To ask how you got over a close (or even best) friend ghosting you

It's something you can't explain. You can't rationalise because you don't know why or what. That kind of thing can stay with you more or less forever so you have to find a way to live with it. It's horrible - kind of like a bereavement but find ways to replace it in your head with other nicer things otherwise you'll drive yourself insane.

I honestly think that we go through phases in life, and friends come and go.

I have fallen out with a few friends for different reasons and felt varying degrees of upset. To be honest, it didn't take me as long as I thought it would to get over the loss.

Get yourself out there and make new friends. We adapt, learn and grow. There will be a reason why you're no longer friends.

As cynical as it sounds, friends serve a purpose, if the friendship is no longer giving you what you need, you move on.

I think I just recognised retrospectively that it had been a situational relationship for them, whereas it hadn’t been for me — our friendship was a stopgap between their divorce and the start of a new relationship.

My best friend did this to me. It really hurt. She was going through a tough time with her mum dying and she took it out on me. One day I wrote her an email saying how I was struggling with the end of our friendship and I got a polite reply basically saying she was sorry I was sad about it but our friendship was over. From that I had to move on.

She did end up reaching out to me many years later saying she missed me and she was sorry. We are close friends now. I did forgive her and she did take full responsibility for our divorce. But from my perspective it’s not quite the same.

One of my best friends ghosted me when we were in our late teens. It took a long time to recover, but luckily I was young and made lots of new friends, which helped. In retrospect she was a dickhead and I’m glad we’re not friends. I don’t want to be friends who people who treat others like that.

It’s happened to me twice aim talking about people who had been in every facet of my life for 40 plus years. I realised quite quickly that they weren’t who I thought they were and much of my feelings about them were based on sentimentality and nostalgia.

I’m completely indifferent about them now and glad I don’t have a false sense of closeness with people who don’t actually give a toss about me.

I’ve got much better, healthier friendships with multiple people and with hindsight I should have binned that pair off years ago.

I was ghosted by a friend in my mid twenties. She had been one of my best friends since secondary school. I've actually never gotten over it. I in fact then left our shared group of friends as the situation became pretty untenable. It was all over something so silly. We could have grown together and I'm sure we'd laugh about it now. I've kept friends at a superficial level ever since really. As a mum it's hard to put the effort in and I've lost newer friends that way, by simply not keeping in touch when our shared interests came to the end of the road. I don't trust anyone not family anymore.

What works for me is thinking ‘well sod you then’. Took 6-12 months. Get an occasional twinge, but don’t give it much thought a few years later

It happened to me when I was in my 30s. It took me a long time to get over it and I couldn't even talk about her without crying. I'm sorry it happened to you too.

@CatesandAle
Happened to me too, best friend, dc the same age and one day she was just gone.

30+ yrs ago before ghosting was called ghosting.

A couple of months later her car pulled up outside my house, I opened the door to her DP stood there, wanted to explain what happened apparently, I let him in, he said she was jealous of me, she thought I was after him, her dp, then he proceeded to try it on with me quite forcefully, scary stuff.

I saw her about 5 yrs ago, she tried to explain that he'd been dripping nonsense in her ear about me, making her suspicious.

I wasn't interested at that point, wished her well and walked off, got home to messages on SM, didn't reply

They weren't a best friend, but l had known over 20 years.

They did the fake ghost, I'd message to catch up they'd reply sure in a couple of weeks, couldn't pin a day/time. After a couple of tries I stopped messaging and now it's been about 5 years.

For me I'm curious why, but I'm really ok with it because as pp said, people do come and go from our lives but sometimes it's just how they go (silent/abrupt/in anger etc) that's the hard bit.

Happened to me too, during a really shitty period of my life. Resonate with a lot of replies here.

I agree with this. One of my best friends ghosted me over 3 years ago now. I was very sad about it, very perplexed, but pretty soon my mindset changed to simply thinking that I don’t need that sort of passive aggressive drama in my life and that if she wasn’t mature enough to have a basic conversation then yeah … sod off. I feel if she ‘came back’ now, I would just tell her no thanks, the time has passed.

It happened to me - friends since age 11 until our 40’s. She was from a wealthy family and I wasn’t but I did well at school and got a good job etc whereas she had a series of low paid jobs and was heavily supported by her parents. Her dad really respected me for that - after he died, she cut me off - I often wondered about that, but afterwards I realised that there’d been red flags over the years and that others had often commented on her jealousy of me which I’d always dismissed. Now, I just think that some long friendships drag on because you knew each other years ago and that’s all you have in common and I feel that it was more her loss than mine.

I was also fake ghosted as a pp put it, eventually messaged her to say that I wished she'd talked to me if she was upset instead of ghosting, which she then still denied! But it helped me move on to say that to her.

I’m not sure you ever do. I never have. It’s been 10 or 11 years and everything that’s happened in those years I do think that she doesn’t know about them.

I do now have the most amazing best friend though, who I have so much more in common with and isn’t a drama llama like my old bf. I would never have become so close to her had old bf been around, and that makes me feel sad because I would’ve missed out on so many laughs and fun times. But I can’t help but wonder the real reasons why old bf decided to do what she did.

For me it’s the lack of closure from ghosting, not knowing why someone has decided to unilaterally end a friendship. It plays on my mind for a while as I try to make sense of it. Time helps to an extent as well as accepting that friends are rarely for life, but with some friends it’s much harder to fully move on.

A couple of people have done this to me - friends rather than very close friends, and a third it was more mutual I suppose.

A few years later I don’t care at all, but I do worry that I might bump into them as they are local. One I have bumped into twice now and we did not speak. In her case it was definitely a case of being useful to her at a particular time, and I could tell from a few comments that she made during the last couple of times we met up that she was no longer interested. It still hurt though but worse made me wonder what is wrong with me.

Generally I am more cynical now and have few friends.

It is a crap feeling but if willing to drop you once,will drop you and others again. They aren't a true friend. If on social media hide them,archive the chat,don't bad mouth them and basically move on

I'm still sad about it sometimes, and it was years ago. But I've realised that it was likely a situational friendship, and while it's a shame, I hope she's OK.

I’m sorry you’ve been this. I think it’s very common. Have you tried a short course of counselling? Could be very helpful in helping you process it and not being stuck ruminating about it for years.

I had a friend that just stopped getting in touch. I’m not sure if she ghosted me, or I ghosted her, but we just lost touch. Our friendship had cooled after I had my child, and then she had her child a few years later. Met up once after Covid. And apart from random messages, never heard from her again. She’s not active on social media or anything. I’m not sure if I’ve done anything to upset her. Life just became busy with work and being a parent. Don’t know if it’s the same for her. Would love to meet up again, but think it’s just too long now

Hi OP

I'm the best friend that did this. I started a new relationship and he was incredibly abusive. She wouldn't have known that. I was so destroyed by him and his abuse that I could barely get through the days and I couldn't bear letting any of my friends see what had become of me. I was too embarrassed. Too fragile. And I miss her endlessly.

She probably thinks I'm a real arsehole. Just disappeared and stopped answering her messages. But you truly don't know what's going on behind closed doors for anyone, not even your best friend.

I wish her every happiness, I really do. But for my childrens sake, I had to save myself in the only way I knew how at the time.

Just another perspective. That's all x

This happened to me when I was 35.

I had a still birth and became very, very unwell. She moved at very short notice (unrelated) when I was sectioned and that was that really.

I felt bereaved and I still do really. I've never been so close to anyone as an adult and I loved her very much.

A few years ago we did meet up for our now teenagers to see each other. Bit awkward. I ended up asking her when we were alone what happened and she said that really she wasn't happy where they were living at the time, she wasn't happy with her work and they had only stuck with it because they were so close to me and my husband.

I don't know if that was true. I do know that some people can't cope with severe mental illness. No judgement on them, full judgement on those say how good it is to talk and share your experience. Because you lose some people you love.

And I loved her very much.