How to Forget Someone

So, you’ve been dating someone for awhile and you break up and then you find that the other person ignores you. This is pretty common. Have you ever wondered why they ignore you? There could be lots of different reasons (need for control, spite, etc.). However, I think the basic reason is related to how memory works. Let’s take a brief look at how we remember and forget things and then we’ll come back to why your ex is ignoring you.

We tend to remember things with increased exposure to them. The more you do something, the more you are going to remember doing whatever it is you are doing. Clearly, repetition or repeated exposure strengthens your memory for something. Attaching meaning or personal significance also increases the likelihood you will remember an event or situation. So that said, what causes forgetting? There are various explanations but the two that probably account for most forgetting are decay and interference.

Decay is basically the effect of time. If I open up my high school yearbook, I won’t remember all the names of classmates. I haven’t thought about them in a very long time. When you don’t access information for a long time, it makes it hard to retrieve from memory. Interference is the effect of intervening information. If I tell you to do something in the morning (and you don’t write it down), all the stuff that happens during the day makes it more likely that you will forget what I asked you in the morning (not always of course). This is a big reason that adults say their memories aren’t as good as when they were younger. It is true that some memory loss is due to aging, but adults usually have more going on than children. This makes the effect of interference much greater for adults.

Another thing is that when you are dating you actually build neural networks specific to the person you are dating. Everytime you see the person, these neural pathways become strengthened. This makes perfect sense. You want to feel a strong connection to the person you are dating. It is debatable whether humans are naturally monogomous or not but the brain is wired to establish solid pair bonds with potential mates. Additionally, the emotional centers that are connected to the memory area also respond every time you see the person. The result is that you have a good feeling when you see your partner.

In coming back to our original question, why is it that your ex is ignoring you? Simple. It’s because of decay and interference. If enough time elapses, the memory of being together fades. If they surround themselves with their friends and busy themselves, they can create enough interference to assist in forgetting about the relationship. So, even though some of our former partners might have malicious motives in how they elect to deal with us after a breakup, the basic reason people ignore each other is that we intuitively know that decay and interference are the best methods for forgetting someone.