Ghosting is a new(ish) word for decades, possibly centuries-long phenomenon. For the happily uninitiated, "ghosting" is when one party abruptly ceases communication with another party with no warning or explanation (usually reserved for romantic encounters). But now that I think about it, you can be ghosted by almost anyone: a job, a DoorDash delivery person, a city bus that said it was going to come but then never arrived.
We usually think of ghosting as brought about by the era of texting, DMing, and dating apps, but it was probably even easier to ghost a date back in the day. You could just disappear, and everyone would assume that you had either gone to war, succumbed to the plague, or forgot your way back to your date's house and had nobody to ask. We've been getting ghosted since people actually believed in ghosts. But the key difference is now we have memes to help us through it.