Old friend randomly blocked me

Try another message some lives and phones are full of incoming and some do get overlooked.

Can't you just look now and see how many ticks there are? You still have WhatsApp right?

Haven't read all the replies so sorry if repeating or I've missed something....but in answer to your original post/question, I think you've been a little OTT.

I have lots of people on FB (that I never use or update) and they're people who have "passed" through my life....old school friends, colleagues, people from back in the day from down the pub etc etc. I don't mind them being there, it makes them happy (I presume) that they're there, some,we may have had a small catch up on messenger etc. But do I want to start meeting up "in real life"...God no!

I have a small instagram account that I use fairly regularly and tbh that's where most of my "real life" friends find me. I don't "allow" most people to access my insta, it's quite a personal account.

But we're all different and we all use media for different things. Personally if I wanted to catch up with someone, I'd look for them on Facebook etc and "access" them that way. I really wouldn't start phoning people etc or messaging them direct. That said you didn't say whether you looked on social media or if your friend has one.

I think it's great to reminisce about the past. I've had some great times pubbing and clubbing in my late teens/early 20s with some great friends. But for me that's over 30 years ago. Yes one or two of them are on my social media, a couple of them, I randomly drive past their mums house or something and I think I wonder what happened to so and so? But I don't go any further than that. Life has moved on tremendously. Sure I hope they're well and happy but that's about as far as I go.

I have a hobby enthusiast group of people on my Facebook that my husband and I had some great times with, probably in our late 20s. It's good to see their families, their now grown up children etc. We've recently been asked if we want to get added to some some "old members" WhatsApp. I had to very very politely decline (which was hard). I don't want my phone pinging every few hours/evening/days all about "the old days " and "do you remember when" and "how funny when you did that". As I say great memories, but that's all we have in common with each other. Nice for 5 minutes yes... but I'm not interested in meeting up nor living in the past. We have nothing in common with them now.

I would hate to meet anyone really from my past...in terms of school friends, old colleagues etc just because we have nothing in common now. Sometimes the friendships we have or had ,are purely bound by the circumstances we found/find ourselves in. I have a lovely lady on my Facebook who I worked with, loved her, got on brilliantly...but I haven't seen her since 2017?? We're not local to each other, we have completely different lives at different stages....and tbh it's awkward when she asks to meet. We met once (back when i was a people pleaser!) and all we did was talk about a workplace, we both no longer worked at 🤷.

You're friend could have blocked you for any number of reasons but really I think it was the direct approach and then the meet for coffee etc. Your friend was polite and cordial to you, but really you've put her on the spot. I agree as adults, she could have said "hey great to hear from you, pleased you're doing well...I've got a lot on at the moment". Would you really have left it at that? Would have you really got the hint? We don't know what's going on in her life...she might be busy, she might be going through an awful time with something, she might even just can't be bothered nor want to live in the past...but really you're a stranger to her now so she probably thought nothing about blocking you (and she's probably really annoyed at her mum!)

Scum of the earth for not replying to a random unsolicited massage from someone who hasn’t crossed their mind for over 20 years?

Seriously get a grip 🤣🤣🤣

@Pureshores499 I would have had no issue with an old friend doing what you did and been delighted to hear from them (assuming we'd left on good terms, which I have no reason to believe you didn't with this girl.) I would take the view that sometimes the universe puts people back in our lives/in our lives for a reason! I appear to be in a bit of a minority though, if this thread is anything to go by!

There's nothing you can do but let it go - but try not to overthink things, you really didn't do anything that warrants worrying about in terms of your judgement!

Agree with this. I moved away from my home town when I was 21. I’m now 58

Im very social, got a wide friendship group and very happy with my life. However if someone I knew 20/30 years ago contacted me out of the blue, I doubt I’d respond at all because I have zero interest in reliving the past. I also would have words with my mum for giving my number out.

Bumping into someone randomly and chatting organically is different but even then I don’t think I’d be forthcoming about meeting up again.

@SassK · Today 14:27

It's not everyone's idea of lovely though!
Does it not occur to you that the person you knew at school isn't on facebook because they value their privacy, and have no wish to be swooped on by people they just happened to know at one time? It's very common on facebook for people to use a version of their name that isn't easily identifiable, so it seems a lot of people don't want to be searched/contacted in this way

Yep this. I don't use my real name on Facebook. I used to - pre 2017/2018, but kept getting randoms popping up trying to 'add me as a friend,' who I hadn't seen/spoken to/had anything to do with for 2 decades or more - sometimes 3 decades! Old work colleagues, people I went to school with, people I socialised with for a year in 1989, and people I used to live near (for maybe 5 years or less.) Etc...

Some people, I did NOT want to get back in touch with, and I kept getting pushy messages, and passive aggressive remarks about how they noticed I hadn't accepted their friend request. I thought 'yeah because I don't want to fucking speak to you let alone add you on facebook!' Call me crazy, but I pretty much prefer people who are actually in my life/part of my life, who I see regularly/who is in contact with me regularly to be on my friends list. Unlike some people, I want FRIENDS on my friends list. I know, funny girl aren't I?!'

Most of them were either people I had had fuck-all to do with for many years (20+) or they were people who I had distanced myself from because they were toxic, or they brought nothing to my life, or they were users, or they just made zero effort with me/didn't bother with me much - and it always me making the effort. So I blocked quite a few people who kept sending friend requests.

So now, whilst my real name is Lynda Harris, I go by Lynnie H. (for example!) DH tried to look up Lynda Harris (me,) and my account doesn't come up. So people I don't want to contact me can't find me very easily. In fact, since changing it to Lynnie H, I have had no unwanted contact - or unwanted friend requests.

.

You’re not weird at all @Pureshores499 but I also don’t think your friend is weird for not responding. We’re all at different places in life, you don’t know what’s going on in hers. She might have a reason to want to forget the past. She might have health problems. Or any other things going on that might not give her head space for meeting / chatting with you. I wouldn’t take it personally.
For those of you who don’t believe the op remembered the numbers, I can remember the number of my mother’s work place from the 90s, she hasn’t worked there for 25 years, and also my aunt’s old number which I haven’t used in 25 years also. Can vaguely remember my childhood best friend’s but not 100% sure if it’s right.
*edited for typo

FFS

Obviously I am talking about lovely FOR ME what with not being able to speak for everyone nor knowing their thoughts.

Im not on Facebook for a particular reason, it doesn't mean I wouldn't be happy to hear from someone in my past.

No chasing has happened. No inconsideration or discourtesy has been happening.

JC.

How sad

It's not everyone's idea of lovely though!

Does it not occur to you that the person you knew at school isn't on facebook because they value their privacy, and have no wish to be swooped on by people they just happened to know at one time? It's very common on facebook for people to use a version of their name that isn't easily identifiable, so it seems a lot of people don't want to be searched/contacted in this way (contact that will either be, essentially, I'm just very nosy or I'd like to establish relations of some sort).

There are so many platforms whereupon people can have an easily accessed presence, if someone you're feeling nosy about isn't on any of said platforms, tough! To go chasing them on public forums and such like is just inconsiderate and discourteous.

Wouldn't worry about it, you werent to know her response.
It's not meant to be so leave it.
Don't stop reaching out to people if you want too though.

It would be lovely if there was a way of finding old friends who aren't on Facebook. I found an old friend via friends reunited and a poster on here found me the address of the lady who looked after me as a child. I once asked if someone knew a certain friend on here and replies were don't tell her, she might be her abusive ex. So, it is problematic but I do have one school friend I'd love to know how she is.

It’s not about etiquette, it’s about people’s right to privacy. By all means phone an old number (unusual but quite sweet), but for mum to give out a new number without checking and then to use that number without prior warning would make me very uncomfortable.

It’s less the etiquette than that the method she used may well have determined the response she got. If it had been a FB message, if unwelcome, it could have been discreetly overlooked. If she’d given her phone number to the mother, the old friend then had a choice about whether to use it. As things are, she clearly felt obliged to make a polite token response, which the OP viewed as an invitation to further contact, but her friend clearly viewed as a brush off, for whatever reason.

We can obviously have no idea why she didn’t want further contact. She could be ill or in the middle of a messy divorce, or dealing with a child with significant additional needs, or having a nervous breakdown, or struggling with a demanding job. She might just be busy and not want another social obligation. Or she could be one of those low-energy Mners who regard a ring at the door as an infringement on their human rights!

I’ve never attended a school reunion, for instance, but I did move back to my home city after nearly three decades overseas and have re-encountered by pure chance lots of old friends and acquaintances I’d lost touch with. Some are in a good place, some are ashamed of or unhappy with how their lives have turned out, and clearly don’t want to engage with someone who might judge.

In answer to @BeSpryOrca

Plenty of posters on mumsnet are not British - I'm one of them - I think OP's decision and method of contacting old mate was odd, but her subsequent reaction to being blocked or not further answered to was extremely weird and ott

Exactly this! The OP's old friend from the 1990s has NOT ghosted her. She has simply made the decision to not have contact (and has blocked her.) Because they have nothing between them. They have had no contact for 30 years, and the woman very likely (and understandably) thinks it's odd that the OP has got in touch, and contacted her mother to get her phone number!

That is her right (to not want to see - or speak to the OP.)

There are some rather entitled people on here. 'Errr excuse me, why do you not want to speak to me, or engage with me, and meet up with me...... even though we haven't spoken for 30 years, and only saw each other for a couple of years anyway?!' WTF?

As has been said, the feeling of being punched in the stomach, and feeling devastated by the old friend's reaction is seriously over-dramatic. As a pp said, how on earth do people cope with life in general if they're so affected by some random that they haven't spoke to in 30 years, not wanting to be in touch, and blocking them. The OP needs to forget this woman and move on.

It’s funny how the British are so obsessed about a simple thing like the process by which someone tried to contact someone else and whether it was the correct etiquette.

I think being hard on OP is not helpful or constructive . There’s worse etiquette out there that’s people just do t get challenged on

OP you have absolutely not done anything wrong reaching out but maybe you misjudged your friend or perhaps she has changed since you knew her. If she was like minded to you she would maybe have appreciated the sentiment. However as someone who wants no reminders of their 20s I probably wouldn't have been fussed either. I moved away from my home town years ago and I'm happy not having anything to do with my past 🤣 I still have some close friends but anyone else I'd rather leave as memories. Also I'd like to say, I'm from a city and feel that people from cities have a different mindset to those from rural areas. City people are definitely less friendly and standoffish. Rural communities are more tight knit and I suppose there's no escaping people as they are smaller so you have more chance of bumping into people.

Do you struggle with life in general? The OP literally can’t have been ‘ghosted’ by someone she stopped being friends with in the 90s. She sent an out of the blue message to someone she’d had no contact with in over two decades, and got a polite but brief reply, but no more. The ‘punched in the gut’ response from the OP is out of all proportion.

Me too. Besides, she has been kind- she replied politely to you and didnt want to take it any further. Thats it. She hasn't bullied you or verbally abused you, or been rude to you, she just doesnt want to communicate any further. Thats not "unkind". She didnt even give you her number in the first place!

If she had said "thank you for the text but I no longer wish to communicate any further" I suspect you still would have felt like you'd been "punched in the gut" so she cant really win here because you seem really upset that she doesnt want to meet for coffee. Should she feel beholden to meet you out of an obligation to "be kind"?

Also- it's NOT ghosting - ghosting is when you are in regular contact with someone and then they randomly disappear without any explanation. You cant ghost someone you havent been in contact with in the first place fgs!

You leave your phone number with the mum to pass on, that way you’ve invited contact but not forced your way back in

I think this sort of raw reaction (okay the OP's wasn't quite as visceral, but feeling punched in the stomach strikes as something of an extreme reaction!) is what 'haters' on the chat are picking up.

The advent of social media (and mobile phones to an extent) makes privacy MUCH more difficult than it once was. When all we had was a landline, it was much easier (if you wanted to avoid someone) to not answer the phone or (and I reckon we'll all have did this to guys back in the day that we gave our number to, and then wished we hadn't!) get your fam to say you weren't in.

I'm a private person, perfectly fulfilled with the friends and family I have (the catch up scene actually leaves me a bit cold), so I'm not on FB or insta. In spite of that, I had a one time friend from my teens put my details (including some personal information) on a missing person's FB page! They wanted a friendly catch up, and expected me to feel flattered. In reality it was quite an upsetting experience (I'm not, and have never been, a missing person).

Not everyone wants to bare their soul, indeed not even afford a glimpse into it. Not even to their loved ones, never mind to any tom, dick or harry! And that's fine. It doesn't make a person rude or scummy - it's unsettlingly entitled to think otherwise.

This won't be about you at all.

I've had old friends contact me who I havent seen in 20+ years. I've moved across the world, andnow live a very different and much more liberal life than the small conservative town I grew up in. The few people who have contacted me settled down at 20, have a couple of kids, go to church on Sunday etc.

We had some good times and they are perfectly nice people, but I have no interest in having contact with them again. Our lives have diverged. The past is in the in past. I have briefly replied once to both of them, but have ignored the follow messages.