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?

@Usernamechange101 I'm sorry to hear of your problems. I've been there - still am in fact.

I'm sure if you wrote to your friends explaining everything and how sorry you are then they would understand. At least you wouldn't be 10 years down the line thinking 'if only I'd got in touch to explain'.

I wish you all the best

She wouldn't accept that my daughter's father is who I say it is and tried almost daily to get me to "confess" whilst I was heavily pregnant and ill.
She told me I wouldn't cope as a single parent.
She expected me to cover for and sympathise with her multiple affairs.
I knew her for 26 years but I had enough. She'd been the same for as long as I knew her but I stuck with it because I didn't have many female friends when I was younger.

When she told me last year that I didn't have enough friends to get rid of her that was the last straw!

Ghosted a long standing friend because she was spending a lot of time with people who encouraged her less positive traits: snobbery, selfishness etc. She’d restarted an affair with a married man. Her behaviour was so bad at times I was embarrassed to know her. The final straw was some racist comments. I’d intended to drop her gradually but got to the point that I just no longer wanted to know her. She was the sort of person who would have relished a big emotional scene. I wasn’t up for that.

@Usernamechange101

Could you maybe try writing to the person in your friendship group you feel might best understand? Or write to all of them? Explain it the way you have here. Yes, maybe you should have explained your feelings at the time but being unable to have a longed for child is so very hard, especially when you are surrounded by people who have the very thing you are denied. Anyone with a little empathy and imagination would be able to put themselves in your shoes. If your friends are as amazing as you say they are I’m sure they will understand.

Please try to make contact, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Because it's all about her, only she ever has problems, her life is so terrible and no-one suffers as bad as what she has whatever they are going through and the drama Queen behaviour and sharing of pathetic quotes on SM was enough to make be back away big style.

I have been ghosted. No idea why.

I have ghosted somebody - aka cutting somebody out without notice. She was horribly selfish and self absorbed. There was just one too many incidents, where it was all about her, so I gave up. She noticed about 6 months later....

We dont have any contact at all. It was just a fizzer.

I got too stressed by them, and couldnt deal with it or handle any confrontation or drama, so just ignored and pretended didnt exist for a bit, then as time went on, it was too embarrassing to explain

Usually because they are needy/contacting me too much.

I have twice
First time controlling toxic friendship that went on far too long
Recently someone I was friendly with (not super close but friendly) tried to tell me who I should and shouldn’t be friends with and had a strop when I wouldn’t do as I was told- dropped her stone

She was a perpetual drain, and never a radiator.

I found I was always the one that ended up paying. She was ridiculously tight. When she started putting me down I decided I wasn’t going to be her friend any more.

They were poisonous and toxic and I’d had enough. They were fun to be friends with whilst I was younger and loved the drama but as I got older it was tiring and I found they always managed to drag me into it.

I don’t think there’s ever no reason for ghosting. There’s two sides to every story.

I’ve done it once. I had a really good friend, she was married with 2 young children at the time, and she came from a very wealthy family and they owned a house in Barbados and she wanted to use the house in Barbados to celebrate her 30th birthday if people didn’t mind paying for flights. We were so excited. I was single and had the disposable income so was totally up for it. We planned when we’d go and she said a couple of mates were teachers and she had to confirm dates with them.

Next thing I know I’m seeing her husband putting pictures on fb of them all in Barbados celebrating. Without me. I was so hurt.

I sent her a message saying “I didn’t realise you’d all gone already”

Her response? “Well everyone was in couples and I thought you’d feel uncomfortable”

I was so so hurt. I’d been treated that way purely because I was single. I walked away from the friendship.

Test

I've done it a few times, I'm sad to say. Usually because the relationship was one way. Meet ups involved them monologuing all their woes and occasionally briefly after two or three hours asking how I am/family is, then within seconds excusing themselves to go to the loo, take a phone call or text etc.

Once because I realised the friend was a really nasty person behind her style and joie de vivre. She did four things all at one lunch meet up that made me realise she was cruel and I needed to just cut her.

I had a friend of about 18 months who I just had to get rid of recently. She had been having an affair with a married man for 2 years and would invite me out for a drink say and he would just "happen" to turn up. Even at my own house, he'd turn up to borrow something from my husband when she just happened to be there. I felt very used always. She gave not one shit about her fellas wife and small children. Her immoral behaviour, her constant lies about everything, her fairly hefty cocaine habit, the fucking endless DRAMA of her chaotic life and the fact that she would continually look at her phone during conversations, her neglect of her kids, the fact she supported her fella in really terrible fraudulent behaviour and lied endlessly about it just made me want out. We live in the countryside and everyone knows each other, people were always saying to me, "Why are you friends with her?!?" She was starting to put me in a bad light. So one day I just blocked her in everything. I couldn't be arsed to give her any kind of explanation. The relief I have felt not having her dragging down my life any more has been huge.

I ghosted a friend ( after trying to talk to her about it ) as she was a very critical person of everyone and most things in my life . She was rude as well eg she would say "Oh I like your bag - I need to get a cheap one for when I go to blah blah " . She was a nightmare to go shopping with as she was very rude and pushy towards shop assistants and other customers . She was a double edged sword - would say things like "You dress so well" but would then come back with a critical one . It started to make me anxious when she messaged as I never knew what was coming. As I said I tried to talk to her about another aspect of her life ( too revealing to say) and she came back at me saying it was my problem. I just stopped messaging . It was hard after many years but I have lost that anxiety now.

I’ve done it to an entire group of friends I had. One of them who had an issue with me (for something business related) organised a party and they ALL went and no body told me about it. I found out during the party as she lives close to my house and I drove past on my way home. I was absolutely gutted that A they kept it a secret and B no one pulled her up about it. I’m talking 10 people. After that I have completely distanced myself from them all. They all came sucking up afterwards saying that they all felt awkward about it etc etc. But they all still went!!!!! I was absolutely gutted that I meant so little to them. I don’t need friends like that in my life. Sometimes I feel it is justified.

In my case, it was because of stuff going on in my own life and health challenges - nothing the friend had done wrong.

There was a horrible incident a few years ago where a little boy on holiday at Disneyland was grabbed and killed by an alligator..........I spotted a good friend making jokes about it online.

I blocked her there and then and haven't spoke a word to her since.

I have only done it once, but it was because she constantly complained about how her shitty DH was actually really good and he was definitely going to be an involved parent and not cheat on her while simultaneously cheating on her and seeing his kids every other month. She truly believes she'll never find another partner, and I couldn't stand what it was doing to her. "He really DOES love me and want to provide for me, but if I get a job, he says he will stop giving me any money for the children." "He won't call me all week or tell me if he is spending the week with his girlfriend, but I KNOW he will come to his senses and realise we are meant to be together." She is an amazing woman, but he was so controlling and coercive that it really upset me to talk to her about it. Her kids went to a different school and lockdown happened, so it was the right time to drift apart.

She'd probably say I ghosted her but I would say that I had to end contact after she repeatedly did and said things that made me incredibly uncomfortable, despite me explaining several times what effect she was having and asking her to please stop. We have a mutual friend who informs me that she STILL (3 years on!) makes posts about 'thinking you know someone and they abandon you', 'when you think you have a friend and they run away' posts on Facebook whenever the memories feature is a day that we'd been out (as a group of three). She's in her 40s. I think I made the right choice to get away!

I was ghosted by a friend years ago. We were really close but in hindsight she had done it to so many people before I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was just my turn I suppose

I've done it to two.

One was a life and soul of the party type, I thought we were best friends. She, on the other hand, had more friends than you could shake a stick at. After the birth of my dc I noticed that we didn't meet up as often, and one day I called her and suggested we went for a drink together. Oh yes she said, we are always going into town, you'll have to join us some time. It apppeared that I needed to wait until I was asked out to play. So I left it and didn't contact her for a few weeks. The next time I rang her, she made a snide comment about how she hadn't heard from me for a while, and true friends were supposed to keep in touch with one another. She cut the call short because her boyfriend arrived at that moment. Funny, I thought, you are having a go at me for not keeping in touch with you, but you haven't made the effort to contact me. I never called her again. That was about 15 years ago.

The other one always seemed to arrange to see me when she needed something. If she was moving house or decorating, or was having a barbecue, I was always asked round and ended up giving her a hand. The last straw was when she had moved again and the new garden was in an overgrown mess. Come round for a barbecue she said, and bring your gardening tools, lol. Er, no thanks. She is known for the 'share if you know who your real friends are' memes on FB. I stopped contacting her and she's obviously not needed me for anything lately as she's not contacted me either. I dare say she's befriended some other sucker now.

I have only done it twice.

1. She got drunk and verrrrrry ahem inappropriate in front of all my nephews and nieces and made a pass at my DH At first she accused me of lying about what she'd done, and then when confronted by many corroborating witnesses told me I deserved it for being a bad friend. Not sorry I did it.

1. She had been very ill, I had three successive and very late pregnancy losses. Apparently I didn't visit her enough, though. Still not sure whether I was OK to have done it.