To wonder whether people ever think about the friends they ghosted or dropped for no reason, especially when they did it badly or hurtfully?

A (previously) very good friend ghosted me.

I have absolutely no idea why and neither apparently did mutual friends.

The fact that she ghosted me led to the demise of a friendship group of ten years standing.

However, I’m absolutely sure she had a reason, even if I can’t think for the life of me what it was.

It was very upsetting at the time and I still feel sad years later, but you can’t force someone to be friends with you.

You can’t force them to tell you what’s wrong or why they stepped away, you just have to move on.

I ghosted someone and definitely feel a bit crap about it. We'd been friends for years but over the preceding three years or so, she'd changed hugely. She met someone, he was super religious (but also massively hypocritical), got pregnant and then got married. She, in turn, became super religious, despite having not exhibited any religious tendencies in the many years we'd known each other.

Then, all she did was complain about how life was unfair, that she couldn't afford to live in an very expensive city (not our home town, somewhere else super expensive that she just happened to want to live), that she didn't earn enough etc. etc.

Every time we met up, it was just a whinge fest and I found it to be so draining. Every social media post: whinging, every interaction: whinging. I just backed away and stopped answering messages - I had my own pressures at the time and didn't have the mental wherewithal to bear someone else's too.

There's always a reason.

Agree. The only people I have ghosted are people I spent months or years trying to get on with before realising how toxic/narcissistic/selfish they were. If you look at it the other way round, the person who got ghosted maybe should wonder what they could have done differently.

You don't know they had no reason. A lot of narcissistic parents think that their kids cut them off 'for no reason'.

People who ghost don't feel it was for ‘no reason’. They feel it was a rational decision for them to make.

They tell themselves things like, ‘life’s too short to waste on negativity’ etc.

They feel they don’t have the resources needed for a relationship with that person.

That may mean anything from,
I want to go clubbing til 4am and she doesn’t/can’t afford to
I want to moan about my life but can’t listen while she doesn’t the same

to fairly reasonable,
I have tried several times to explain that I can’t afford to spend three hours a week listening to her and lend her more money.

But they will always feel their reason was rational.

I had a friend do this to me and a few others. Horrible, isn’t it? He never checked in on one friend when she had cancer, and when that friend contacted him to tell him a mutual friends parent had died he gave a half arsed apology saying ‘I felt guilty about never being able to meet up (he made no effort to) and it felt easier to stop contact.’ He has cut out people he has known for 30 years. I think he felt guilty and I know he still lurks on our social media. But in that instance people will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify it. I think for some others the reason they ghosted has led to relief.