Have you ever ghosted a friend?

[Lemonllama]

I have seen a few threads where people have been ghosted by a friend. It got me thinking, have you ever ghosted a friend and why? What spurs the act of ghosting?

Yep. Totally self absorbed, only ever talked about how shit her life was (it wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as she made out), always made sure the subject stayed on her woes.
Any attempt to discuss this with her was either ignored or added to her list of woes for me to listen to 🙄
Slow fade did not work.

Yes because they only spoke about one topic ( a hobby) unless they wanted something and as it is/ was my oldest friend and they literally live a few doors away from me whilst I'm a live in carer for an elderly relative and they haven't shown any real interest in seeing me in person for years it just got tiresome for a while and I readjusted myself to that dynamic.

I've also been ghosted for a few months where my friend said they were going travelling to South Asia for a few months and even sent a photo of them at an airport... turns out they were in a new relationship and wanted some space away from everything.

That hurt for a bit but we got over it.

yes, I had an old friend who kept asking for money. She had two kids who were both in care so I knew it wasn’t for them and she was close to her brother and Dad who were lovely, so if she felt she had to ask me who she’s not seen for several years it made me question why those closer to home weren’t giving it to her.

Also had a friend who got in a series of bad relationships including living with a sex offender . She’d have me on the phone at 2am in the middle of her fights with her ex,
crying to me and asking me to speak to him etc but then she’d not only go back to him but would be actively spiteful to me as if she was taking out her relationship stress on me.

When she fell pregnant to a new guy (some drug dealer) she invited me to the baby shower, I made my excuses then just ghosted her. Sometimes you just realise some people aren’t for you any longer and it’s not a conversation you can even be bothered having with them.

I’ve been ghosted by friends too. Can’t remember who or why but I have no hard feelings against them.

Hang on, your friend pretended she was travelling in South America for several months, took a selfie at an airport to ‘prove’ it, but in fact sneaked back home to spend time in her new relationship, while pretending she was trekking in Peru???? How did you find out, running into her in the frozen food aisle in Sainsbury’s and saying ‘No tan, Angela?’?

Yea. She did my head in with her constant one-upmanship and the need to always be right and the pointless lies. She'd turn up at or house and just bring a cloud of negativity. I blocked her number and we were always "out" when she came over. It was funny: we'd all duck for cover when we heard that familiar knock on the door and wait in silence until she'd gone!

It was part of a group chat where we mostly spoke and me and the other friends were worried as we hadn't heard anything so made a few enquiries and it came out. I know it seems irredeemable the way its explained but at the time there was a lot going on

Yes. I had a friend I spent a lot of time in my 20s with. She was lots of fun but could also be quite rude. I started to notice she didn't treat other people well at all. Selfish and irresponsible to her ex. Heavy drinker. Got pregnant by their housemate etc.

It's especially awkward because I was her birth partner. Now we don't even talk.

I started to notice I didn't feel good at all after spending time with her. We just gradually stopped hanging out and then comms dropped off as well, there was no big reason.

But guess what? She's now living with my ex fiancé!

Yeah, we were really good friends lived near each other, spent loads of time together. I started seeing a guy we both knew, she didn't approve and said I needed to choose her or him. I immediately cut her off, I'm still with the guy who is now my husband of 16 years. Last I heard of her she'd stolen thousands of pounds from her place of work and narrowly escaped prison!
I have no regrets.

I’ve done it in my teens. One ‘best friend’ would give me the silent treatment if she perceived I was favouring other friends over her. It would last for days sometimes and I hated it. I moved away and she did it even when visiting me. One day I got the confidence to give her the silent treatment permanently. I never saw or heard from her again (this was 25 years ago). Although a few months later I started to get calls to my mobile from a withheld number with just silence when I answered. I suspected her so one day I got a male friend to answer and say that we knew it was her and asked her to stop. The calls immediately stopped. I feel that I dodged a bullet and have no ghosting regrets!

I have 🤦‍♀️

Every now and then I delete and block people on Facebook who I don't speak to. Imo if you're bitching about me to others and if I see you out and about and you don't speak to me then you don't need to know what's going on in my life.

I had this 'friend' (cling on school mum) who I just blocked on everything. I tried to phase her out but talking less, saying I'm busy etc but it didn't work. She was the type of person who would phone 5 times a day! Eventually I cracked because she would say oh I know you're busy but can we meet up (at the location of her choosing and with me being the driver). I had 1 day off a week so no, my family was my priority.

Anyway she was just very very odd so I think it was justified! We used to live near each other and she'd go for a walk daily and put her head in my lounge window and shout hi! My husband had a go at her. Then we moved away 🤣 she would phone me up crying and complaining about her neighbour, her ex neighbour and her ex ex neighbour, plus other school mums. She told me that she climbs over their fences and looks in their bins to spy on them, that she holds a cup the wall to listen. Funnily enough all of the neighbours were at fault and never stayed long 🤷‍♀️

After a iightbulb moment of realising she thought my dc weren't good enough to be around her dc... After 8 years. Dumped and no regrets. And she was the one with the nightmare dc..

No, not complete ghosting but fast fades and the odd slow fade (there is still hope there I think with better boundaries - but never known it to work long-term).

I'm at the tail end of a slow fade now with an acquaintance (was a close friend) - I just started really noticing how she kept cycling the conversation back to mutual acquaintances/friends with the purpose of comparing herself favourably to them/putting them down in some way. Too many examples of being completely self absorbed/expecting others to treat her way better than she treated them. Jellyfish comments. Way too much bragging - about everything. In between all of that the more minor issue of adding way, way too much detail to every single story making it tedious to listen to. I just wanted to see her less and less up to the point now of not at all.

Yes. A bloke online I dated briefly years ago. Although he is very interesting he fabricate s things to get you interested in him. I finally ghosted him four months ago.

Yes, a best friend who was actually unkind, undermining and enjoyed humiliating me. I was her bridesmaid but shortly afterwards realised she added no value to my life whatsoever, just tension and upset.

I’m not sure it counts as ghosting because I told her I’d had enough and didn’t want to be in touch any more.

I did but we'd already had previous conversations. Then during my baby's leg amputation she barely shown a hint of compassion or empathy for me, I just blocked her and moved on with my life. Felt like a weight off my shoulders tbh

Yes, because her extreme hypochondria and probable lying was doing my head in.

Yes because he was desperate for a relationship despite having a girlfriend. His time keeping was shit and we missed an event because of it

Yes because I got sick of her using me as an excuse to go out so she could meet up with blokes and cheat on her husband - the last time I saw her I was staying at her house & she’d spent the whole night all over some bloke, in the morning her DH was making us cups of tea and asking if we’d had a nice night and I’ve never been so comfortable in my life.

Yes I have both ghosted and been ghosted. When DC were small a friend made constant comments about my decision to stay at home until they started school. I was called 'lazy' repeatedly in a so called jokey way. It was exhausting, I genuinely didn't have any judgement about her decision to return to FT work. In the end I stopped replying to her texts to meet. 2nd time, met a new mum at school gates. Became friendly over playdates and coffee. Became increasingly aware of some very dodgy views about the world, snobby, racist, just awful. My DD fortunately got a space in another school closer to our home which meant I could stop seeing this person. Nearly 20 years on I regret not challenging her more robustly (I made feeble attempts at the time but she was incredibly domineering) but I didn't, I just stopped seeing her. It took her a long time to stop calling and messaging me but I didn't feel any guilt. My DD lost a friend but I didn't ever want her spending time at their house again. She doesn't even remember her now!

@toddlermam how awful. Hope your child is doing well now.

I recently ghosted an acquaintance. We saw each other very infrequently through a shared hobby but swaped memes/jokes. On two occasions she didn't approve of a meme but instead of saying nothing or just deleting, she would have to make a snippy comment. The last time this happened, I thought "oh just fuck off", pressed "block" and haven't looked back.

Like a PP, I’ve ghosted a friend who was self absorbed and highly dramatic. Always needed to be centre of attention and usually did so by being centre of a drama, always a crisis, always falling out with people and ranting about how awful they’d been to her, quite bitchy about other people behind their back (so I assumed did the same about me), etc etc. very quick to let me know if I wasn’t being a good enough friend, all in therapy- speak to legitimise unreasonable demands?
, never any reflection about whether she was living up to her own v high expectations of others. Her social media was always high drama and:or very fake, she had lots of acolytes who didn’t really know her in real life who encouraged all her dramatic over- sharing (incl about her kids) which meant every time I opened instagram I’d end up seeing stuff blah blah blah. Eventually I just completely stopped replying or interacting with her. I knew it meant I would become another one of the bad guys for her to tell everyone else about but by that time I didn’t care.

I've been ghosted by every friend I've ever had so obviously I'm the issue. I'd like to know the exact thing I did but I think it's just me in general 🤔☹️

Yep - someone I was friends with at school, not a nice person but I had known her for a long time. She then bought a flat underneath mine, that was the final straw and I blocked her. Bit awkward as we lived in the same small building for a couple of years but I hardly saw her.

To me 'ghosted' means an actual intentionl act I have lost touch with some people over the years but it happened naturally so I don't remember deliberately not contacting people

Only once and I'm ashamed with the way I handled it. I had this friendship group of three and one of the women (I'll call her Sarah) was quite difficult. Ended up talking about the other one all the time. It's hard to explain but it all became very toxic and I felt I had to break free from her. The thing is, Sarah was actually quite messed up. I knew she wasn't a bad person, just struggling because of her upbringing. I ghosted her and couldn't even tell her the truth when she confronted me. I was cowardly. The friendship ended and that was that but I wish I'd just been honest.
Apart from that one time I tend to stay friends with everyone.