Have you ever ghosted a friend/friends?

[DrowningEveryDay]

Why did you do it?

Yes, a good friend of about 2 years. He started sending me photos of himself dressed as Little Bo Peep. I blocked and deleted all his contact details.

I watched my own daughter do it once.

She was 11 and had spent most of year 6 dealing with the bitchiness and caprices of the class queen bee. A few days after school broke up for summer we went to the village library. Queen bee was there and acting very friendly, trying to arrange to meet up etc. DD was totally non committal, one word answers, no eye contact or anything.

When we got outside I asked her what was going on. She said, "Mum I've played along with her for a year to avoid her making my life a misery. We're going to different high schools so I never need to be friends with her again".

Kind of shocked me a bit to be honest, first time I saw my DD being steely.

Yes, I have quite recently (in the past couple of years) ghosted someone. Let's call her 'Eve.'

Thought she was OK to start with, but after a few months, she turned out to be angsty, moany, self-centred, nosey, boring, demanding, irritating, flaky, and pushy. Her husband was an annoying, lazy, rude, self-centred, sycophant (to people he thought would advance him in life,) and he was also flaky. They were also both users. And we had nothing in common. We just kind of floated together because we moved into this village at the same time (us a few weeks before them...)

Me and my DH started to give them a wide berth about 8-10 months after we met them. He got the hint quickly and floated away, but she kept pushing and pushing, asking me (and everyone we knew,) what was wrong and if I was OK, coz she couldn't BEAR to be 'rejected.'

'Eve' got on my fanny SO much that I ended up dropping 2 hobby groups in the village that I went to - coz all I got from people there was' Eve' says she hasn't heard from you, are you OK?' Nothing about me or my family, (how are you? How is your family?) It was just always about her...

So I quit the 2 hobby groups, pretended I had got a new full time job (when I was part time before,) and drifted away gradually, and ignored her texts, and avoided her in public.

I don't care. I'm not sorry. I don't feel guilty. I can't bear the fucking sight of her face. She stressed me out and got me down, and spending even 10 minutes with her was incredibly draining. She literally gave me a headache when I was with her. She hasn't contacted me for 3 or 4 months now. Thank FUCK. Looks like she finally took the hint. I am glad to be rid of her.

Some people say it's horrible and cowardly blah blah blah, but what else can you do? Say 'I don't like you anymore, you're boring, you're irritating, I hate the sight of your face, will you just fuck off?!'

Coz I don't believe ANYone says that. I do believe that most people will ghost people, and hope they take the hint. No matter what anyone says!

Not yet but I will have to when she moves back to London after her stint overseas. She has turned into a MLM bot so there is really no future for the friendship now.

Yes. I loved her dearly but she was so unable to understand my infertility pain and kept accidentally falling pregnant to men she'd only just met. I supported through the first baby to the point of giving all my DS baby stuff to her and leaving my baby overnight to sort out her flat and help (we live far apart) when the man predictably wasn't supporting her.

I just couldn't do it repeatedly.

I deleted her and blocked her. For my own sanity. I miss her and wonder and hope she ok. But I just couldn't anymore and it was the right decision.

Yes I did I feel bad about it but I tried to talk to her about the way our friendship was going, talking didn’t work. She said and did some spiteful things and I couldn’t keep on with it so I just stopped contacting her. She’s not tried to contact me in all this time about 6 years. I’m always hearing things she’s said and by all accounts she doesn’t get why I don’t bother anymore. It’s a shame though she went through a really bad time a while back I wanted to contact her but decided not to resurrect it.

I’ve been ghosted recently and feel raw about it. It went like this - argument with friend, me giving olive branch, friend-request sent on fb, friend saying they needed more time, me saying ok take your time.

Then friend request was accepted and them suggesting a catch up, then me replying ‘of course when suits you?’ And later following up. But - nothing from them at all.

I am raw because I gave them an easy way to say they didn’t want to be friends and they didn’t need to accept my request. I’m not sure if I’m being ghosted or being punished or something

I’d rather be told tbh than ghosted. Because the shit thing about being ghosted is you’re never 100% sure as you can always wonder maybe they are just busy etc? It’s a horrible slow realisation over time that someone doesn’t want you in their life whereas at least you can move on more quickly after a conversation

I would prefer the gradual ghosting with eventual block and deletion. If you WhatsApp them this makes it quite clear I think.

I've tried OLD and done/had this done to me several times. It filters out till you wonder then you see no profile pic send a hi and see only one tick ever happened and you know for sure 😉 at that point you delete and block yourself and it's all quite clear without any awful "I don't want to be your friend because you're annoying/boring/hard work" etc talk. I far prefer making up in my head someone got busy/fell off a cliff/lost their phone etc as a reason they ghosted me than actually being told I'm a pain in the butt

I did. Once. Complete shut down from one day to the next.

She was a friend having a hard time..that got taken out on me. Every frustration with her life was taken out on me. She was demeaning on a very intrusive level (for example comments about how my breasts moved in a bikini). And this was relentless. She'd been living with me for a while until she got her own place so it was inescapable. When I tried to explain to her she'd upset me, the guaranteed result was her crying about how horrible I was because she was having a hard time. So I felt bad.

One day she did it at a party and my other friends took me aside separately and asked why she was speaking to me like that, it wasn't on etc. What she'd said there wasn't even bad!

After she got her own place and it continued I went away for a weekend and I realised I didn't want it anymore so just stopped answering her messages. Total silence. I did care about her and got absolutely no pleasure in not replying. I felt really bad. BUT it felt "safe".

In hindsight,I wish I had sent one message to say "I have been upset by things for a while, you haven't listened to me when I've tried to talk about it and now I need to take a break. I won't be replying to your messages." So she knew what was happening (a bit at least) and I didn't get the messages I did, which were confused and sad. I was in a kind of fright or flight though and just too shocked by the whole situation to move, essentially.

Yes. She was extremely clingy, really draining and then started making shit up about other people that I knew. I escaped before it would become my turn to be the enemy. And now she's moving two doors down...

Yes, we were best of friends since secondary school. I was always in her shadow. She needed people to listen to her, to follow her, to look up to her. She would brag about this and that and inadvertently I would feel bad about myself. But I didn't realize it back then, I guess I was too desperate to keep her as my BFF. My SO saw right through her though and frequently told me so, but I wouldn't listen. My excuse for her was, "that's just how she is." It wasn't until my mid-20s that I start to really look at our friendship and felt it was lopsided, and my mental health was really drained from her. I felt tired and negative every time I see her. I constantly give, but received less. I even went to see a counselor because of this. So I decided to ghost her.

It sucks, because I miss her. BUT I feel SO much better. I now put my energy into better friendships and I'm a much happier person.

OP, if the friendship is making you feel negative and drained or kicking your self esteem, it's not worth it. Your mental health is most important.

Yes only a couple of times but I don’t regret it. Not everybody is entitled to a place in your life and you don’t owe them an explanation if they’ve been a dick to you.

Mine was a Wendy and Single White Femaled me. I’ve met these types before and would have dumped her sooner except her DP and mine became friends. I got her away from my friends (who could see she was a Wendy) but I couldn’t just tell her off or it would ruin DPs friendship as she was extremely manipulative and would never have let her DP see mine again. So I had to spend a year or so going along to social things, just the 4 of us. Then I got “too busy” and only went on occasion. Eventually she moved away but they were still in contact so I just replied with short and polite texts. Finally I got the text I had been waiting for: she cheated on her DP and he broke up with her. I happily ghosted her from that time on and I’m SO happy about it!

Yes, I have.
Was very good friends with a woman up until we both had children.
She turned out to be an anti Caesarean, anti formula feeling, anti vaxxing zealot who thought working mothers (part and full time) were the scum of the earth.
Fine to have that opinion and keep it to yourself but bloody hell, she banged on about it all the time to me - who gave birth via C section, vaxxed her kids and supplemented breast feeding with formula when I returned to work after mat leave.
I ghosted her because I couldn't deal with the constant negativity and criticism about mine and others parenting and choices.
The actual ghosting was quite abrupt because I returned to work so genuinely didn't have much time to see her.

I think she knew exactly what she was doing so probably wasn't that bothered by the ghosting. I have had a few "would love to catch up" texts which I haven't responded to because I can't be arsed frankly.

Ghosted an ex-colleague almost 10 years ago. Although she wasn't a horrible person, she was pretty self-centred; all of our conversations revolved around her, her career, her love life. One day, I realised I just couldn't be bothered to entertain her anymore and started ignoring her messages and calls. I'd known her for about 7 years at that point and still didn't feel like we were close friends. The only thing I would do differently now is I wouldn't have persisted with the friendship for so long, having never felt an affinity with her.

Yep, done it three times, no regrets.

The first was a friend who pulled the old drama queen gambit of “never talk to me again!” (Over something utterly trivial), expecting me to come grovelling. Instead I never spoke to him again.

The second was a friend I’d dated briefly at university, but turned out to be a liar and a fantasist. He is a terrible person with no integrity, which I did always know, but the final straw was when our mutual friend died (a person I was extremely close to) and he lied, lied, lied about the circumstances of their friendship (which was over at that point).

The third was actually painful (the first two weren’t because they were idiots and I wasn’t that close to them). I won’t bore with the details because it’s a long story, but the two people I considered my closest friends let me down very badly, and it wasn’t so much that I consciously cut them out, more that I found that I found it too hard to say anything to them. They acted like nothing had happened, so I couldn’t respond to them and as time went on it got harder to break the silence. I am back in touch with one of them and she and I are friends again (though not as close). I tried with the other but he won’t concede he did anything wrong, so I see no value in pursuing his friendship.

Hmm, interesting that they’re all (toxic) males, except for the one I’ve reconciled with!

Yes and for the benefit of it mental health which has dramatically improved because of it.

My not it!

Yes, and I have been ghosted, too.

I ghosted a woman I became friends with around the time I went to university. Then my NPD mother 'befriended' her and said friend was lured into telling her things I did not want her to know. I talked to my friend about passing my life stuation on to my mother once, but when it happened again I stopped talking to her completely and blocked her on all social media. She tried to get in contact again several times, but I refused to engage. My mother is still friends with her.

I also got ghosted by a couple fairly recently. They were a miserable pair whose children were running riot and who would let their frustrations in life out on social media by spouting political and anti-religious rubbish, even on Christmas Day, while maintaining a lofty air of seeing themselves morally superior to anyone who didn't share their opinion. Said 'friends' were clearly hoping that after the birth of my last child we'd be as miserable as them. When the opposite was the case and we turned out to be happy, they used my disagreement with one of their political rants as an excuse to block me on social media and stop contacting my husband. We're better off without them.

All women... except for the little bo peep one. I couldn't stop giggling reading that

Yes, I decided I couldn’t put her mental health before my own, and she didn’t respond well to my attempts to ‘cool off’ so I had to just disappear myself from her life.
I don’t blame her for how she was - she had a confirmed MH diagnosis - but I couldn’t be her support system to my own detriment.

Not all women ChinaRose, there’s quite a few references to ‘he’.

Yes - two at the same time.

I realised that every contact was causing me distress, worry, anxiety because of their reaction to a devastating event in my life. I was made to feel guilty about putting my family first when that's what any normal person would do.

So I stopped all contact and they became ghosts of my past.

I feel much happier without the shadow of their 'friendship' hanging over me. Neither of them really tried to ignite the friendship again so that made things easier.

Shame to lose a friendship of over 15 years but there's no point in making yourself unhappy to try and please someone who doesn't really care for you.

Same as NotUmbongoUnchained says:

Yes. I’m quite brutal when it comes to cutting people out if my life.

I had no confidence and was walked over a lot when I was younger. That just doesn’t happen any more. I’ve developed high standards over the years, no longer tolerate disrespect.

I suspect it helps that I don’t need lots of friends these days. I’m very self sufficient and enjoy my own company.