If you’ve ghosted a friend why did you do it?

[friedshrimp]

Just that really. Recently ghosted by a friend with no explanation - there were no issues, everything was fine and we chatted almost everyday. Why does it happen?

"I'd be tempted in that case to say, really? Must have a chat with them, I didn't realise...
Because chances are the 'friend' is making it up. "

No, they're not made up. They all sound believable and I suppose people do say these things in an offhand way. It's not usually meant to reach the person being spoken about.
I am still considering confronting the person who said I looked 'sickly', but it would obviously just create huge awkwardness and not be of any real benefit.

I've ghosted former friends from uni who were happy to be friendly and whatnot as long as I always initiated plans and conversations. One day I just didn't. If they have noticed they haven't said anything to me!

Mashing the compost I agree this idea of relentless positivity and positive thinking has its problems. It denies and dismisses normal human reactions of sadness, pain and anxiety during tough times in our lives, and makes you feel even more shit if someone tells you to 'think happy thoughts' when you're depressed. Of course no one wants to be around someone who moans about every little thing and never does anything to help themselves, but we should be allowed to feel sad sometimes and to admit we are struggling. Fun as she was, I didn't want to stay close friends with someone who belittled/denied my feelings when I was at such a low point.

Lots of food for thought on this thread. It's so interesting to read the huge variety of expectations of friends and what we can offer them in return.

She was emotionally abusive and controlling of me and I was very weak and confused at the time as she isolated me from my other friends over the course of our friendship. I couldn’t have ended the friendship by speaking to her without her manipulating me out of the decision (like she did to her boyfriend at the time who also tried to end the relationship due to her being too controlling).

If I had been as assertive as I am now then I would have ended it in a less cowardly way. I have never before then or since fallen out with a friend or ended a friendship.

I ghosted a lady, but I viewed her as a work acquaintance. We both worked in a horrible office where bullying was the norm and I really appreciated having her there as she was nice and a smile or a kind word would go a long way during an awful day. The overall atmosphere in the office was so bad I ended up offf sick with my mental health for three months.

Finally we both left and got jobs elsewhere and she asked to meet me for lunch, but all she ever wanted to talk about was the old office and my breakdown. During our last meet up I asked at the start that we didn't discuss it. My mental health was improving and by discussing it I felt like I was being dragged back to a dark place when all I wanted to do was move forward. She stared at me blankly for 30 seconds then just continued talking about it as if I'd said nothing. At that point I reliased she was reveling in my misery.

After the lunch I blocked her from everything she has since created three new email addresses to contact me and has messages of two new numbers. I've just continued to block her I just don't have the strength to go there.

Because she was just plain fucking rude and dismissive, and I grew up.

TBF I didn't ghost her but just stopped bothering to contact her, and she never bothered with me again either.

She made me really unhappy. She was always belittling me, telling me she wanted to do something and when I said I'd go with her, telling me she'd already arranged to go with another friend of hers. She also became very into her church and preached all the time.
The final straw came when I was very agoraphobic and she persuaded me to go to another city in her car. We stopped at a motorway service station and had lunch. Afterwards I went to the loo and when I came out she was gone. I had a massive panic attack and found her sat in her car. I made her take me home and she ridiculed me for being pathetic. She still texts me occasionally but I don't answer. Im protecting myself.

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay

MLM need I say more?

Many a friendship has gone to the wall over an MLM. Monitising for friends never goes well does it?

Monitising your* friends

I was ghosted a few months ago by a very close longstanding friend. We had long conversations every week during lockdown and had been there for each other over the years.
I know why she ghosted me as she posted on Facebook about it though she completely twisted what happened and said I had ghosted her after refusing a favour. In reply to her post people were sticking up for me and she has now taken her post down.
I did refuse a completely outrageous request from her but continued to check in on her until sometime after she stopped responding.
I miss the relationship we had but still feel offended about her behaviour. I have had it suggested that, as we were such good friends, I should reach out again, but don't feel like it though I would accept if she reached out to me.

I did it because she was needy and boring. She had 2 topics of conversation- her family or her job. She never wanted to do anything or go anywhere and I could not face an eternity of hearing about her kids, her husband or her job on rotate.

I have a friend i would like to ghost but can't as I am Godmother to her child.
She's made bad life choices and moans endlessly about her life. I sympathised for several years, but hearing the same moans everytime we meet gets tedious, when the problems were of her making and entirely foreseeable. But her children are lovely and I can't cut my Godson off. So greyrock is where we are at.
And I make sure that I am never 1 to 1 with her, keeping our children within earshot at all times limits her opportunities to moan.

@itsakindarabbitrabbit interesting about the NCT group - I was ghosted from mine as I was the oldest mum by 10 years; took a while though and to be honest I wasn't bothered, I hear they all fell out now. But ghosting groups - yes I was in a mutual interest group and it was really bitchy, anyone who didn't attend was torn to shreds. So I simply stopped accepting invitations said I was busy but thank you etc., and then it got REALLY nasty with people sending nasty messages, confronting me in the street. Don't want to say what the mutual interest was but it was fairly innocuous like the local WI group.

I'd wanted to remain on speaking terms so still used to wave and say hi but apparently it was all or nothing. Either I make jam with them, or I am dead to them.

I have a friend that I've taken a step back from since lockdown started. For about 6 months before that I'd come to realise that conversation was always about her and her daughter's hobby that she's very, very involved with. If I mentioned something happening with me, the conversation would be very brief before quickly going back to her. She's racist, anti-gay, intolerant to anything that's not English British and lacks empathy for, well, basically anyone who's life is not as perfect as hers. The number of times that she and her husband have come out with racist and intolerant remarks over the last year or so have increased and I get the feeling that they're looking for me to bite. All of this while being a good evangelical Christian. She is also very good at playing the victim. I used to think she was quite naive and sheltered and existed in a little bubble, but I now think she's just not a nice person.

She has done something in the last fortnight though that has been like stabbing me in the back. Her complete silence over the matter tells me that she knows exactly what she's done/doing and knows that it jeopardises my business. What's ironic is that one of the things she's complained and intolerant about, she is now using to promote her own business.

We have things that link us outside of the friendship and I need to have my ducks in a row before I do anything, but I hope to be completely no contact with this person by the end of this year. I may or may not tell her why.

Sorry for hijacking the thread - just needed to rant.

I ghosted one of my oldest and probably best friend last year. We are both mid 40's but i had gone though a sudden menopause after several rounds of failed IVF. That and the stress of the IVF and the heatbreak of it not working devetated me and I aged terribly over the course of a few years. Beauty and skincare had always been our thing, a shared passion but when I aged so much and looked so awful all that stuff became a painful reminder to me o f what I'd lost with feelings about my looks and youth tied up with my fertility or lack of.

She on the other hand was happily childfree and has barely aged a day since our teens, which is fine but she didn't seem to get that I didn't want to talk about that stuff and have it rubbed in my face that I was an old dried up hag which is how I felt at the time. She still wanted to go browsing in spacenk and department stores of get facials together. If we did she would get oohs and aahs over her skin while I was look at with pity and told not much skincare can do about that had I considerd filler, a thread lift.

I tried to explain to her how I felt and she said she understood but she kept circling back to it each time I saw her. I get that she was just following an old pattern but it made me pissed off and I was annoyed that she couldn't get. Looking back their was an element of envy, that she was happy and she still had her looks and seemed undamaged which I know isn't true.

I do now regret what happened but it feels a bit too late to fix things.

Twice. Both totally were not there at all when I was having the worst times. So no I don't feel guilty- they were never really friends apparently

I was also ghosted once. I eventually asked if I had done anything wrong and was told no, but her fertility problems had destroyed her and she couldn't bear to be in contact with anyone who had children. Obviously I was saddened, but I accepted and respected it.

My former friend kept begging for stuff. I told her to get a job and never spoke to jer again

I was ghosted by a friend because I found out her brother was gay. This was a big secret that the parents couldn't find out about. I think she was afraid that her brothers life could be ruined if I slipped up. Being gay was not accepted in their culture

Because I hate confrontation and this particular person refused to take no for an answer and has caused me so much stress over the past 4 years...made my life an absolute misery and continues to do so...

The only time I have ghosted may not count as ghosting. I let it fizzle out intentionally but taking longer to reply to messages and never initiating. I know he was very hurt. The reason why I ghosted him was because he confessed to me that be knew he was so special and that he thought he may be a god. It was only then that I realized how arrogant and narcissistic he was. He was an interesting guy with similar interested but thought that he was gods gift and was always talking about how people liked him so much. I felt so cringed when he told me the god thing but I think he expected me to worship him from then on. Could you be friends with someone who genuinely thought they were a god?

Ghostinģ a friend? Such dramas! They just stop contacting you cos they have busy lives or stop getting much out of the relationship or cos they were never that invested anyhow. It's life. No worries

She was jealous I got engaged before her, even though I’d been with my now DH since Uni and she’d only been with her boyfriend a year. Made snide remarks about everything from my wedding dress, to my best friend being MOH, to the seating plan. I’d made her a bridesmaid so this was particularly painful.
After that, I realised she saw everything as a competition, not just my getting married first, and every time I spent the day with her, I’d leave feeling crap about myself from all her little comments.
I have no idea why she saw me as someone to compete with, but that’s not friendship, and I ended up just walking away.

i was ghosted by my male friend, we've been friends since were kids and he just suddenly stopped contacting me or replying. It was upseting but I eventually got the message.

About a year goes by then I meet him in town, he seems so pleased to see me, big hug and I'm like . It turns out that his wife who I've also considered a friend for years suddenly took the himp with me. I'd recently lost a bit of weight and I had a new job and she felt unhappy at her husband being in contact with me. The last time I'd been over at their house it caused a big argument and she made him promise to stop all contact with me. He did so to try and save his marriage, they ended up divorced anyway and i have my friend back, he's better off without her.

Because her child was literally terrorising mine every time we met and my dd was particularly traumatised one day. After being locked in a cupboard. Friend thought it was funny and was so impressed with her 'spirited' child who could do no wrong. I also realised her life revolved around her child in such a way that every single sentence was about her kid. I couldn't talk to her without having to praise her child in some way shape or form so decided to just forget it. Haven't looked back.