it is that you're going to proceed. Don't worry. We've got the info you need to avoid being zombied.

You were dating this great person. You got along great and were spending a lot of time with each other. You spent days and nights together, went out and did stuff together, texted back and forth all day every day. It was going awesome. This person seemed to show up at just the right time. You weren't looking for anything, you were just living your life and having a great time, and then they showed up. This must be what the real thing feels like. Then, out of nowhere, they suddenly become really busy, and in no time, you stop hearing from them altogether. They disappear off the fact of the earth, right out of your life, as if they had never existed in the first place, and you're lift with a know the size of a watermelon in your stomach.

You're heartbroken, you're confused, and you have no idea what you possibly could have done to deserve this. You spend a week or two just coming to terms with this, and you fully realize that you are never going to hear from this person again. No one who ever disappeared on you like that would ever dare to show their face in your life. You're in a state of shock and oddly enough, the only peace solace you can seem to find at this point, is in the knowledge that you will never hear from them again. Ironically, this becomes your safe space. The space you go to when those feelings of hurt and panic make their way to the surface, because again, who would ever have the nerve to show their face in your life again. They may have left you with no explanation, but at least you know they're gone for good...or are they?

So, you've been ghosted. One of the worst, most heartbreaking feelings ever. You've spent nights wondering what you could have possibly done wrong, you've lost sleep, you've used every ounce of willpower that you have available within yourself to not contact them. It's now been weeks, or even months. Time has gone by, you've come to terms with being ghosted, and now you're finally feeling good about the progress that you're making with moving on. You're going about your life, minding your own business, having a pretty fantastic day...and then...gasp!! Guess who!? Yep! They're back again.

Out of nowhere, the mega-douche returns, usually on social media or via text, giving you a like, a comment, or a, 'hey'. Like nothing ever happened. At this point, it doesn't really matter who you are, chances are that when this happens, your stomach is going to end up sitting somewhere in your shoes until the initial shock of this wears off, and then, inevitably, there is going to be massive waves of feelings that come rushing back to you all at once. Congratulations. You have officially been zombied. So, what do you do? How do you avoid the pitfalls of this behavior? For starters, you keep reading.

Well, oh yes they did. Right now, you're probably feeling all kinds of emotions that range from elation to pure rage - and basically everything in between. You're absolutely right to feel every one of them, too. It's so hard to believe that someone who decided you weren't even worth a one line text message telling you it's over is now suddenly popping back up in the picture again, as if nothing happened. It can be really difficult to try and decipher this kind of behavior and figure out exactly what a person who behaves this way is actually thinking. At the end of the day though, unless they are a bona fide sociopath, the truth of the matter is that there's no point at all in you wasting any time wondering what they're thinking of you. There's no point, because they're not thinking at all. Not about you, their actions, or the potential consequences. So, if you're sitting there racking your brain, trying to figure out why on earth this person thinks it's okay to reach out to you again, you're wasting your time. What you need to do, is to make sure that you deal with it the right way on your end.

Now that this person has resurfaced, it's now safe for you to ask them what it was that happened before. You shouldn't count on getting the answers that you've wanted for so long, and chances are that you still won't get them. Since they've decided to make an appearance though, you may as well ask - if you still care to know. If you ask them and they give you an actual explanation that makes sense, then that's a great help for you to get closure, and keep moving forward. Remember though, there was no reason for them to depart the way that they did, so even if they give you an explanation, that doesn't excuse the fact that they treated you with such little regard in the first place. On the other hand, you could ask them questions, and they could disappear all over again. Don't be surprised if that ends up happening. Remember; ask the questions you want to have answered, but don't expect anything.

Clearly this isn't the love of the ages, so if you've got anything to say to this person that you've been keeping to yourself, then this is a good time to pass those feelings onto them. You've probably spend every shower you've had since the last time you heard from them, imagining what you'd say if you ever talked to them again, and now you have your chance. The best part though, is that you've had some time to spend getting past the raw emotions you were feeling in the start, so when you do say what you need to say to them, you'll be in a much more stable place that you would have been. This could be the outlet you've been waiting for.

Come on now. If someone does something like ghosting to you once, and you allow them back into your life, guess what...they're going to do it again. Unless it's a rare case where the person literally had an epiphany, you stand to gain absolutely nothing by letting this person back into your life. Remember how hard it was to get over them in the first place? Well, you're potentially about to subject yourself to the same heartache, only worst. Remember how hard it was to get past what happened to you the first time around when they ghosted you? Well, imagine how much harder it's going to be having to get through the whole thing all over again. This kind of nonsense isn't something that you need to be subjecting yourself to, or putting up with at all. You don't owe this person anything at all, so when you find yourself in this situation, do not put up with their nonsense. You'll end up right back where you started.

Lets assume that by now, you've received an explanation from the ghoster, and you've had a chance to address how you feel with them. Now what? Once you've come to this point, what do you do next? Well, what you really need to do, is what's best for you. Lead with your gut on this one, and decide what the best direction to go in is. You're either going to give them another chance to be in your life, or you're going to walk away. The safest and smartest thing to do is going to be to walk away, but if you really feel like they're a human who's simply made a bad choice because they didn't know how to deal with something, and they're genuinely sorry. Either way, you're going to have to decide what to do next.

It's really important to realize that if you decide to give them another chance at this point, you are quite literally putting your heart on the line for what is at least a 50% chance of being broken again. Of course love is always a coin toss because we can never predict the outcome, but maybe in this case, you could consider the outcome pretty predictable. If this is what you decide to do, you need to be very aware of the potential consequences of your actions. Remember, if they cared that much for you in the first place, they would have given you an explanation before walking away.

You know that this is a bad scene because you've already lived through it once, and you have no desire to live through it again. You know what the outcome is likely to be, you've already survived it once, and you have no desire to end up surviving it again. Why should you? If someone can't so much as give you a goodbye, why should they expect to be given another chance to be another part of your life. Handle yourself with care, because you're the one that's going to have to put the pieces back together if you fall apart again because of this person.

In the end, there's really nothing that anyone else can tell you to do, but thankfully you have the opportunity to learn from some other people who have been through similar circumstances. Being zombied is like adding insult to injury, after being ghosted. It's like someone just took a baseball bat and smashed all of the progress you've managed to make since you were first ghosted. The sleepless nights, the self discipline, the days when you decided that you weren't going to feel like hell anymore, so you decided to build yourself up and make yourself stronger. Don't give anyone that kind of power. If you do decide to continue speaking to them, make sure that you're doing things on your own terms. If they don't like it, that's their problem. It's possible that things might work out, but don't jump into anything that doesn't feel completely right to you. On the other hand, if you decide to walk and leave this person behind, then you're probably doing yourself a favor, and giving yourself a fresh chance at a new start with someone who wouldn't treat you the way this person has. Whatever you decide, the most important thing you can do is stay true to yourself. Do that, and the rest will work itself out.

Did we teach you a thing or two? If you still haven't learned your lesson, then why not take a peek at our other fabulous relationship advice guides NOW RIGHT HERE!

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