I connected with a girl on New Years, and we decided to explore our connection. She's a mom of a teenager and two dogs, and she started school on top of part-time work, so I gave her grace to balance her obligations and find time and space for me. I saw her twice the first month for only a few hours each time, but the communication was great, and she promised to find more time to see me if I was patient. During Feb and March, she talked about cuddling and spending whole days together. I asked her out for many different activities, suggested virtual dates, and threw out ideas for ways we could grow our connection when we were apart, but she was seldom available and/or not interested in my suggestions. She also faded in and out of communication. Her free time was often sabotaged by unexpected interruptions, so I requested she tell me when she had time, and I planned a bunch of dates we could walk out and do at a moment's notice, hoping that planned dates would be the default eventually. By the end of March, I had only seen her two more times, and she had canceled 3/4 recent planned meetups with no offer to reschedule. It was obvious that I was making quality time a priority and she was making less than zero effort, so I stepped back and friend-zoned her silently on the way to walking away entirely. I mentioned to her that we had only seen each other 4 times in 3 months, and she said "let's change that" then offered to drive out to see me. I decided to give her that opportunity to regain some slivers of respect and possibly stay on my radar as a friend because we volunteer at the same place, but she canceled last-minute, so I disconnected her from social media and went radio silent, completely done with her without a goodbye.

After 5 days she texted me "are you alive? You're not talking to me anymore?". I didn't answer. A few days later, she requested to follow me on IG, liked a bunch of my posts, and sent a message that said "I don't understand what is going on". I stayed silent. I've never ghosted anyone in my life, but this woman had every opportunity to be part of my life and had no plan to be or took it for granted, then had the audacity to act confused about, or has a total lack of emotional intelligence over, why I cut her out. It feels bad to ghost but, in this case, it feels 1000% justified. I will see her from time to time and I'm certain she will confront me at some point but I'm prepared to continue not talking to her. But should I have told her it's over instead of silence? AITA?