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?

Yes, found out a few months later she’d had a miscarriage when I bumped into her. Her and her dh had told nobody and on the day I met her she’d just told her family and was very emotional. I felt and still feel horrible that I didn’t know/ guess. We both make sure to properly talk now

I've ghosted a friend. They were in a situation that I found quite triggering, and I was honest about that. They used to grumble a lot about that set of circumstances but never set out to change it. I was sat having a conversation with them one day and they made a completely contradictory comment about someone they knew, having only days before been slagging them off, and I had the sudden realisation that they were so enmeshed that, by continuing the friendship, I'd only be causing myself ill health.

I had been honest throughout about how I was feeling, and when they went a few days not messaging (having previously been in contact daily), I took it as a sign and drastically reduced contact.

Yes. Living in a fantastic community that centred around the school, local pub and restaurants and communal sports, we made amazing friends and built a wonderful network of people all roughly at the same stage of life. The core group became really good friends and we helped out a lot with fetching and carrying kids as well as often meeting over the weekends for BBQs, family lunches and dinners, babysitting for weddings and dinners out etc.

One the most outgoing women who I really got on with and always thought we were on the same wavelength and genuine friends, suddenly started 'cold shouldering'.... cut chats short at the school gate, started noticing I wasnt invited to dinner parties or included in outings, that kind of stuff. It was all very obvious and awkward, especially when the cold shouldering spread to other women in the group. I was really upset and racked my brains trying to think, what did I do wrong - did I dominate the conversation or give offence in some way, what did I do or say that was wrong??? I was so desperate to be included again and for things to go back to how they had been, in retrospect it took on the gloss of a perfect year - which it probably wasnt, but it felt that way.

Luckily a few of the women rallied round and we carried on socialising and supporting each other - Im so grateful to them now as it was made clear to them that their continuing their friendships to me was somehow not kosher. They were still included int he main group, but on a lesser standing if you know what I mean. Eventually through the passage of time and all the tortuous twists and turns of gossip and innuendo it turns out that the original queen bee had got it into her head that her perfectly nice and conventional husband fancied me and this got her all worked up - complete nonsense as he was perfectly nice and innoffensive but he didnt set my panties on fire and Im pretty sure I didnt scorch his briefs either! Absolutely no flirtation or anything of that kind, but she deliberately isolated me and tried to have me ostracised from the group because of it. Not once did she ever raise this with me - I was completely unaware the whole time.

we're six years down the line and she's done it to two other women in the extended group on other pretexts - so maybe the imagined situation was just an excuse to flex her muscles and show her social power. In the meantime the lovely women who stuck by me have become true lifelong friends - my social life is less hectic as Im no longer in this mad merry go round of organised activities that went with 'belonging', but its all good. Today I pass her in the street with a polite but distant smile as befits an aquaintance I dont really like or know, but I still get the glare as if Im the town Jezebel. Its all completely manufactured and imaginary and absolutely nuts.

Mutually ghosted loads of people over the years. I never contacted them, they never contacted me.

All this 'mental health crisis' stuff is frankly BS. I had friends who distanced themselves when I had a mental health crisis.

Friends who had previously 'thought of me as family' were told that I was ill. Their response? Not a peep.

Conversely, though, the most unlikely people reached out and we've become firm friends since. It says a lot about someone to see you at your worst and love you anyway.

The only other instance was a previously very good friend 'unfriending' me on Facebook... all because I didn't reply to a random message she'd sent within half hour.

A few years later, she sent me a friend request. Wasn't getting into that shit again, so declined. And that was that!

Literally the same thing happened to me. Maybe I managed to befriend your school friend in adulthood. Bizarre behaviour, isn't it?

I've ghosted and been ghosted. Sometimes those friendships revived themselves, sometimes not. Life ebbs and flows, people change, their situations change. I don't think there's any need for a character assassination or long explanations- rarely achieves anything.

Yes. I was very close to a work colleague (who incidentally I didn’t like initially - gut feeling was off) and then she just decided that was it and began either ignoring my messages (we messaged & voice noted a fair bit) or being very short in her replies. Then she came back to work (sabbatical) and began a crusade of bullying against me after weeks of literally ignoring my existence and being extra nice to everyone else. I still don’t know why; we were close but not super close so it wasn’t like she was feeling suffocated. I suspect her life behind closed doors isn’t as great as she makes out and crushing someone professionally and personally maybe gave her a boost in place of actual self esteem? She did her very best to destroy my reputation in work so I honestly think her behaviour comes from a dark dark place!

I had the same thing. We were really good friends at school, spoke to her again several years later and arranged to meet up and then was ghosted. Thinking back, she actually wasn’t as good a friend as I’d thought at school. It bothered me at the time but that was more to do with my own low self esteem than anything else.

DH was ghosted by a good friend just after our wedding. We weren’t the first and probably not the last he’d done that to.

Also a close family member just stopped any contact a few years ago. They have some mental health issues so just kind of waiting to see if we ever hear from them again.

Very often I think it’s far more to do with the person doing the ghosting than the other way round. Doesn’t always feel like that when it happens though.

The thing is, it doesn't necessarily help if you do find out the reason!

I work overseas. It's a bit like being permanently at Uni, in that there's a batch of new faces every year, you work, live & socialise in each other's pockets, then after a couple of years people move on & become vague presences on social media.

A lot of the time you have 'friends for a reason' (networking) & 'friends for a season' (you don't make much if any effort to keep in touch, but then 5 years later you both wash up in the same country, & happily prop up a bar & pick up where you left off).

The other thing is there are the drama llama types, who lurch from one Eastenders style friendship crisis to the next, & then there's the wiser heads who stay cheerfully low key matey with everyone because you never know who will turn out to be in the ear of your next boss, etc.

Anyway, so 'Sarah' was definitely the drama llama type. But she was great fun, could be super kind & supportive, & I thought we were pretty close.

A year or so after she left, I noticed I'd been blocked on everything. Ouch.

But oh well, she'd just had an amazing promotion...maybe she was just having a cull in case awkward drunken party pictures from the past surfaced?! Except she hadn't blocked anyone else, & I quickly heard that she was calling me all the names under the sun to anyone who'd listen.

I was totally baffled.

Then, a couple of years later, I ran into her in a bar on holiday, somewhere totally random, & she weaved her way over & jabbed her finger in my face whilst slurring at me that I was an evil bitch for telling everyone she'd been sleeping with her cleaner.

I hadn't even known about it, much less gossiped about it . But even if I'd been able to convince her of that, there didn't seem much point trying to salvage that particular friendship...

@FatmanandKnobbin
Your post really resonated with me; I am much the same in friendships and relationships. You should look at some of the info on avoidant attachment patterns; it's a way of protecting yourself and stems from childhood trauma. Mine's related to my dad leaving me when I was 8 and very sporadic contact since that time until I grew up. I don't see him at all now, but the wounds are still there.

Yes, we had our babies together and the children grew up together. However I guess our friendship was situational, as she stopped wanting to get together when the kids grew apart. I got to the point where I had decided to stop contacting her, as it was very one sided. It was a huge decision for me, as i thought of her like a sister and loved her kids.
Only a month later her partner left her and she wanted our friendship. I was happy to give it another go, I mentioned how I had felt and she was oblivious.
Fast forward two years, she moved in with a new partner and totally ghosted me. Literally ignored all attempts at communication. I was incredibly hurt and it really impacted upon me at an already difficult time. I was mentally unwell and it took another 8 months to discover I had hypothyroidism and anxiety and depression linked to this. I always wonder how much this played a part in the demise of our friendship. However I will never know and Looking back, I'm pleased I'm no longer friends with someone who made me feel I wasn't good enough for her. Still miss our shared history and it breaks me heart that I don't know how her children are. But it's left space for some lovely new friendships and two years on with the right meds I'm much much happier.

Its definitely a way of protecting myself, I had an abusive childhood then straight from that into an abusive marriage as a teen so went through quite a lot in my youth.

I didn't realise I was hurting other people along the way though, so I'm happy enough just chatting for a bit with people and leaving it at that.

I wouldn't even know where to begin with changing things, and, at this point in life I don't really want to anymore.

I'm sorry to read about your childhood, and how it's affecting you now 💐

I ghosted an American friend I had met on holiday. We would Facetime but as time passed she just spoke about herself, herself and herself and the next thing she was inviting herself and her family to come and stay with me across the pond. I live in a small one bedroom flat, struggle financially and did not have the same materialistic approach to life she had. I just said I was feeling very tired and never replied again to her messages. I could breathe again.

Yes, happened to me and my friend about 10 years ago now. To this day we still have no idea why...she blocked us on all social media too. We often wonder what she's doing with her life now.

Yes happened to me a couple of years ago.
I have an idea what its about and basically she wasn't happy I had to put my family first.
Then something happened in the family a year later and she sent a sorry message.
I ignored it...if you run for the hills when I am having a bad time then do me a favour and stay there

I would wait and see. 2 years ago I had a breakdown due to some health issues and I was completely depressed, sleeping most of the time or crying and I stopped eating. People were messaging me and I ignored them as I couldn't face telling people what was happening and hearing them try to be positive. It sounds crazy and I am not the sort to easily fall apart. Unless this is the sort of thing you expect from this friend I would wait and see if you hear from them.

I had a really good friend I saw every other week without fail. We were friends for years had a shared 21st party and 30th. Got married in the same year.

One day we were out and she wouldn't arrange the next time we would meet. I phoned her several times and she made excuses.

I never found out why. It was 16 years ago now and we had been friends 25 years.

Yep, supported her through divorce and her mum dying. She then got a new partner and I was ditched.

Yes. It happened to me. Had a really good friend. She was a witness at my wedding and I at hers. We were in contact every day. Then her husband got a really good job abroad and she went out with him (two year contract). I emailed, messaged and just tried to keep in contact. I never heard from her again.

I was really puzzled and asked a few mutual friends that knew her if they knew what I’d done. They said that they didn’t.

Years later I saw someone that knew her. She said that my former friend had advanced altzimers. Her husband has had to give up work to look after her. She doesn’t recognise anyone. She’s only 62.

Maybe her ghosting of me was her illness starting. I still feel sad about it.

I came on to say this too! My friend was very much not ok, but "reaching out" wasn't going to help, not then. She and her family had gone through tragedy. It took her 10 years to work through it. Her marriage also broke down. After about 8 years, she started liking my FB posts. At that stage she responded to my suggestion to meet up again. We rekindled our friendship and she told me about her breakdown & how she had to distance herself from everyone she'd been close to when the tragedy happened as she kept being reminded of it. That was about 5 years before Covid hit. She also got back together with her XH. Then she died of a heart attack 18 months ago.

My best friend hasn’t spoken to me since my wedding day six years ago, I don’t know why for sure and it hurts. I went through a grieving period I think for some time afterwards and I still think of her all the time. She was my oldest friend and the only person who really knew, we had been friends since childhood. I’m sure I was also at fault somehow but due the the way I was ghosted I’ve never had chance to make things right. I wrote her a letter and have sent her birthday messages over the years but nothing other than a polite “thank you”.

I'm currently ghosting/fading out my oldest and closest friend as it turns out we take opposite positions on the trans debate and I don't see any way we can continue to be friends. I can't face her disapproving and criticising me directly though so it's easier to just not reply.

Just to add I've done a fair bit of ghosting when I was in my 20s. In almost all but one case I think I was at fault, I was over sensitive/ didn't know how to assert myself, in one case i was a complete twat - but in my defence i was working away from home, isolated & just not in a stable place.

I made a vow never to do that again in my early 30s. Have I stuck to that? Yes I actually have, been a lesson in resilience.

Happened to me about 7 years ago. Close friend from university just dumped our entire friendship group of 4. She did have mental health issues (which we’d always supported her through) so we kept sending messages occasionally (once a month or so, just quick life updates with no obligation to reply) so she knew we were there if needed. I’ve since seen photos of her on several big holidays over this time period which makes me wonder if it might not have been MH at all- it doesn’t fit the pattern of her previous crises.

Anyway, we’ve heard nothing at all but the pictures are a comfort as at least we know she’s seemingly ok. I stopped messaging her about a year after she cut contact after sending a ‘last message’ saying if I didn’t hear back I wouldn’t bother her again, no hard feelings etc.

I don’t think I’d bother if she got in touch now- in fact I’ve blocked her number so wouldn’t know if she had tried to contact me. Too much has happened in the time she’s been MIA- one of us has lost both parents, several babies have been born, etc etc. We’ve moved on and I’m sure she has too. I feel disappointed in her behaviour and I think that’s probably what I’d say if I did see her again.