To think that ghosting friends is just mean?

[thereareflowersinmygarden]

Just that really. A few people have done it to me over the last couple of years. Clearly I'm doing something wrong but since it's apparently socially acceptable to just ignore people like that, I have no idea what.

Sure this sort of behaviour was considered rude at one point.

I don't know. I get how it's mean and maybe cowardly but I'm sort of hoping that I'm doing it now. I was quite friendly with a woman from my old mother and baby group as our son's often played together. I found her slightly overbearing but nice enough. But as I got to know her more I found her increasingly overbearing and very entitled. Her kids trashed my house whenever she was here and she'd just sit there. Unless I'd attempt to stop the mayhem, then she'd completely undermine me. I'm pretty laid back about kid's play but this wan't play it was destruction. Once I came back into the playroom to find her two kids climbing the shelves of a 6.5ft high unit, throwing things off it while she sat and watched them. When I told them to come down, they refused and she told them to continue on, it was fine. That was the last time they've been in my house.

This year our kids are in different school and we won't be at playgroup anymore. I avoided it for the summer unless I knew she was away. And tbh, I never, ever want to hang out with her again. I've made my excuses with regard to her kid's birthday party and I'm really not going. (Last year I made excuses for the date, so she moved the party.) Sure I could tell her I don't want to be her friend but it just seems easier to let contact fall away now that we've reached a point of our lives where we have no reason to see each other.

Someone has done it to me. We're still on social media but it's all just a manipulation game to her.

She's gone through a bad patch. Divorced (she had an affair and then walked out on him) but she's struggled as the guy she was seeing after the divorce was also married and just used her.

I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt but she made me feel very insecure and she just wasn't a nice person (talked a lot of shit about her best friend as just one example)

Then she found out that our other friend had gossiped about her and she cut us all out.

I'm happier without tbh and her best friend and brother have since made a few comments in regard to the situation (siding with me), this has made it easier to handle because for a long time, I thought it was something I had done.

I hadn't.

Isn't it more likely they have something seriously wrong in their own lives and aren't able to deal with the emotional work of a friendship? Many people withdraw under stress. I don't resent them for it.

@GreenPimpernel Thank you so much. Makes perfect sense but I think that I've possibly been a little too 'me-centric' to realise it

about half a dozen

If you haven’t done anything that you know of, do you think someone could be causing trouble for you? Do these people all know each other? Could someone be spreading rumours?

Or the flip side is that there is something you are doing to wind people up and you are completely oblivious to it. Sorry if that sounds harsh. The fact that it has happened multiple times would make me think twice.

They don't all know each other.

I have ghosted a couple of times for these reasons:

1. this person was making me feel a bit used and bullied. During our evenings out she would suddenly phone a taxi (mid conversation) and say she was going home, she never checked or offered to drop me to the nearest tube station like I had always done with other friends - just abandon me in London for her free cab (her company paid for her cars). She was excruciatingly rude to people and had awful nasty outbursts in public forums at them, it made me feel so shocked.
   Then really the main reason: I was taking about my now DH and she sniffed and told me that she would never date anyone who worked ina shop. I didn’t want a big confrontation, but I didn’t want to go out of my way to spend time with her anymore. I didn’t really get anything from the friendship so I just stopped being her rent a friend. She called and texted me and I didn’t respond then she defriended me on FB. Thank god.

2. flakey people. I wouldn’t say I fully ghost as happy to get back in touch when they’re ready but I hate people cancelling plans or pretending we didn’t make any!

It may be the kind of people you make friends with op. Some people are fickle and move on to new friendships without a care.

Isn't it more likely they have something seriously wrong in their own lives and aren't able to deal with the emotional work of a friendship? Many people withdraw under stress. I don't resent them for it.

This is also a very good point - I have a tendancy to withdraw when stressed, not to the point of ghosting good friends, but I can easily see how someone might withdraw entirely because they’ve got something very stressful happening and they simply can’t cope with socialising on top of that.

@papayasareyum

I feel so opposite about this; I’d rather be “dumped” every single time, honestly.

My friend switched her attitude after I left my XH and got into another relationship and had a baby with now DH in very quick succession, she could not contain her disapproval and dislike of the choices I’d made yet I gave her opportunity and time to be straight with me; heck I’d have even accepted a “time out” as she had her own issues at the time to thrash out but she treated me like a cunt and I was bewildered for about 18months before I twigged what was happening and made the cut for her.

This is the truth: bar the death of my mum losing her as a “B”F was like death by 1000emotional paper cuts - just because she never had the balls to say “we’ve both changed and it’s not working so let’s just call it a day”

That would have saved months of heartache. I’m still angry 12 months on.

I'm doing it with someone at the moment. She is so self-absorbed, demanding, wants me to be at her beck and call, intrusive, nosy and often quite catty. I find it exhausting and like others, don't know what else to do. She is not good at reading between the lines though so I have to persist. It does feel shitty but I need rid of her.

I have ghosted a few people, usually it's when I've spent months trying to arrange a meet up and they keep saying they're busy on that day/time yet they live 3 minutes round the corner and find time to see everyone else. After feeling like shit for ages because they obviously don't want to see me but are happy to string me along I decided to take control of the situation and remove them from my life, delete all numbers, take off fb, Instagram and all that. Never heard from them again and felt much better after. I do not owe them the courtesy of an explanation after being messed around for ages and I feel well within my rights to ghost them.

I've not ghosted anyone as such, however I am no longer making any effort with an old friend of mine. We've been close friends for about 30 years now but over the last few years something has changed, she makes no effort to spend time with me makes plans to sometimes but always cancels at the last minute - the one notable exception being on the occasion that she really wanted to see a film at the cinema. I know she has a husband and children now (as do I) but from what I've seen on FB she has plenty of time to spend with other old friends. Other old friends that she always claimed to not like and has said plenty of horrible things about, and in one case something seriously messed up happened involving one of these "friends" yet she is apperently very happy that this person is now dating her brother. I was sent a message asking if I'd be interested in having a reunion with several friends from the village, replied that sounded great and then they had it and didn't invite me?!?!

So I just can't be bothered any more, deleted the lot of them from FB and left them to their weird little playground dramas, I really don't have the patience for flaky people anymore.

I've gone completely NC with a friend before, simply because every single conversation we had was such hard work. I don't know if she was deliberately misconstruing everything I said (whether in person or online) or if she genuinely didn't understand me. Plus, I noticed that things she told me toward the end of our friendship contradicted things she told me when we first met, which made me wonder if she was a compulsive liar. I'm not sure which parts of her story were true, and I no longer care. I was especially when she told me that she had a habit of stealing things from friends' homes when she visited them. So, no more. I have enough anxiety without having to worry about that!

I had to do this to a school mum who used me over and over for child care. She would invite me over for wine at the start of the school year and told me to bring my diary. She would then proceed to check what holidays I had planned and when I could look after her kid, overnights, after school, lifts to school clubs etc. It was all one way and making excuses got exhausting as she would just turn up or make scenarios where I was forced to take her kid, eg telling me she'd drunk too much wine so could I collect her daughter.
I cut off contact as I do t like confrontation and she wouldn't see it that way anyway. I've noticed she's moved onto another Mum poor thing and I really wish I had the balls to say something to the new Mum being used.

I'm definitely not flakey either.

I do have a very flakey friend though and it is infuriating. We still chat on WhatsApp Facebook etc, and when he run into each other at work. I never make plans to meet up though- can't be bothered with her forgetting or not showing up. My time is too precious now I have a family.

now I have a family is that what has changed? Do your old friends have children?

I ghosted a so-called friend when I just came to the end of my tether. The relationship had always been about her and her various crises and dramas. She was also always borrowing money from me for drink, and expecting me to feel grateful when she paid it back, only to borrow more within the next couple of days. One day, shortly after my DH's death (whose funeral she didn't attend because she had a headache), I was feeling particularly low and mentioned it to her. She expressed surprise, and asked me why. I said, slightly irritated, "because my husband just died". She sneered, "Oh, that!" and carried on telling me about some argument she was having with a neighbour. A few days after, she phoned me at 11pm asking for a larger sum than previously. I said I hadn't got it and told her I was going to put the phone down as it was late and I had been asleep. I received a furious email from her a couple of weeks later, saying she had only been my friend because she was so fond of my DH (she had been the cause of a lot of arguments between us because he really disliked her and didn't want to have her in the house). We live opposite each other and I don't acknowledge her when I see her, although she occasionally sucks her teeth when she passes me. I feel well rid of her, and really regret all the times I spent trying to defend her to my DH.

I think I’d far rather be ghosted out than endure the humiliation of being sat down by a friend who then explains in painstaking details exactly why they no longer want me as their friend.
This ^^ !!
I've half-ghosted a couple of people - one because we were never really friends but she wouldn't (and still won't) take no for an answer & she's really self-centred. The other because she'd lied to me and was very needy (and wanted to borrow a large sum of money off me - I said no but the fact that she'd asked told me that she thought I was a mug). I make excuses to not meet and if they really won't take the hint then I'll ignore their contact. Yes I could spell it out but I don't think that telling someone they're self-centred is a very nice thing to do. Letting a 'friendship' slide is nicer imho.

Some do, some don't. Some are friends made through the kids. Another is a school friend of nearly 40 years, another of 30 and a uni friend of 20 years. It's sad and I have no idea why.

I think gently ghosting and creating distance is kinder than telling them why you don’t like them. If they have done something obvious they will know anyway. Nobody likes being dumped, believing that you’ve grown apart is easier to get over than being dumped and told why.

can you think of anything it might be?

It does seem strange to have been thisyedby 6 different people - I wouldn’t have thought it was that common? Are you sure your expectations of your friends are reasonable and that you’re using the right definition of ghosted? I think it’s normal for friendships to change or to drift apart sometimes so that contact becomes less often and messages sometimes get missed but I wouldn’t always view this as ghosting. Have they all literally and suddenly cut all contact with you or is it just that the friendships aren’t as close as they used to be?

I’ve ghosted friends. My mental health is so fragile, I just can’t cope with friendships. I feel so sad, these are genuinely lovely people I care about but I just can’t cope with people anymore. I can’t afford the costs involved with friendships (travel, gifts, cards etc).
I’d gone through some really bad family shit and felt like a complete drain on them and the world. It was easier to just withdraw from them then risk being let down or having to deal with everything that goes with maintaining a friendship.

I know it hurt them and I’m sorry they didn’t deserve it and they do deserve better

I did it once; I ghosted my uni friends after finishing uni and returning to my parents'. I still feel pretty shitty about it, but I was really struggling with my mental health and I just couldn't cope with keeping up distant friendships, so I just stopped. It took a long while to get back to being more than a barely functioning human being, and by then I was too embarrassed to get in touch and apologise for my behaviour. I've thought about it in the 10 or so years since, but I think it would be more about easing my conscious than anything for them, and that puts me off reaching out.