@Artemisss
Synopsis (sorry, I’m sick, just got out of hospital, have insomnia, long comment): Of course people care about you and love you even if they don’t check on you as actively as you hoped this bloke would. It didn’t mean the death of your friendship. The paragraph starting “How to Fix This” is my recommendation.
So the last he heard from you, you were going to be home the next day. AND he’d apparently bought tickets for the football for the two of you? Since you say “But the night before he was booking us tickets for a football match the following weekend and ghosted the day after that.” You do realize this would all have been avoided with one of two things:
- You sent him a message on day 2 of your hospitalization saying, “It’s more serious than we thought. I’m still in hospital!” (Or maybe even asked someone to message him if you were really unwell; it wouldn’t have been odd since you were such good friends AND had football tickets coming up, which you needed to cancel). Conversation would have naturally continued. The way your last message left it, he was obviously thinking he’d hear from you when you got home next day. Hell, he probably thought he was doing the right thing by letting you rest and then never heard from you.
- If you felt too ill whilst in hospital, you messaged him once you arrived home, maybe even apologized in case HE thought YOU ghosted him while he had the football tickets, since he had no reason to think you were still in hospital, and… either conversation would have continued OR you’d have known he was an arsehole then and why (because he was a selfish arse about you being ill).
But this statement from you:
Surely he could have asked me how I was? Isn’t that what friends would do? I didn’t text my other friends updating them of my movements, they all checked with me You say you’re still recovering for months? I’m so sorry. No wonder you feel low. It’s awful, isn’t it? God, it just drains you so much. I know. And I’m sure this situation is hard, too. I also assume, though, you’ve realized now that people handle you being ill in a variety of ways, and as months pass, people don’t check in as often as they did during your initial week in hospital. They expect you to update them, like any normal friendship. And some people, even good friends, don’t “check in” like this - they don’t send flurries of texts in a crisis, they may think you’ll want to rest, and you’ll reach out when you’re ready after an initial message, OR some have a huge mental load, i.e. their own husbands, three kids, a full-time job and maybe even a sick family member of their own they look in on (I have someone I’d consider a great friend who cares for me deeply, BUT she’s also got a lot on). I’ve been ill a long time now, and yes, I generally assume things will go better in my friendships if I take the responsibility for telling them what’s going on. Most of my friends already have huge mental loads - I’m not hurt and offended that expecting them to add checking up on me to their mental load vs. me sending them a text to update them, would be a communication blunder on my part.
Of course people care about you and love you even if they don’t check on you as actively as you hoped this bloke would. It didn’t mean the death of your friendship. I don’t assume my friends love me any less just because they forget to text me for a few days because their three children are all screaming they don’t have costumes for World Book Day tomorrow. Bloody World Book Day costumes!
HOW TO FIX THIS:
You control the type of communication you have, and that’s how you get the type of communication you want. You may have sunk a good friendship now over miscommunication, BUT maybe you haven’t. I’m very sorry you feel at your lowest at the moment, truly. I would just say: all this “well, shouldn’t he have texted me?” And “shouldn’t he have x/y/z?” has obviously gained you nothing, so stop that direction. You’re not messaging him because you don’t know what to say??? Here’s what you say, “Er, I assumed when I didn’t hear from you after my week in hospital that you didn’t want to speak to me anymore. I’ve really missed you and it’s been a rough few months trying to recover from my accident.” That’s it. It’s that simple. This way: you’ve mentioned that your trip to hospital turned into a week, to explain what happened after the last message you sent him, AND that you’d like to re-establish communication, AND the ball is now in his court. IF he asks why you blocked him (honestly, you should have posted here BEFORE you did that, but we all make mistakes on mistakes sometimes), you THEN say, “I was so embarrassed at not hearing from you, and seeing you there but not talking was really painful when I’m already ill.” But YOU made a mistake here, too. And if you don’t think you did, don’t reach out to him. And if you don’t hear from him at all, then good news: you did everything you could to fix this, and the door is closed. No more wondering.
Next time, YOU control the SITUATION. Don’t sit there waiting for someone else to do something and feeling hurt when they dont. Think about why you might not have been able to do that thing (I’m sure you can come up with SOME reason), assume maybe they had the same reason, and reach out to them.