To ask if a friend has ever suddenly stopped talking to you?

[Newlifeincoming]

I'm feeling quite sad at the moment because a good friend of mine has suddenly stopped talking to me. We were close and spoke to each other a lot, but now my texts, calls, and emails have all been ignored.

Has anyone else experienced something like this? Did you ever hear back from the person who ghosted you? What happened when or if they eventually got back in touch? Did you respond and continue the friendship?

Are you sure she’s ok? When this happened with one of my close friends she was actually having a mental health crisis and isolating herself from the world.

This would drive me crazy! I'd get another friend or family member to find out why. I'd have to know even if I'd never hear from them again. I think ghosting is absolutely awful.

Yes, it's happened to me.

It's been 8 years since I last heard from her. Tbh, I think really lowly of her now - like, what a piece of shit. To my knowledge, nothing happened and she couldn't be bothered to get a spine and say "hey, just not feeling it any more".

I'd known her 6 years.

Yes and I haven't bothered with them since. I have no time for childish nonsense (the person is perfectly fine according to SM).

I have been experiencing this over the past nearly year. It’s utterly baffling and hurtful. She’s alluded to mental and physical health issues but she’s always had these and we’d always shared our struggles and supported each other.
I keep overthinking it and trying to comb over everything we’ve ever experienced together to try and pin point any fractious interactions but can’t.
Part of me thinks ah well, not everyone can like me but another part is angry that she couldn’t just tell me why she needed less of me in her life.
I’ve no advice really apart from moving on and trying not to think about it too much.

Yes, it really really hurt me. She stopped talking to me and our university friends at the same time. For years I felt horribly uncomfortable and squicky about it, as though I had done something truly awful and unforgivable, but I didn't know.

She re-emerged after a while, completely reinvented and transformed from her previous creative interesting self, right down to having fundamentally changed characteristics including sexuality.

Weirdly, she then borderline inappropriately went all out to rebuild relationships with my family, moving close to my siblings and 'best friending' them. In one case they still holiday together every year. I have never said how unkind and odd I find the lengths she has gone to to move in on the people I love, while summarily ghosting me and everyone she knew before she was 25.

YES I've had this, someone I knew from work and became friends with out of work. We saw each other all the time, messaged most days etc and then suddenly she just stopped replying to me after I invited her (and her boyfriend, if he wanted to) to come to a pub quiz nearby. Stopped replying to me, unfollowed me on social media etc (still follows my boyfriend, though, and me from her dog's account-she's probably forgotten about that)

I find it really, really hurtful. At the time I spent a long time trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, but now I know it's her, not me

Yep, I've been ghosted. I do understand the mental health crisis thing to an extent but my former friend has been working, running life as normal etc. I also have a very good friend who was sectioned recently and we kept in touch.

The ghosting friend just ignored my texts / messages and once actively avoided going near me when we were both in the same room, she also turned her back to me in the street.

One day months later I ran into her and she waved and said 'hi' like nothing had happened. I smiled but didn't engage and overheard her doing some kind of 'huff'. I guess she wants friendship but entirely on her terms - I think how she's behaved towards a friend is shitty & god did it hurt but long term I'm better without.

I'm so glad you started a thread on this, OP; it helps destigmatise when you realise it's quite common.

Like a PP, my ghoster seemed perfectly fine inviting my ex (who she knew had physically assaulted me) to her wedding. So, for that alone, I was better off without such a backstabber. Her and I were friends first and, through me, she got to know my ex.

It's definitely them.

This happened to me about 7 years ago. Made plans to meet up with an old school friend for lunch. Contacted her to confirm still okay to meet, no response although the 2 blue double clicks so knew it had been read. So I left it for a bit. Messaged a few months later to wish a happy birthday, no response, messaged the following year to wish a happy birthday and then left it there. I still to this day have no idea what I’ve done if anything and why I was totally ghosted. I’m not in touch with any mutual friends so I suppose I’ll never know. Every know and again I think about it but I just put it to the back of my mind, self preservation and all that.

Yeah her bloke hated my guts. So told her I gave him the big come on and tried to get him into bed. I didn't find out until years later

yes, happened to me too. My oldest and closest friend just stopped replying and contacting me about 5 years ago. I was so baffled and hurt, I couldn't understand why. I kept sending birthday and Christmas messages and the odd message here and there, but never got a response. All of the sudden after a 3 year silence she replied to one of my messages and aplologised for not keeping in touch, but she had had a mental breakdown and taken sick leave from work and literally become a hermit to try to recover.

It's awful isn't it, the lack of closure. It's impossible to just erase them out of your life and the thought "what did I do wrong" keeps bouncing in your head and wearing you out. I hope you get some closure to the situation, I know exactly how soul destroying it is. I cried so many times as I just didn't understand what was going on and why.

I had it happen to me with my best friend and I was heartbroken and so confused. It turned out she was seriously depressed and planning her suicide.
She recovered from her mental health crisis thankfully and we reconnected a couple of years later.

It happened years later with someone else and I never found out why. I wasn't too bothered though 😂

Story of my life.
I am everyones best friend when times are rough but when they are back on their feet, I am forgotten.
People are disappointing, that's why I prefer animals.

Happened to me at university - I was actually living with her and she stopped talking to me, would leave the room (or house!) when I walked in, never found out why.

Yep. Last saw her 4 years ago. Became friends in pregnancy, our daughters were close, they were about to start at (different) secondaries, and then she never replied to my texts again. Bizarrely a year later she posted "happy birthday" on my FB, but that was it.

I know everyone goes on about mental health crises at times like this - and i kept reaching out as she and her husband were (non medical) key workers, so at first I was mindful of this. But as time went on, my texts went unanswered and more photos appeared on FB of her with her school mum friend group, I started to think that probably wasn't the case.

Yep. It's happening to me now. My two very close friends. Neither have replied to me now for over a year. I think it's time for me to just forget it. It's hard after more than twenty five years.
One very close friend from school ghosted me when I was about 20. Before then we'd been thick as thieves since year 7. I was really hurt.
Many years later we reconnected on Facebook. She kind of apologised, saying she was immature and couldn't handle the stuff that was going on in my life. So I forgave her.

I’ve actually been the friend who has ghosted a close friend.

I was feeling massively overwhelmed in life and stretched far too thin. I was her emotional crutch and listened for hours upon hours to the same self created dramas and poor life choices.

I needed a time out and to take a step back, and two years later I’ve not yet felt the need to get back in touch.

Why take the immature way out and ghost though? I can understand your reasoning but it’s just a ridiculous + spineless way of going about things.

Yes.

She went through a bit of personal upheaval and reinvented herself and my face and all the bullshit I knew about didn't fit anymore. I knew too much.

She makes a theatrical show of pretending not to have seen me on the rare occasions we end up around the same local spots.

A lot of stuff has blown up in her face. I'm not sorry for her.

I supported her through so much and she didn't have the decency to do the same.

to be fair, my final message to her was expressing that she needed to move on with her life, which I did think had a sense of finality to it.

I didn’t know if I needed a break or ending at the time I stopped responding, but I haven’t felt motivated to get tangled back up in a long drawn out explanation.

Twice.

Neither were really close friends, but we met up fairly regularly- until we didn’t. I got in touch both times, with no response, so left it.

I think social media is to blame for this new phenomenon of ghosting people or cutting people out. It should be called antisocial media because it’s damaging our social skills. You can’t just block people and cut them off your friends list the minute they don’t meet up to a fake idealised version of a friend.
our society is headed for a very lonely future at this rate.

I drifted from a friend but mutually. She hadn’t been the first to make contact for a while and despite her wanting to meet up and doing so, I was doing all the leg work so backed off. I guess she might think I ghosted her but if she messaged I’d reply… until now, now I wouldn’t. A few weekends ago I was out for lunch with friends and she walked by, said hi to one off my group (a friend who dislikes her) but totally blanked me. That drew the line. It’s sad as we were close when dc were little but she’s a very different person now. Interestingly, she’s only friends with one from our original group.

I’ve decided it says more about her than me.

I had a friend who did this too me several times and kept getting back in touch in the end i just stopped contacting her ,she tried again via my sister before the pandemic, but I just said no ,not happening