To ask why people ghost their friends instead of just being honest?

[SassyDeer]

I see a lot of posts about people getting ghosted by friends, and I wonder why this happens so often. For those of you who have ghosted friends, what was your reasoning? Did you feel it was easier than explaining, or was there something else behind it? Why not just tell your friend you need space, or that you’d like to end the friendship? I’m genuinely curious to understand.

I hope you can gain comfort in that you did everything you could and were true to yourself. If they did not reply then thats on them and there is nothing more you can do.

In a way, their response can be the closure you need, the fact they did something horrible and didnt apologise to you for it, is evidence that the person doesnt deserve to be in your life x

And yeah, it's always cruel and unnecessary to try to force other people to tolerate you when they want you gone.

The only person I have ever ghosted was an ex boyfriend. He was just exhausting, intrusive and I couldn’t explain myself anymore. Never ghosted a friend but friendships have naturally ebbed and flowed. One friend I distanced myself from in my late twenties because it was so one sided, with many dramas on her part (and no support for me) but we are still friends, better ones now we are older. I now have a ‘mum friend’ I am deliberately seeing a little less of but want to remain friends with. Usually there is an element of feeling stifled or taken advantage of on my part.

I've never deliberately set out to 'ghost' or stop being friends with someone, except once with a male friend. But I have just drifted apart from people, contact gets less frequent, lost my phone - so many numbers gone that way.
But the one I did stop speaking to was a narcissist and absolutely boring beyond belief, blathering on about their hobby as if it was their professional career. I just had enough.

Some of these responses are interesting and illuminating.

I think maybe there's a fear that the boundary won't be accepted, so people are scared to say anything.

Some people think the alternative to ghosting is a three hour conversation listing all the other person's faults and mistakes.

Also maybe there's some projection in some cases, where the person allowed or encouraged a friendship when it wasn't ever really heartfelt, and then becomes angry with the other person when it becomes clear they can't keep up their own pretence.

Also just some general emotional immaturity and passive aggression ("they should know what they've done" kind of thing.)

Anyone can end a friendship for any reason, but unless it's necessary for your safety, ghosting is just too cruel a way of going about it. A slow fade is pretty dishonest, too, but better than just suddenly dropping out of someone's life without even a "fuck you".

I walked away from a school mums group when I was separating, then going through a divorce from my ex husband. Queen Bee started a campaign of exclusion against me ( sending texts invites to me stating it was couples only, leaving me off the lift to an event I didn't actually want to go to, nasty comments at meet ups etc) It culminated in her telling me 'they' were all in his side. Just leaving was better than dealing with a whole gang of nastiness. I tried talking to the person I was closest to but she didn't defend me.

In hindsight I think my situation triggered something in them and my closest friend wasn't brave enough to go against the gang. Funnily enough the other Queen Bee tried to reconnect a couple of times years later. No thank you!

When I broke it off with my best friend a few years ago I did send her a letter letting her know how used and taken for granted I felt. It was very matter of fact, I don't think she could dispute it. I wished her well. The friendship had run it's course.

With hindsight and therapy , all these friendships were unhealthy for me. One-sided, aided by my chronic lack of boundaries. It has spurred me on to making better friendships which seems to be working.

Oh no, I was the one who ended the friendship. I just didn't want to leave her wondering why, even though I was fairly sure she knew exactly what she had done. So I offered her the conversation in case she didn't know. I was never going to rekindle the friendship, but just say, "Well the reason I don't want to be friends with you is because you did.this utterly horrible thing to me." She obviously knew that, which is why she didn't respond.

Thinking about it, there are 3 main reasons I ghost:

• I've been repeating to them over and over again about a serious problem in our friendship and they are continually failing to acknowledge it so it's going nowhere.

For example I had a friend who wanted to meet up when I was very sick with long covid for over 2 years, I struggled to even get out of bed for months at a time, and although I explained that many times, and he knew it was the truth, he was continually asking to meet up and it became an additional source of stress. He never once asked how I was, he posted a lot of photos on social media of him out with other friends all the time so it wasn't like he was lonely or needed someone to talk to. Meanwhile if I went downstairs in my home I was too exhausted to climb back up for at least 6 hours. I repeated why I couldn't see him until I was blue in the face, he seemed to take it very personally and got more and more pushy. There was literally nothing different I could tell him, and I started to really not like the way he was treating me and only seeing things from his own perspective.

• They are overwhelming me.

I'm an introvert and I've had a few situations where people seem to get obsessed with me to the point of overwhelm. It means seemingly endless calls, texts, likes and comments on every story I post on social media, things that are endless sounds, notifications, require long conversations, etc. I automatically back off in those situations because it gets too much when it's bombarding with 10-20 messages a day that aren't part of an ongoing conversation but random different things that require replies. I do feel bad about this one because I know it comes from a good place.

• It's a male friend hitting on me

All my friends know I've been in a committed relationship for a long time, and it's usually the married ones who try it on. I immediately ghost and block.

Also autistic and could have written every word. Compiling texts is hugely draining for me and I can’t keep up with it.

My bil had a girlfriend who wanted this with me - she’d send 5 messages in a row with all different questions, emojis, exclamation marks.. I’d think oh bloody hell, there goes my day. It takes the same effort as sitting down to do some coursework and I’m not naturally all excited about day to day shit. I have to put huge effort into making my texts sound all girly and happy rather than blunt, that’s what takes all my energy.

I have the two or three times a year friendships where you have a good catch-up and it’s like you haven’t been apart.

They're entitled to have a life without you in it and move on any way they choose. Let it go and PLEASE don't post whiny weird pseudo questions you already know the answer to in public, it looks clingy, immature and pointless.

Erm... wtf? No, it looks like someone who has been hurt and feels that they didn't deserve to be treated so badly. It's not clingy to expect friends to treat you with kindness and respect.

No one’s saying you can't end a friendship. Just don't be a heartless dick about it.

I ghosted my best friend since school when we were in our mid twenties. It was very much death by a thousand cuts and one day I just realised that if I had met her now, we would never be friends and that I was tolerating bad behaviour after bad behaviour due to how close we had been for so long. I knew that she wouldn’t accept what I was saying and also, as others have said, just because I didn’t agree with her behaviour doesn’t mean I can expect her to listen and agree to change to suit me. It is a shame as she was an excellent friend but the last year I just saw her morphing into someone else.

I know from mutual friends that she has absolutely no idea why I ghosted her and she did reach out to say whatever it was, she hoped we could fix it but I knew she just wouldn’t accept what I was saying. I still see her parents around and they are always so friendly to me and it does make me feel bad now - I definitely could and should have handled it better.

For me the difference between ghosting and slow fading is that slow fading is mutual, maybe there are some borderline cases. I think when you drop the rope a bit with someone and they don't pick up and you see each other less then that's a slow fade rather than ghosting.

I'm also reminded of those estranged adults who claim they were NCd with no warning whatsoever by their adult children. After talking some more it's obvious even to an unrelated observer that their kids tried repeatedly to broach the subject before giving up on them.

Nah, you didn't and it wasn't.

But I love your empathy 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Nah, don't be daft. You've no idea why people who deserve to be ghosted are ghosted.

Don't be a heartless dick, move on and leave people in peace.

It is a very awkward situation when you realise you’ve grown apart from a friend . I had this situation a few years back - few things that all added up to me feeling resentful and no longer enjoying her company.

I tried to back off and just let the friendship fizzle out but she outright asked me if I still wanted to be friends so I told her that I felt we had very different opinions and that she had upset me a few times ( think Covid denial when a member of my family died of it amongst other things).

I know that I really upset her and she was quite devastated and couldn’t understand what she had done wrong. I felt terrible too and I will always feel sad about how much I hurt her.

My point is it is impossible to break a friendship without causing hurt and sadness and I don’t know the kindest way to do this

I “ghosted” a group of 3 friends when I was 18-20 and don’t feel bad about it at all. Here’s some reasons why:

1. They were going heavy into drugs and drink, and I wanted no part of it. I wasn’t going to tell them how to live their lives either though.
2. I began to notice that they only wanted to talk to me when they needed something: shoulder to cry on, a lift from A to B, etc.
3. The friendships were completely unequal. I walked them through parents divorcing, breakups, college failures, etc. My grandmother died and all I got was crickets chirping.

Had I hated them, I’m sure I would have sent them messages detailing exactly what I thought of the people they’d become. However, I didn’t hate them - I had just outgrown them. They were school friends, situational in nature. I have made real friends now so understand that better. So I just stopped messaging in the group chat for 2 weeks, then removed myself from the group entirely. Not like any of them reached out to me either, so I mean, maybe “ghosted” is the wrong term here 😂😂

I ghosted a friend who started drinking heavily and used to only phone me when she was drunk.All she ever wanted to do was go out and get drunk together and I’d had a baby at that point and was past that phase of life of partying and drinking. I tried to help her many times but she didn’t want help and I politely asked her to please not contact me when she was pissed as it was upsetting and she was angry, slurry and ranty. Said I was happy to chat with her at other times.

She carried on so I ghosted her. I don’t feel bad about it - it had become toxic and I simply couldn’t cope with someone with serious alcohol problems and look after my baby at the same time. I do hope she managed to sort herself out.

I know from mutual friends that she has absolutely no idea why I ghosted her and she did reach out to say whatever it was, she hoped we could fix it but I knew she just wouldn’t accept what I was saying. I still see her parents around and they are always so friendly to me and it does make me feel bad now - I definitely could and should have handled it better.

The thing is, you didn't need her to accept it. Whether she accepted it or not is her issue. She reached out to you and you could have responded either with the truth, or by saying that you didn't feel the friendship had been right for you for a while and you were grateful for the years you'd had but didn't choose to be friends any longer. Hurtful, maybe. But nowhere near as cruel as ghosting her and never telling her why. I bet she still wonders.

You have no idea that anyone "deserves" to be ghosted. Your comments are absolutely lacking in understanding of how humans work.

"They don't want the confrontation
They don't want to cause upset
They're tired and don't have any energy left for it
They find it kinder to just walk away
They don't know how to be direct
Being brutally honest can be extremely hard
They lack the skills to be honest without causing anger and hurt"

This by Rosemole .
For me, there was no point in discussion. They knew ... I knew. I wasn't going to ever patch over the crack and carry on. I can't go back on significant let downs as a person and I'm happy with that. Their loss.

My point is it is impossible to break a friendship without causing hurt and sadness and I don’t know the kindest way to do this

I think you did it in the kindest way. The kindest way is to tell them you're ending the friendship. Give them a reason if you can, if it's something that they might reflect on. But it's not kind to just drop someone without a word.

I once had a friend end a friendship with me because I said something she found insensitive and she told me she just couldn't get past it. I was really sad but I could see her point and even though I wished it hadn't happened, at least I understood and could let it go. It also meant that I was a bit more careful in future and more aware of my tendency to be a bit tactless. Not a bad thing.

I 'ghosted' a close friend of 20 years when I realised that she clearly didn't actually like me that much. When we were younger and I was the nerdy, awkward, badly dressed one, she loved having me around. Now we're older, I'm more confident, better dressed, and, most crucially to her, I think, still relatively slim after two kids, she spent the most recent meet up giving me back handed compliments and comparing our house prices and husbands' salaries.

I'm not just here to be a foil to someone else, and I'm especially not here to be insulted by someone because they don't like that my life has got better. She's not doing badly herself - we could have had a really lovely, mature friendship and enjoyed this stage of life with our kids and careers doing well and stuff. But she chose to make it shitty, and when I reflected more on our friendship, it had always been like that and I just hadn't noticed. So I stopped replying to her texts. Given the number of times she apparently lost my address - when I've lived in the same house for ten years - I don't think I could have been that important anyway.

I ghosted a long standing friend many years ago. I've posted about it several times, so won't go into the details again, but suffice to say that she did something that I found really hurtful after almost 30 years of friendship. I couldn't face seeing her after what she did, because I felt so hurt. I just stopped all contact. Although we had mobile phones, texting hadn't yet arrived, so contact was generally by landline and I got in the habit of always allowing calls to go to answerphone I could monitor who was calling. I do feel sad that it happened, I don't know whether she realised why I stopped contact.
I would like to say I wouldn't do the same again, but honestly, I couldn't have coped with having to explain why what she did was so hurtful, so in the same circumstances, I don't think I would do anything different.

@Discolites thanks, that's kind x .

What if I’d talked to my friend (interesting you assume female!) and found they would have preferred NOT to have had that conversation?
Also, I think only worth doing if you want to salvage the friendship. If you don’t, then there’s no point, surely? I didn’t want to salvage it — it had run its course (for me). I do think that happens, that friendships run their course. Not everything has to be dissected and discussed. Equally my friend could have asked why I’d let things fizzle out, and I would have been honest. The onus isn’t all on me.