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 was ghosted by a friend about 10 years ago - it was a slow fade over the course of about 18 months and when I realised what had a happened (it took me a while) I was gutted.

At the the time she was my only social contact, my partner worked away and I didn't have great friends at work I was incredibly lonely. It was only fairly recently when a friend of mine was suffering from what I was back then that I realised. I was absolutely appalling company, my loneliness had made me self absorbed, boring and needy.

There is absolutely no way she could have found a way to communicate how I was making her feel in any sort of kind or constructive way.

She did the right thing as it left the good memories of our friendship intact. It was also the kick up the arse I needed to turn things around and I now have an amazing social life and a great group of close friends.

It's the constant exchange in the relationship that keeps it going even if there are life changes. Both parties need to keep a check ie am I giving too much, am I taking too much.

I do agree with this. And maybe there are situations where one person lets the balance slide for some reason. But I also think that if you value the friendship, you have a conversation about that before it becomes a resentment. And if it's too late or too extreme to salvage things, you don't ignore their questions and requests to make amends. You say, no, it's too late for amends.

But I'm beginning to understand that this kind of communication is really rare. I think I need to lower my standards.

I think tech gives us the illusion of maintaining a connection without actually doing so. We often end up living far away from our friends which is pretty inconvenient to be honest and it's easier to be spread time with the people who are local to us or if we have small kids the ones who have kids our age or the ones who will drink with us and so on depending on your situation.

Ultimately many friendships are relationships of convenience which is sad but normal. I think a lot of ghosting isn't a person deciding to freeze you out it's just repeatedly choosing the more convenient option to the point where the relationship they once had with you is no more.

@wrongthinker I am with you on the not ghosting but it's probably too late to save the friendship by then. Too much water under the bridge.

I wrote my ex best friend a letter setting out why I felt used and taken for granted. To be honest I doubt it made an iota of difference to her. She never responded so the friendship wasn't that valuable to her which was why we were in the situation we were. I think on some level I knew that dealing with it earlier wouldn't have made any difference. It would just have ended sooner. Another friend broke up with her for quite obvious reasons, she was oblivious!

Some friendships are just not healthy, on either side. I think we sleepwalk into them sometimes and amble along without examining them properly. I am completely puzzled how some people can take, take, take without a thought about reciprocation, even though I think it's the responsibility of the giver to set boundaries. It's like we're different species.

See, I don't buy this. You could quite easily have explained yourself without once using the words 'selfish' and 'boring'. It just requires good communication skills. I can't imagine leaving someone just hanging.

I've not experienced this myself, but when you read so many examples of people who shy away from doing anything that might be viewed by them or someone else as confrontation, can understand why reducing or having no contact is chosen.

I agree. But what I've learned from this thread and the other ghosting one is that what I would consider basic communication and respect is outside the realm of capability for many people. Hardly anyone seems to have a clue about how to establish a boundary, let alone conduct a break up.

Oh totally. I recently heard a well-know relationship expert say that the number one reason couples divorce is because they don't know how to resolve conflict. I guess the same applies to friendships.

It's certainly a skill - and one that I'm so grateful to have.

@Jumpingthruhoops So how many friendships have you ended, then? How have you done it without hurting feelings, creating huge arguments, dragging things out for months? Since you have this skill, share it with us.

With people you want to ghost because they've become boring and needy, can't speak for everyone but I think what would make me end up ghosting rather than confronting would be having some hope that this behaviour might pass and things could be recovered. Confronting them and telling them that it's because they're boring and needy would feel like something we wouldn't ever come back from. A period of distance that didn't last too long could leave things open.

But why would you ever tell someone they were boring and needy, unless you wanted to hurt them? If you want some distance you say, hey, I need some space so I won't be in touch for a while but I hope we can reconnect in a few months.

Or if you want something to change, you say what that is and discuss it with them. E.g. I feel like our friendship has become a bit one-sided and there isn't as much space for me and my needs. Can we work out how to get a better balance because I feel like it's damaging our friendship.

Or if you want to end the friendship: this isn't feeling tje same for me anymore, I think we've grown apart and it's time to end the friendship, but I wish you well.

I can understand why people ghost if they think the alternative is saying, "you're boring and needy and I can't be arsed with you anymore." But that's not the case!

I don't know about @Jumpingthruhoops but I've ended a couple of friendships and relationships in a kind way. It's not that hard to do. I've also had someone end a friendship with me with gentle but honest words and it was fine. I learned from it.

It's just communication skills. I didn't realise until today how rare they are!

@NuffSaidSam I didn't say it was a difficult one to work out. Being curious / having curiosity does not equate to not being able to understand. For example, today I was curious as to what someone was knitting, I understood that they were knitting but I didn't know what they were knitting. Hope that helps

Well not really because that's not a very good example!

If you could clearly see they were knitting a jumper and you then asked "what are you knitting?" it would demonstrate a lack of understanding more than curiosity. There are other questions a curious person would ask.

I haven't ended any really. Haven't needed to. Because I know how to communicate. That's the point.

Exactly this! 👏👏

I had a friend who ghosted me, and I felt like it may have had something to do with jealousy. She had split with her husband, then had an affair with a married man, then went through a series of other encounters with men that didn’t work out. I was happily married and the relationship with my DH was really good.
I also was doing well in my career and had a series of big successes, which she would often make comments about in a less than positive way.
She also often commented on my parenting, how tidy my house was, the fact that I baked a lot, cooked from scratch etc etc constantly. I didn’t make a deal of this stuff, but she always commented on it, and I think she may have been viewing me as being really “together” and I think it’s probably why she ghosted me.
It was sad at the time, as I felt we actually had a connection. I often find it hard to make time for my friends since I had children, but I did with her, and enjoyed her company, and would try to boost her up when she was going through a hard time.
At that time, I had actually just been diagnosed with a chronic illness, and I was facing lots of challenges, but she just saw me as an overachiever, and I think compared herself a lot.
Thinking back she made lots of unnecessary and judgemental comments about others in our friendship group who she perceived were doing better, more wealthy, higher paid jobs, bigger houses etc etc, and I recall some manipulative / pass agg comments and I didn’t really see the pattern until I reflected on it all afterwards.

I don't ghost. If anything I stop talking.

Honestly @NuffSaidSam you should look up the words curious and understand in the Oxford dictionary. One does not compute with the other. If you don't get you don't get it, nothing wrong with that.

True, but sometimes they're the kind of person who loses interest when you're not useful to them anymore.

I ghosted an ex friend.

She had behaved atrociously. Taking advantage of me left right and centre.

The reason I ghosted her is because (apart obviously from not wanting to have anything to do with her) was because I didn’t think I should have to tell her that her behaviour was appalling - it’s obvious. She knew what she was doing. Why should I have to explain it to her?

I suppose it’s different if it’s a disagreeemnt, but in my case it was constant piss taking. Eg she would say she desperately needed me to have her kids so she could go to an important appointment for a couple of hours and then I find out that there was no appointment and she was lazing around drinking coffee with another friend for about 5 hours. No - I’m not explaining stuff like that to her - she took the piss repeatedly, I ghosted her.

I think Covid shattered a lot of friendships. You could be me and your friend my now ex best friend. I didn't ghost her, we had a good old fashioned falling out. She was a '' well at least..." person too.

Ghosting is a really awful thing to do to someone. All the posters above are really casual about it. It shows how callous, weak and disrespectful they are, it's often claimed that people are 'non-confrontational' as if that's a good thing, Which it isn't, they just don't have the emotional intelligence to discuss all the things with the person. They clearly don't really value the persons, don't value their feelings. If they did, they wouldn't ghost. Because there are better alternatives.

It's my own fault for looking again but - Jesus, the people on this thread whining about being ghosted sound like total controlling, bullying freaks.

And again, I am so glad you can't bash your way into people's lives and that drives you nuts. What a bunch of coercive, gaslighting creeps.

Because like on those estranged parent forums the ghoster would most likely have tried to talk about things repeatedly only for it to go in one ear and out of the other. When a person is that thick skinned you are left with either avoiding them or with bluntly telling them why you don't like them anymore. I agree with PP that some people are very good at ignoring warning signs.