When you think about it, we meet so many new people each and every day. However, only a small percentage of these people end up staying in our lives.

Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, family, acquaintances and so on. From the minute we are born we are surrounded by others. The social aspect of our lives tends to get harder and harder as we grow up until we start dating. From there, it just gets even more confusing and complicated. Relationships are great until they’re not. For endless reasons, sometimes things just don’t work out.

Please, whatever you do, don’t break up with someone in a ‘27 second phone call’ like one celebrity did not too long ago. This may be funny to others, but overall it’s not a very humane way to end a relationship.

So, how do you end it? It depends. There’s no one clear answer because every situation is different.

People can be nice and amazing, but they can also be mean and terrible. If you went out on one date with someone and they weren’t respectful towards you, there just wasn’t a connection or you felt unsafe being around them, then go ahead and don’t respond. Especially if it’s the last reason, block their number and don’t feel bad about it.

Although, if you’ve been dating someone for a while, granted it’s not an abusive relationship, then I think it’s important to communicate what went wrong or the reason you want to end it, instead of leaving them hanging. The longer you’ve known someone, the more I feel you owe it to them to explain why you don’t want the relationship to continue. If it was just a Tinder date gone wrong, then I wouldn’t worry about it as much. However, if you’ve been dating for a couple of months or more, it would be pretty disrespectful to your relationship and the other person to just disappear.

Communication is also important if you plan on cutting out a good friend or family member from your life. After all, no one likes being ignored or abandoned.

However, lots of Millenials have found a quick and easy way- just stop talking to them (aka ‘ghosting’).

I have no issue with people ghosting others. Frankly, sometimes disappearing off the face of the Earth is completely justified.

Even though I condone ghosting in some cases, I still find it kind of weird that someone could just disappear from your life. What’s even weirder to me though is orbiting.

Orbiting is when a person stops replying to your texts, but continues to watch your Instagram story and retweet your tweets. The person stays far away from you to not be in your life, but close enough to reconnect if they change their mind.

Don’t do this. Don’t be indecisive. Figure out what you want and then do that. Don’t go back and forth and don’t lead others on, which is what you are doing when you orbit someone. When a person exits and enters someone’s life continuously, it can prevent or delay closure.

Brooke Martin can be reached at [email protected] or @bmartin471 on Twitter.