Old friend randomly blocked me

[Pureshores499]

For background purposes, I'm in my 40s now.
When I was in my 20s, I had a friend who I socialised a lot with (bars and clubs late 90's days) we had some amazing nights and were great friends, not super close though, mainly socially. As life progresses we both meet and marry, settle down etc. and lose touch, as sometimes happens in life. I know she's married with a son who I'm guessing is around 20 now.

Randomly one day a few months ago, I got thinking of her and could remember her Mums landline number (probably because we called each other so much back then before mobiles!)

I rang and spoke to her Mum. She remembered me and we had a brief chat. I asked for my old friends mobile and said I'd love to surprise her with a little WhatsApp and catch up on how she's doing.

I drop said friend a little message, along the lines of "hey old friend. Surprise! A little blast from your past. Ask how she's doing, tell her she had popped into my mind etc, explained how I'd amazingly remembered her parents home number etc. and just thought it would be good to check in all these years later now we're adulting 😊

She replies, brief, but pleasant asks how I am etc.

So I respond fairly briefly, tell her I'm married, where I'm living now etc. Casually say it would be nice to one day catch up for a coffee is she fancies it sometime.

That's it.

Stays on the grey tick. I got blocked. Obviously she never responded.

I can't understand. It's made me feel utterly crap. I'm obviously overthinking it, but who wouldn't. I've never done anything to offend her. I get that life moves on. Maybe she didn't fancy the coffee thing, but surely she could have just got around that by being vague and non committal (I can take a hint!) Just thought it was a nice little checkin to an old friend I'd lost touch with.

I just find people so rude. I thought it would be just a nice hi, was thinking of you and the fun times we has message - instead I come away from an innocently nice gesture feeling like I've been punched in the stomach (and also like a complete idiot!!)

She only lives about 10 miles from me, so I dread if I ever bump into her, I'd feel incredibly awkward now on how to navigate!

Anyone else had odd situations like this that fester in your mind?

People on mumsnet are strange OP. Who wouldn't be happy to hear from an old friend?

Yes I'm female and so is my old friend for context.

I'm female, as is my friend, as a few think I'm male

You sound unhinged.

OP's old friend evidently.

I'd be happy an old friend got in touch to say hello. Clearly I'm in the minority and shouldn't do this. How odd that I'm seen as creepy! I feel even worse now. Got to love MN 😂

OP, it doesn't sound like you can take a hint. The hint is that she hasn't replied to your additional message. There could be many reasons for this, none of which matter at the end of the day. It is sad when you realise friendships have run their course, but I wouldn't spend too much time being upset over this or worrying about bumping into her. If the latter happens, just say hello, ask how she is and go about your day. It doesn't have to be a big deal.

These are likely the same people who complain they have no friends and people don't bother anymore. 😄

Depends entirely on the individual and what the person contacted has going on in their own lives, surely. In the OP’s case, the friend was happy enough to reply pleasantly to her initial text, but not interested in further communication or meeting.

There are some people I’d love to hear from from my undergraduate years (pre-internet, email, mobiles, so much harder to keep in touch, and so many of us emigrated, they’re impossible to track all these years on), but others I’d be appalled by any contact from.

You can read a WhatsApp message without it showing as read I understand. If you just scroll down highlight from top of mobile without going into the actual WhatsApp. Lots of people do that. It doesn't mean a block.

Things have just moved on alot and changed and it's likely that more than anything else. I'd just delete the contact and try move forward

Why am I really weird?
All I was doing was trying to message an old friend to say hello and only knew her parents number.
I wasn't going to hound her with messages or beg her to meet up. It was a simple check in of an old friend I once spent a lot of time with. Hey ho, I guess I won't bother ever again if I'm seen as creepy 😬

It might be that she's not in a great situation herself/going through some stuff/doesn't want to go back to the past...

I have friends I think of fondly enough, but they were connected to crappy jobs i'd had or old boyfriends, and i just wouldn't want to resurrect things - it's not necessarily personal to them.

I find that in middle age I'm much fussier about who I give my time to - maybe she feels the same.

It's her loss anyway! Hopefully it makes space to find a new brilliant friend :)

If someone I used to know rang my Mum and got my number and then contacted me I would not be best pleased.

I can think of a few people from my old life that I wouldn’t want to be in my new life just because they know things about me I really don’t want my current people to ever find out. And I’d rather forget.

If they contacted me I’d probably be momentarily delighted but I would have to keep a wide berth.

I got up to all sorts of silliness when I was younger, as did all my friends (tbh they were worse than me and I was no angel) and I know a few of them have got nervous when we talk about our partying days when in front of their families/partners. So maybe she's thinking that getting in touch will open a can of worms regarding memories that she still cringes about or actions that would make her look bad in front of her family and friends?

How long has it been since you sent the WhatsApp? Sometimes it takes me days to reply 🤣

The old and fat thing might be more true than any of us realise. Along with peri menopause, crappy husband home life, unruly disappointing children, stressful career or no job at all or just plain tired of everything - the list goes on, as to why some people are not keen on seeing old friends from the glory days.

Her current friends (if she has any) will know all of the above and so she may be comfortable with them.
It's not personal and it's very very common .

It's a shame, Op, but it could be for 1000 reasons.

Dont take it personally.

Really odd thing to do tbh

A couple of people have tried this with my Mum, an old former friend/ frenemy and an ex. In both cases my Mum was sensible enough to not give my number, but instead take there's to give to me. I then ignored both.

Maybe I'm horrible but I really really didn't want to contact either person again. In the case of the friend I purposefully didn't give her my contact details when I moved abroad. She was one of those people who is actually not a friend and was very passive aggressive, put me down, etc. Good riddance!

And the ex, just no.

How do you know you are blocked and it’s not just that she hasn’t read it?

I often see a message, think oh I’ll read that later when I’m not at work or have time to respond and then totally forget about it

In fact embarrassingly this has reminded me of one from a lovely old work friend who messaged me about two months ago 🙈 and an old friend from the kids nursery days who messaged suggesting we catch up about two weeks ago. Feel terrible but that’s just how I am- bit useless on the messaging front.

I don't get the blocking thing. I feel like as a society we are losing our ability to handle perfectly normal situations with social skills. If you issued a direct invitation she could have responded by saying 'I'm so sorry I don't think I could fit that in to my current life but I do have fond memories of all our fun times in the 90s!' There's no reason to think you wouldn't have got the message and backed off. Blocking just seems like an aggressive overreaction only necessary when someone is aggressively bothering you. There's nothing weird about making a friendly attempt to reconnect with someone.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're blocked, just that it couldn't deliver for some reason. All mine go to 1 grey tick when I'm down seeing to the horses as I don't log into the WiFi and the 5g/4g is terrible. There's one area that gets a signal but it's shit and slow. As soon as I get back to civilisation, they all go through.

Well, you could have given her mother your number and asked her to pass it along for one thing.

And she was perfectly polite, if less enthusiastic than you. She responded civilly once, but isn’t interested in more.

If this brush off, from someone you can’t have seen in 20 years and whose life now you know nothing about, is making you feel ‘like you’ve been punched in the stomach’ and utterly crap’, I’d say you’re way over-invested.

Would you have felt better if she’d replied again and said ‘I’m glad you’re well, but have no interesting in meeting up’?

I met up with an old school friend (we hadn’t messaged each other, we found out we had a mutual friend). It was ok, but we had absolutely nothing in common & as nice as it was, neither of us have been in touch since. It got kind of awkward once we’d done the whole ‘do you remember so and so’ and ‘what are you up to now’ .

Some people would love to get a message like you sent, others
not so much. You tried, and she replied, but maybe she just isn’t interested in sharing what’s happened in the last 30 yrs since you knew each other, so isn’t fussed about meeting up.
Everyone is different I guess.