“How many patterns of life were based on kindred misconceptions, how many wolves do we feel on our heels, while our real enemies go in sheepskin by?” ‘Under the Volcano’, Malcolm Lowry.

The social webs of friendships, clubs, community and the workplace, are becoming stretched for a variety of complex reasons.

One of the perverse by-products of living in a post-industrial society is the frequent use of ostracism, as a form of punishment.

I first became interested in ostracisation in the 1980s, while reading Colin Turnbull’s book, ‘The Mountain People’. It’s a harrowing anthropological study of the Ik people of northern Kenya.

They suffered terrible famines. Their life is brutish and the fit and strong survive at the cost of their social structure and friendship groups. The Ik ostracise each other to survive.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world, except the dogs were eaten long ago. Everyday, because the tribe is totally atomised, each member sneaks off alone (the children hunt in packs) to catch food they greedily covert. There’s not much caring or sharing with the Ik.

We like to be liked. It’s nice to be part of a group. It’s comforting when people call us and enquire about our health or invite us out. We’re not like the Ik – or are we?

As a kid I played a string game called Cat’s Cradle. The object of the game was to form a geometric pattern using string held taut between your two hands. The object was to pass the Cat’s Cradle to another, where it would be remade and passed on again.

I suggest that the social webs of friends, like the strings of a child’s hand game, are slackening. We are becoming more isolated and for some, not only more alone but lonelier.

When we feel slighted or angry, when someone rejects our belief systems and we can’t defeat their arguments through emotive appeals, we resort directly to the howitzer of the homo sapiens world – ostracisation.

Kipling Williams says in his book, ‘Ostracism – the Power of Silence’, the act of being ignored simultaneously attacks four fundamental human needs.

“Our sense of connection and belonging is severed; the control we desire between our actions and outcomes is uncoupled; our self-esteem is shaken by feelings of shame, guilt or inferiority; and we feel like a ghost, observing what life would be like if we did not exist,” Williams says.

“Most people claim the act is empowering. It gives them a sense of control over their targets – control they may not otherwise experience. But there’s an ironic twist to these feelings of ‘control’. Some say that at some point they themselves are controlled by the ostracism and find it difficult to stop using it. The use of the silent treatment becomes self-perpetuating,” Williams says.

Unlike other forms of aversive interpersonal behaviours, for example, physical or verbal abuse, ostracism can be characterised as a non-behaviour. So it’s enveloped in layers of ambiguity.

For instance, targets may notice that they are being ignored and think to themselves, ‘is it actually happening to me or is it my imagination?’ It’s this ambiguity that makes ostracism so powerful. One could conceivably ostracise another without having to admit doing it or having to apologise for it.

It’s a paradox that one of the effects of ostracism in groups is to make the group tighter and stronger. The very act of excluding a person thereby adds a twisted form of social cohesion. Ostracism reinforces the notion of “us and them”.

Ostracisation is also used to terminate relationships. The failure to return phone calls or emails may be a legitimate tactic to end the hopes of an ardent suitor or even the affections of a long time partner.

This is a delicate matter and does not necessarily lead to total disengagement. But as one woman said of her former romances, “I wipe them completely off the face of the earth. I don’t speak to them. I don’t acknowledge them.”

But ostracism does not always have its intended outcome. One woman said, “I decided I wouldn’t bother to speak to my husband at all. I managed to keep this up for three weeks but finally he did something that really annoyed me so I yelled at him. He was taken aback and said, “But you’ve been so happy lately.”