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?

She was self absorped, boring and a pain to be around, I'm afraid - but I'm sure you aren't. She was someone I met in later life via a shared interest so not a deep friendship, but one I'm not interested in carrying on. I tired to wriggle out but in the end just had to ignore her.

Another friend I have ghosted I guess was one who acted like a complete brat towards my children. She kept talking over them, screamed at them (literally aaaarrrrggggghhh scream in their face). I then reflected on our friendship a lot. I found her very hard work. Constantly excusing her with other people for being 'forthright' and strong. Actually she was just rude. I made the decision at a big event. There was a group, everyone had been sent information and messages galore and everyone seemed on board. Then she marched up to me demanding to know what the plan was, why wasn't I more organised, it was so rude. Now extra plans had been put in place to support her as she had a small child etc and everyone had made sure it was easy for her, lifts, car seats organised in fact a whole couple (that she knew and liked) to support her all day. I felt I had to leave (put my own children to bed) and she came to my room and carried on and on.

So I gritted my teeth through the event. Then cut her out. Oddly enough a different friend said some weird stuff about her behaviour to him that night as well. Saying she'd completely gone for a character assassination on him. I feel as though she was spoiling for a fight.

I later found she accused me and the other friend of having a breakdown becoming paranoid and of hallucinations (two people at the same event?). Well rid.

@thepeopleversuswork common theme, some friends get confused about how much it's reasonable to expect from you!

Also, if they tell you their problem and you see the solution and suggest it and it's ignored for years and years, it is frustrating. I know they say don't give advice if it's not asked for. But if you have spent years trying to give a friend a bit of a steer........... and it's rejected repeatedly, it's simplistic to say that you rejected them. That's how I see it. My old friend, she was not going to take a leap. I get that the welfare trap is a real thing. My friend had real fears. But she had no faith in herself to make it work.

@ElizaDeee oh that's rude! Happy to take take and splurge with more exciting friends?! I wouldn't have let that situation go on indefinitely either.

Extremely self centred behaviour to the point where every conversation was about her and her problems. They were also small problems like someone had been rude to her at work, or bad period pains. It wasn't life or death.

Any advice given wasn't the right advice or there was a reason why she couldn't resolve the situation- it got boring.

Her nice boyfriend dumped her for probably the same reasons as I distanced myself. She then went on a few tinder dates and got pregnant to someone else in one month. She's had the baby and her family are paying her rent and looking after them both. We are almost 40, I wanted someone more mature to be honest.

Ive "cleared" out so many people over last few years.

Notable reasons:

A friend that would text to "check in".. this meant 3 or 4 texts digging for how my life was going, so I would open up, then ask her how she was and her family and I would get "ok"
Suggest to meet up, I would get a none committal response. I got the feeling I was nothing but gossip. So I cut it off.

She tried for ages to get back in touch, going through mutual friends to ask me 'why'
She gave up in the end, I think.

Another friend, which hurt, been close for years, but steadily our friendship unravelled, I think I tried to hold on for far too long, he was quite lazy with it, and I found less and less in common with him.
What broke it is me telling him something in confidence and him going straight to the person in question and telling them, which caused some problems when I was already going through a tough time.
We talked, he apologised, and we saw each other a handful of times after that, but I found that I just felt like I couldn't trust him, and that I felt resentful towards things going well in his life, in the end I changed my number and cut it dead.
He has since tried to initiate contact and ive been encouraged to contact him, as "he has no friends and feels lonely" (this is untrue. The circle with his partner is huge and consists of my old friends)

I resented the loneliness line as I have felt very lonely at times, where as he and his partner have active social lives and friends/family... but I am now also suspicious of people and aware of my own feelings when I compare myself to others, I think ive generally been happier with less people around me and im making better lifestyle choices.

Its a mix of my disappointment in people, and my own personal issues that have made me go AWOL, and understand why others have, historically done the same in the past.

Mine came back after 2 years no explanation.

Her boyfriend had dumped her though when she came back. Says it all

I ghosted a friend a few years ago. She had always been quite high maintenance, but she could be funny and kind, so I was ok with that. Then I had a very peculiar month where I suffered three bereavements close to each other, and she just didn't want to know. Wasn't there for me at all, and said some quite unpleasant and insensitive things. I just snapped and haven't been in touch with her since. During lockdown (and esp after reading lots of posts about ghosting on MN) I started to feel really bad about doing this, and began writing her a letter to explain.. but then ripped it up. It feels like it's been too long now.
Recently one of my friends has disappeared from Facebook. No idea if I've been blocked, or if they're just taking a break, or if something awful has happened, or what, and we've no mutual friends so I can't find out. It's a funny friendship in that I don't have any contact details for them outside of Facebook, we just used to chat on Messenger, but it's made me realise how unsettling it can be.
I don't think ghosting is very nice, but it's the easiest way for people who don't like confrontation, or aren't very assertive.

Because she’d always been passive aggressive and self centred, as well as something that would be outing if anyone I knew saw this

She was on her fourth affair with a married man with young DC and would not accept that what she was doing was both horrible and inevitably going to end in tears and something I wasn't going to support her in. Fourth affair with a married man with DC. Her fourth. She deliberately set out to have these 'relationships' and yes, selfish and judgemental of me but I was just done with it all. She wouldn't talk about it or accept any criticism.

Years ago 17 + when I was in my first year at uni I made the decision not to contact a friend again. To see if she'd bother contacting me. She didn't. We'd been friends through school. But she wasn't that good a friend by then. She'd got a boyfriend and was just interested in him. Which is fair enough I suppose. We also started to drift apart in terms of interests and views etc as we became adults. So it was a fizzel out I suppose just kind of hastened by me.

It's not something I'd do now tough as an actual adult. Especially as we'd been close. Friendships do changes as life changes. That's OK but to just cut someone off is cruel. Have you asked what's going on?

I think we are never taught how to break up with friends.

If it's a relationship, you have a script, you get bored you decide to move on and you say "it's not you, it's me, I think we shout just be friends" and generally that's enough to just end things (and I actually do stay friendly with 99% of them and occasionally like their Facebook posts)

But I can't imagine having that chat with a female friend who I grew bored of? I'd clearly not want to be friends anymore, just friendly/passing interest.

So one ghosts rather than have that discussion.

I have done it once, met someone on a specific friendship group, met for drinks and just didn't gel. Luckily I moved town a week later.

Because I was sick of her “me! me! me!” Attitude.

She text asking when we could have a coffee & I explained I wasn’t really up for it as I’d been really unwell for some time and had just been diagnosed with a lifelong condition and I was struggling. Her response.....

“I’m Ill too, I’ve got a right cold”.

I was ghosted by a friend I went out with most weekends for years until I had a baby. Then I was no use to her anymore. Ten years on she is still single and living with her parents.

Just remembered another. Your average cf hit me up for childcare, I lent her money for speeding fine, parking fine etc never paid me back (She and her husband were both in good jobs, I was a single parent). She has sent me multiple 'I miss you' messages (But only since her own marriage went to shit, I hear from a mutual friend she's always asking people to babysit etc).

I did it because someone I didn't like was muscling in on the friendship.

''................and l just got to the point l realised she wasn't helping herself so thought why am l helping her? I tried the nice and gentle approach because l thought maybe she had depression but then l decided she just wasn't my problem. Harsh but true.''

This was it in a nutshell for me too. Different circs, but same sentiment.

And I felt bad at times wondering if I was trying to give her advice. But no, the crux of it was that she wasn't helping herself. That was torture to watch. I'm not a person who goes around advising.

What a sad thread. Sorry OP. Some people are just cruel. If you have a problem with a friend, try speaking to them about it.

MLM
need I say more?

I did, friend of 20 years. She behaved as if she utterly loathed me and complained about everything I did, and continually gave advice that I knew would make my life worse. Basically she was jealous and became classic abusive. She did have mh issues but I explained many times that friendship was not about me being her punching bag. I eventually ghosted her one year when I had been fretting about what to get for her birthday - it was always such a massive deal, sad face when it wasn't exactly what she wanted (always costs over £100 quid), always asked for the receipt the second I gave it to her. This one year I just thought why am I bothering worrying about it. Birthday came and went, I never spoke to her then or since. I'm not proud of it at all but I was at the end of my tether with her.

It's highly unlikely that anyone is ever ghosted for "no reason" or "no issues".

It might be something you've done but lack the self awareness to have realised.
It might be that they've tried to tell you what the issues are and you haven't made any attempt to put things right.
It might be that they have problems in their own life and if you haven't noticed then you're not really that good a friend.

Obviously on MN a poster will give their own version of events and will be told that they sound lovely, the ex-friend is a complete bitch and it's their loss. I'm not saying that never happens, but it'll be a lot rarer than it would appear to be on here.

@burnoutbabe this is true. I like to think that if a friend is getting frustrated with me I instantly feel aware that I'm going on about my job too much and I stop (or whatever).

A lot of people lack this ability to take the temperature of the friendship I think.

I've had a lot of friends for a long time and I've taken the temperature of the friendships over different stages or my/their life.

I'm 50 now but when I was younger and friends had a new babies, I expected that they would have very little time for me for a while!

I ghosted my mother's old friend who kept on and on and on at me for contact with me and the kids. I never liked her, even my mum only kept in touch out of duty (and then died so I inherited the chore), and weirdly I never got the impression that she liked us much either - she was always so stern with the kids. I just stopped answering. I did feel a bit sorry for her as she was clearly lonely but she was just so demanding, and not short of her own family/friends. She got the message in the end.

I'd arranged to meet her to go shopping, she was "running late and waiting for a tradesperson to give her a quote" After I had waited for a few hours I text and said I was setting off and I'd meet her in town, she replied moaning about unreliable tradespeople and she was fed up of waiting. A couple of minutes later I walked past a cafe and saw her sat in there with a friend of hers, she was supposed to be at home and I'd just needlessly waited around for nothing. While I was stood at the window of the cafe I text again she replied she was on the bus and we could meet at the post office. I walked away, didn't meet her, didn't reply to her texts, deleted her from FB ... as far as shes concerned she has no idea what she's done wrong.

I’m terrible at conflict and couldn’t explain to her that she totally and utterly overwhelmed me, that was it.