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've let friendships fizzle out before for various reasons. A woman who was my closet friend in my teens and 20s but was actually an awful person. She very much saw people as a resource to use up or manipulate to her own ends. She was charismatic and at one point could be good fun but as she got older her meanness and coldness came to the fore more. It was never enough for her to do well she had to make others feel bad. Some of her behavior was terrible and she very narrowly escaped prison for something she did. Her parents gave her money to move overseas and start a new life and I admit I used that opportunity to lose touch with her. I escaped fairly unscathed compared to many people so glad I cut her off when I did.

I was friendly with a couple years ago but they could be very full on and assumed a much greater closeness than was warrented. Would invite themselves and their brood to stay with me and stay too long. Honestly the wife was delusional. She was also nosy would tell me about what she'd found snooping about in other peoples homes and then was surprised when I didn't want het in my house.

Another girl I had really liked but she was quite bitter, she was bright and should probably have gone to uni but didn't. When I left to do my masters she got quite angry about it and was cross I was leaving her behind, she'd just had a baby. When I got back I tried to pick up with her but she was just so bitter and moany. She'd moved out of town and it was always me who had to make the effort to travel to her and then she'd spend the whole day moaning about people I didn't know before abruptly kicking me out when her husband was due back. She sent me a nasty email when I had to ask to switch a meeting due to having to go to a funeral ans I took the opportunity to not bother writing back.

I think other friendships drift due to my not being quite sure if the other person is keen or we do like each other but we have little in common outside of work and we socialize differently. Some might have seen that as ghosting but ut wasn't intended as such.

I'm older and it used to be easier for friendships just to end when you moved or switched jobs. I'm not on social media now either and I'm not in touch with acsingle person I was at school with and only about 3 people from uni. Im a bit of a loner really.

I ended a long-standing friendship with someone who was always having dramas in her life.

She was providing supported lodging for a care leaver and got highly emotionally invested (talked of adoption her lodger after a few years when lodger was about 21).

I followed all of the ups and downs of this, there were various court cases to do with related stuff. I listened to it all and was supportive.

A couple of years later - because of her experience with children raised in care and her knowledge and understanding of abuse I confided in her when I was having a difficult time with my MH due to being abused in my family as a child.

She basically said it wasn't all that traumatic (were talking serious sexual abuse) because I lived in a big house whereas care leaver had no status , care leaver had REALLY traumatic time (yes she did but it's not a competition and doesn't make my experiences invalid).

She then proceeded to tell me incest is 'evolutionary' to keep the human race alive and implied I was making a fuss being bothered by my mother's (complicit) part in it all.

Would never let me challenge any of her opinions on the matter or defend myself. Didn't apologise for the 'evolutionary' comment even though I explained how hurtful it was.

I eventually messaged her and said I was happy to leave the friendship there. I'm certain she still thinks I'm the bad guy 🤷‍♀️

@feministbias
I hope you also ditched him (your name implies you would take no shit, in a good way).

@SunshineYello
Reach out to those friends. If it were me, I'd be delighted to hear from you again.

I've ghosted (drifted really) and been ghosted. I find that with some people, if you stop making the effort, the friendship ends as you were the one putting all the work in. I was ghosted by a friend of known for years, we were really close, I have guessed why, she was very unhappy and cut herself off to live a different life. We're recently vaguely in touch and I'm glad to see she's well, but I'm not rushing back in.

I had a good friend who I'd been friends with since our children were 2, they're now 10. We used to have weekly playdates for the kids at each other's houses and we were really close. We used to chat every day on messenger. Suddenly one day last year, she didn't reply to my last message. We'd been chatting in the morning, I replied to her, she never replied. She'd said something like she'd just put the washing out and it was freezing and she was about to put the fire on, I said I was considering getting ours on too, and that was it. I tried messaging her and never got a reply. When her birthday came round, I messaged her to say happy birthday and asked how they all were and said we hadn't spoken for ages, she said "thank you. We're fine". Didn't ask how we were. And didn't message me on my birthday a few days later. So i left it. Her husband had already cut my husband out, they'd been close friends but her husband didn't like DH's other friend, who's another school dad, and he made no secret of the fact that he didn't like him. That's the only reason we can think of as to why they've both cut us out of their lives. It upsets me and I miss her, but what can I do?

Yes. I miss her if I’m honest but being her friend made me miserably unhappy by the end. I do wish it had been different but she can’t talk about the things that went wrong and now knows so little about me that it’s not a friendship anyway.

One of my friends stole my jewellery from me.
I didn't notice at first because I hardly wear it but it was things that my man gave me before she died.
One evening she came to my house wearing a necklace that was distinct and I new it was Mie. I didn't say anything there and then just in case I was wrong but when I checked my jewellery box there was hardly anything in it. I contacted the police who retrieved everything.

I never spoke to her again but now and again I get text messages asking how I am. They get blocked and deleted straight away!

BF who I thought I was very closed to told my daughter she was going to be her bridesmaid when she got married.
Invite for 1 arrived ‘but I could bring her along if I had no one to watch her’.
DD was a bit gutted. If she hadn’t have told her I certainly wouldn’t have presumed.

Big backstory, but me and DD were just always there for her in her many dramas and got stuck in a blizzard once on our own in the middle of nowhere because of her demand.

Realised she just used me really, and could actually be quite spiteful.

Not a friend but family. Had stayed on reasonably good terms with ex 's brother & family, for more than a decade continued to buy for 2 DN at birthdays, Xmas etc, stayed in touch while ex stopped speaking to them & didn't bother with any of them. Eldest DN got engaged, contacted BIL to offer gift & good wishes, he seemed pleased, invited me for lunch - visited with card, gift card as per request (£100), nice lunch, no argument/fallout or indication of any problem. Wedding approaches, no invite - but ex and DS invited but didn't go. Day after wedding, pics all over FB, what a lovely day with friends & family etc.

Now, I get that folk can invite who they want to a wedding - but to deliberately (I don't believe it was an accidental oversight) ignore/exclude literally the only person on one side who has made any effort for years, and who was actually the only one willing to talk to him, and invite the person who should have and didn't - well it sends a message. It says you're actually not considered family, efforts you made for years when you didn't have to weren't appreciated, and you're too insignificant to bother with...although obviously decided to hang on for the engagement gift first before ditching me. Was a little bit hurt, and disappointed as i thought better of BIL; he was not brought up to treat people that way and i think his parents who had died would have been disappointed in him too. Anyway, thought it was all a bit shabby and decided there & then that I was finished & would make no further effort. Never been in touch since , nor have they to see why they hadn't heard from me so I guess they know very well and don't give a toss. DN just had second baby & under other circumstances I would of course have bought gifts but doubt I will ever be in touch with them again.

I was always emotionally supporting said friend after her divorce. Sent reassuring texts and emails, sent presents for her dcs birthdays. She never asked of me or my dcs.
On my birthday , she sent me a long rambling text stating that I was not a good friend to her and that I wasn’t supportive enough.
I didn’t even respond to her text and simply ghosted her.

My dh was ghosted by a childhood friend. Dh was very upset and tried to talk to said friend in order to establish what the issue was. Childhood friend did not respond
A few years later dh’s childhood friend phoned out of the blue and explained why he had ghosted Dh. He said that he had always been envious of dh and that being around dh made him feel worse about his own life.
People can ghost you if they envy you

I ghosted someone after being done with the continual references to how she was more intelligent than me! I think it got worse after she got the same degree classification as me, as obviously she was so clever and I wasn’t. There were some really weird examples. And it got to the point where we went to see a play and she asked my opinion after so I made a stupid joke as felt like she would judge what I said, and her response was that was what her mentally disabled relation would say.
I should have addressed it, but I was just done at that point and ghosted. In recent years had fb requests from her and family but just ignored.
Didn’t like doing it but it didn’t feel good to be a friend!

I think one of the saddest things about when friendships end is that its often very hard to give constructive feedback which could actually be so helpful. Quite often people can be lovely but make bad friends at particular points because of their lack of self-awareness or consideration for other people's needs and its a shame that its so difficult to confront this.

In the case of the friend I ghosted, I have thought very often that she would have really benefited from this sort of feedback and I am quite haunted by it.

She's a kind, considerate, intelligent and extremely organised and successful person and has the potential to be a really great friend. But she is bad at empathy and bad at listening and doesn't hear the all important verbal and non-verbal cues that are so important in signalling that someone has overstepped a boundary. I would love to have remained in contact with her but I got tired of her lack of respect for my time: she would just talk on and on about her own life without any real interest in mine and would also fail to pick up hints that someone was getting bored or needed to move on. It became really draining to maintain the friendship and I took the coward's way out.

I'd love to have been able to say to her, directly but kindly, that I was fond of her but needed this to change. I chickened out because I wasn't feeling great about myself at that point and didn't have the energy or the bandwidth.

If I had my time again I'd like to think I would have tackled that head on: she could have disregarded it if she chose to but I'd have felt more emotionally honest. Hindsight is a wonderful thing...

Some of these seems like valid reasons to ghost someone although I would never do it. I don’t understand why you can’t just tell them why you don’t want to be friends. No wonder people struggle with their mental health. K

It’s so difficult to make friends these days. How do you know if you’re all on the same page? What is the normal level of contact, how often should you meet each other etc. There’s people complaining about their friends being needy. Then there’s people saying their friends don’t initiate contact. People saying there friends weren’t there for them, then others saying there friends helped them through a tough time but don’t want to be friends anymore!

We met at baby group when our dc were very small, she was going through a really hard time and a relationship breakdown when her second was born I was going round at 8am to make bottles and clean her house whilst she laid in bed. Plus I was having her children lots too
Suddenly I realised I was being taken advantage of and she relied on me way too much it makes me sad because I loved her kids but I was just sick of it.
She could no longer attend the baby group so I didn't have to see her anymore seemed easy just to stop talking to her.
I'm much happier now but I do miss the children

I ghosted one recently. She was so driven by money and paying off her mortgage, even though she's on the dole, made me a bit sick thinking of people who work and are losing their homes because they can't afford them.

Had it happen to me recently. Was there for a friend going through a tough time. Once they were back on their feet they stopped contacting me and their reason for this was that they were rebuilding a new life. Felt like a total idiot and very hurt that I was clearly just a temporary, emotional stop gap.

I ghosted a friend who earned massively more than me after she said she wouldn't be buying Christmas presents for friends, (we only exchanged token under a fiver gifts anyway).
She had just spent over an hour showing all the photos from her luxury round the world cruise, which she had concluded with two weeks in New York.

I had a ‘friend’ who was always, always late for everything. The last time it happened I waited an hour for her in a coffee shop. She called me to say she’d be late 20 mins in because she’d bumped into someone and got chatting! When I was still sitting there after an hour I left. I never spoke to her again.
What do you do if it’s a sibling who is rude, takes advantage and is totally self absorbed? That’s another question.

I did because you couldn't talk to her reasonably. She'd get incredibly defensive, deny everything and start screaming. We were flat mates as well so was hard.

Just stopped invited her along to things and talking to her about things that weren't related to the flat.

When our mutual friends told me that they didn't hear from her we all realised that we were the ones initiating all social contact, she never made the effort but always wanted it be included.

Eventually moved out and haven't looked back.

I have ghosted a good friend I made whilst nannying in London. She was a bit older than me and we bonded over shared experiences. We lived together for a time then moved to other ends of the country from one another. That's when it changed. I was always going down to stay with her never the other way around. She would say she was coming and give me train times to pick her up from the station then just not show up, no phone calls nothing, radio silent. Till a week later she would call apologise and all would be well again. Till the next time it was her turn to visit me.
The ghosting happened when she failed to turn up at me wedding. No phone call nothing. I knew the day before when I got a list from the hotel about guests staying.
She tried to call me whilst I was getting ready, I ignored the call and haven't spoken to her since.

I have ghosted "friends" and currently ghosting a family member which saddens me but I felt I had no choice if I didn't want to be taken for a bloody fool yet again. To make a very long story as short as I can, my reason for cutting anyone off from my life is if they demonstrate their total DISloyalty towards me. Betraying trust and not only that but embellishing situations to include lies and passing these lies on to many people is a step way too far for me. Those listening or reading the lies naturally believe what they are told as they are only getting one side and that is the lies.

It is so depressing to do this but had I not then I would be the fool. The awful thing is I am still being targetted for "ignoring" this person. I do not share the situation with anyone as it is nobody else's business but this person feels the need to do the opposite and make it all so much worse. When you let many things go in the past as you do not want the friendship or relationship go but then something tips it all over the edge and you say to yourself enough is enough.

I ghosted a friend of 10 years recently. Another friend of ours was relatively recently heartbroken after discovering her boyfriend was married. We were all taken in by him, he even (pre-covid obviously) came on a group trip away with us. Had social media that friend was on etc. He travelled back to his hometown every other weekend and ad hoc days to spend time with his kids - which just seemed like he was a EOW Dad.

Friend only discovered it (humiliatingly for her in front of quite a few of us) when one of the others looked him up on Facebook to add him and spotted another account with his name and a photo of his kids. Quick look on it showed that he actually went home to his wife and kids EOW and on odd days and just worked away.

The friend I've ghosted has deliberately excluded our friend from events because she "sleeps with married men" which is just cruel and nasty. She's gone down the "no smoke without fire" and "she must have known something" route very publicly and rudely to the point she told another friend she was mad to bubble with our mutual friend during lockdown because she'd "probably" steal her husband. She's just a nasty piece of work and I want nothing to do with her.

She's been told she's out of order several times and doesn't care so I've just blocked her.

I stop bothering with anyone draining, or with extreme political or religious beliefs, anti vax, anti trans, trump supporting etc

I saw it coming when my friend ended things.

I was definitely deserving in some ways because I was self absorbed and an emotional 'taker' at times. I was 100% trustworthy but she never ever opened up to me which was hurtful. I also put all the energy into making plans so felt unwanted that she didn't make the effort back.

I was in a controlling relationship at the time and he made it difficult for me to see friends. I was undoubtedly spiky towards her at times being free and single because I was jealous. So yeah, I was a drain. But she saw first hand some of the things he did and is still friendly with him.

She stopped answering my calls and texts, ignored me when i saw her and when we ran into eachother a few years later it was like old times. I touched on being sorry and said I'd love to meet up properly, she said she was really up for it, texted me loads that night to say she was keen, then ghosted me. All a bit shit. I am now mindful not to be a drain on others and keep in mind about being a radiator so I did learn something. Shame as i thought she was a great friend and I miss her.

I know it reads like she was honouring me but whenever we hung out we laughed loads, went on holiday together, she always told me I was her best friend and she was lucky to have me.

I'm in the process of letting a friendship fizzle out. We've been friends for over 20 years, but I think the friendship has definitely run its course. I've realised that just because someone has been in your life a long time, doesn't necessarily mean they deserve to be there.

In my case, my friend went through a phase (after she got married and had kids) of constantly making snide comments about the fact that I was long term single and had no kids (and she knew marriage/ kids were something I really wanted). She even referred to me as 'barren' at one point.

I'm now engaged and getting married in a few months (hopefully) and we're planning to try for a baby soon after the wedding. So last time I saw her, she couldn't make me feel insecure about my relationship status. Instead she focused on making snide comments about my weight and how I need to keep trying to lose weight and be healthy. She is naturally slim, I'm about 1 stone overweight. I used to be heavier but lost 2 stone, which she knows. It made me realise that whatever I do, she'll always try and find some insecurity to pick on.

I get that she has her own issues around comparison, but if I try to call her on it, she always says 'I'm just being honest/ I have to be honest/ I have to tell the truth'. I've found that people who say that 'honesty line' are usually using it as an excuse to be rude and get away with it, dressing up their crappy opinions as 'the truth'... ...and she's no exception.