to let you all know why I ghosted my friend?

[NoteworthyFactory]

This was 5 years ago. We were both in our late 40s.

I really liked her. We used to live in the same area and became friends through a mutual acquaintance. Around a year after our friendship developed, I moved out of area. We then started making an effort to meet somewhere half way three or four times a year. It was then when I noticed that she could be very negative about life in general and I felt like an emotional dumpster whenever I was with her. She would often tell me about outings with other friends and I wondered if she'd be moaning at them so much also, but somehow I got the feeling that she reserved that role for me.

I took up running. She mocked it by saying it was a cliche how middle aged women who had never exercised would suddenly feel the urge to do so and start running and damage their bones. To this day I still run 2/3 times a week.

I started training to become a counsellor. She mocked it and actually said how everyone and their mother was hitting middle age and boredom and would train to become a counsellor. I have been successfully practising as a counsellor for 4 years now.

She turned 50 and we had no immediate plans to meet, so I posted a beautiful scarf to her home address. I know she loved it because I've seen a lot of photos in sm with her wearing it.

A year later I turned 50 just before lockdown. We met for coffee. She had no gift for me. Not even a card. She did some of her usual moaning. She then told me about an amazing gift she had bought for her friend's 50th birthday. She then let me pay for the coffees.

I have had a friend kindly explain why our friendship was over. We had drifted apart over the years but I had clung on, whereas she moved on. In the end, she politely brought it to a close.

I won't lie - I was really upset. But it felt kinder and nicer and it drew a line under everything. I knew not to keep contacting her, even though I wanted to. Instead, I resolved to concentrate on the current, real friendships I had.

Many years later, in different circumstances, a formerly close friend stopped speaking to me overnight. I never have found out why. That hurt more because of the not knowing.

So, in my experience, if the relationship is over and there is no going back, you may as well honestly explain why. It may help you both move on and learn.

So, in my experience, if the relationship is over and there is no going back, you may as well honestly explain why. It may help you both move on and learn.

The issue with this though is that saying why it's over elicits a response. (Unless you block the person and then you'll never know if they are angry, upset, want another chance etc.)

I am currently sort-of ghosting someone and I can't bear the thought of pressing 'send' and waiting for a nasty reply coming back.

You definitely move on faster if someone just tells you the truth, even if it’s hurtful and uncomfortable for the person who wants to cut the friend off.

But the risk for the 'truth teller' is they will get the 'truth' back about themselves.
So they get a double whammy. Telling the friend and having to cope with whatever the friend sends back.

This reminds me of an ex boyfriend who broke up with me and wanted to remain friends. When I finally called him out for stringing me along and treating me badly, he replied criticising me and asked me not to reply to him . 😂

What a twat. How did I have my blinkers on I’ll never understand.

Not sure why you are posting this but:

>>>it was a cliche how middle aged women who had never exercised would suddenly feel the urge to do so and start running

>>> I started training to become a counsellor. She mocked it and actually said how everyone and their mother was hitting middle age and boredom and would train to become a counsellor.

are both 100% true statements. I don't think they are 'mocking'. They are statements of fact actually. At the very least they are fair opinions. It's your insecurity that assesses this as 'mocking'.

You may not like it and depending on your relationship with your friend you may have preferred her to say nothing. Some friendships are more open and direct and want honesty. Others are more tip toe round the eggshells.

Moving out of her area is a big thing in friendships. Most good friendships are founded on physical proximity. It is regular contact that makes them thrive. A move is where you find out whether a friendship is important to you, important to them or just a more trivial social thing.

It's life.

Post away, OP.

There are plenty of threads about ghosting, and it's good to get your perspective😊

I think ghosting someone is a horrible thing to do if someone just vanished and stopped answering their phone I'd think they've been murdered or kidnapped and would probably ring the police or turn up at there house

I think it's good to talk about ghosting, I don't know why people are so outraged you've posted OP! I told the story on a thread here recently about a group of neighbours who were spreading nasty gossip about my DD being disabled (ie basically saying nothing wrong with her) but what I didnt say (as it wasn't relevant to the thread) was that I was very close indeed to one of them, felt like a horrible betrayal. So I never "ghosted" as such just stopped telling her all my private information, she waited about a month then texted me "have I offended you" and I thought well if I tell her she'll just deny it so what's the point? I later messaged her a few times to ask how her DD was as she'd been unwell too, and got really terse replies - she then told all our neighbours I'd been mean to her. That was that, the whole group took it on board then, nothing more people like than a target, people basically ignoring me in the street.

Reader, we moved (well, 5 years later but you know, it contributed!)

Ghosting is incredibly childish and hurtful behaviour.

YWNBU to end the friendship but the right thing to do would be to just say something along the lines of “our lives have moved on and I don’t think we have much in common any more, I wish you all the best but I won’t be keeping in touch”.

Some people need to wind their fucking necks on.
OP can post what she wants, and it was interesting to get the opposite perspective, after a few posts from the other side.

I understand why you no longer wanted to be friends with her, but I do not understand why you think it was fine to ghost her rather than explaining why. I thinking ghosting is cruel.

It would have been more useful to have told her why you were ending the friendship. She could improve her relationships with other people (if she wants to) and you would have drawn a line and be less likely to still be dwelling on this.

If someone shows you that they don't much care about you then you don't owe them any more of your time.

It's not nice to ghost friends but since friends don't sneer at you and mock you, what you've ghosted is a twat. And it's ok to ghost twats.

We really didn't need to know all that but if it has made you feel better, that is good. Now move on.

I am a counsellor and this always baffles me! We're allowed to have emotions and to be upset about things.

Ghosting isn't nice, but I'm.so close to doing it right now with a long term friend (15 years) because again it's the total lack of self awareness. I've tried politely distancing myself and haven't met up in months but she is a bit persistent and not taking the hint that I need some space.

I moved over 100 miles away a few years ago and in the past we would meet up occasionally maybe every few months for lunch or something. But as friend doesn't drive I have to do all the driving including picking up dropping off etc. In all that time they have not once offered petrol money, bought lunch or even put a pound in the parking meter!

We don't really have anything in common at all I found myself meeting up just to appease them and stop the relentless "when can we meet" questions. They never want to meet at weekends or holidays when their DH is around only on weekdays when they are at a loose end.

I honestly don't want to be nasty and ghost her but I'm actually really tired of the situation now and distancing myself isn't working

Why is this in AIBU?

If the extent of her attempted contact was - “?” at the end of an unfinsihed text chat then I wouldn’t call what you did ghosting. Sounds like she didn’t really consider you much and you eventually stopped bothering with her - that’s it. No guilt necessary IMO.

Why not? Clearly many people do think she's being unreasonable for telling us about it given the responses OP has had.

I’ve never met someone who has ghosted a friend and been calling others negative who has not had issues themselves tbh. And I include myself in that. I think genuine friends address issues and are forgiving. I’ve known some adult mean girls who use ghosting and exclusion as a power trip though.

Those are horrible, generalising statements and I would be very upset if a friend spoke to me like that.

OP’s friend doesn’t deserve a kind word, let alone an explanation.

The priority is for OP to extricate herself from an awful friendship, not be a learning experience for her friend.

Anything else is secondary.

There are pp upthread who are still in bad friendships because they can’t work up the nerve to tell their friend they don’t want to be friends anymore.

My advice is if you can only bring yourself to ghost them and not speak up, then just ghost them.