Would you have hung up on me

[spanieleyes22]

So I posted before about a "break up" with a friend of over 15 years around October last. I found it very hard as she wouldn't talk to me or discuss anything she just blocked me on everything. I sent her a Xmas card but no response. Yesterday I was feeling down and lonely I've been sick with a flu thing and am just very down. I remembered last year when I was sick she was the only person I really told as I don't want to moan to family and she checked in on me - by text- and I rang her number withholding my number. I did try doing that a couple of times back when it happened but she never answered just a voicemail message would come on. I suppose I didn't expect her to answer and when she did I was happy and said hi it's spaniel eyes and then long silence and I said please don't hang up but before I finished the sentence she had hung up. I know it was stupid of me. I've been really upset but annoyed with myself too. I know it's time to forget her now she couldn't make it any clearer. I'd just love to know why she feels she has to do this. Whatever happened I don't feel warrants this: I feel it's actually cruel. But I know you all will tell me to stop wasting my time so I'm trying to do that. I id hope for a minute or so but quickly dashed.

So I have blocked ex friends as something has happened or they are just too much toxicity and didn’t want to hear it when I brought it up. I would have hung up too in all honesty!! I cut them off for their toxic ways to protect my little family….for whatever reason you need to respect that it’s what she wants 🤷🏼‍♀️

You only want to talk to her just so you can have your say on why she shouldn't stop talking to you. I hate to say it but I have cut off a friend/relationship that I had for a long time coz i couldn't fucking breathe around this person! All about them, constantly! If you didn't show the attention they wanted, they would get visible emotional. It's coz he wanted someone to talk to not because I do, my feelings didn't even come in to it lol. It's draining, I had no desire to keep repeating what I'd been saying for ages, respect my boundaries you don't get to text me 20 times a day and demand my attention. So if you are the needy friend in this situation, that's whym. Because it's all consuming and no one has got time for that. Think about what others are going through not just your self.

I’m not sure where you live, but all it takes where I live is 3 instances of unwanted contact and it’s considered stalking / harassment.

I don’t know what happened between you but it’s irrelevant. This person has made it clear they don’t want to speak to you.

You might want to get some professional help, like maybe a therapist to talk to so you can get help getting through that. It’s really important you respect peoples boundaries because as an adult there can be serious consequences In not doing so.

Im sorry this person is treating you this way, but they are not your friend any longer.

You might want to read the whole thread, and perhaps the many others the OP has posted about this, in which it is made clear that the friend actually did tell the OP why she was ending the friendship. The short version is that the OP kept pestering her for a level of contact which the friend couldn't keep up, the friend explained she was busy and trying to use her phone less and needed some space, and the OP then continued to contact her and sent her a 'nasty' message calling her cruel/mean for not messaging as often as the OP wanted. The friend then clearly told the OP that she was ending the friendship because the OP couldn't respect her need for some space, and blocked the OP. Ironically, the OP responded to that by repeatedly continuing to try to contact her after she had been asked not to.

I've only ghosted one friend and I'll be honest, the main reason why was because she saw everything as a starting point for negotiation. In my view we'd grown apart; she had a baby and then everything became about parenting/child, she'd literally never talk about anything else and even when she knew I was seriously ill in hospital she'd be texting all day about what her child had been doing/saying and never asking about me. I had surgery which made me infertile around the time her child was born, which again she knew about, so it kind of felt doubly-difficult that she couldn't talk about anything else.

She was an intense person who would send a text, then if no response within an hour she'd whatsapp me, then another hour and it'd be a FB message. I knew that any conversation about us not being friends anymore would be like the Brexit talks and so it was just easier to not respond to anything and hope she got the message. Every so often she does send messages still and it's been a few years now, which makes me feel terrible, but unless you've dealt with someone like this it's really hard to understand why ghosting seems like the only good option.

Please just leave this person alone and explore your feelings in therapy, OP. It'll do you the world of good in making friends going forward.

I think part of the problem might be the way you interpret things. In no part of my comment did I say I hated either of the friends I'd distanced myself from. In fact quite the opposite, I loved them both dearly, but in the end, they were not friendships I could continue for my own wellbeing. I gave all of myself to these friends for years and years and in the end when at rock bottom, something had to give.

I’m sorry this happened to you.

I knew someone like the OP once and I totally agree with you that unless you’ve been in the situation it’s hard to appreciate just how smothering it is.

I find it incredibly irritating that the OP is still posting about being a victim. It shows she will never accept her role in this, and will continue to blame this other woman who really sounds like she was left with no other choice. (Also all she did was block someone who refused to reduce contact with her - which is what the advice would be to do on here if she had posted for help!)

I wouldn’t be surprised if the OP ends up in trouble with the law.

Also all the “oh I’m a terrible person” comments are so disingenuous and manipulative. Maybe you ARE a terrible person. You seem to care more about getting your own way than you do about anyone else’s feelings.

Yes, this this this!! People genuinely cannot understand how stifling it is. One of my friends was whatsapp, send me a message on instagram, email, message my kids/other friends if i didnt respons within an hour. I had to turn all my notifications off, locations and last online status' off too. It became crazy.

That’s what I was wondering but another poster said not.

While I agree with the posters saying that the OP’s previous threads provide very useful context, it’s worth stating that, even if you haven’t read those, it’s still a fact that her ex-friend has blocked her and made it clear she doesn’t want to be contacted. Whether OP, or indeed anyone else on this thread, thinks that’s right or “fair”, is ultimately irrelevant - it’s her choice.

A lot of people on Mumsnet are very anti-ghosting. It’s “cruel”, “cowardly”, “unfair”; people are “owed an explanation”. Because of this, a lot of posters side with the ghosted party automatically, whatever the context. I’ve seen it on many threads. Well, at the risk of sounding like a primary school teacher, life isn’t fair. People don’t always do what they should, or what we think they should. And whether OP or anyone here thinks she’s been treated badly or is owed a hearing, she isn’t getting one. Ex-friend has made that clear, as is her right.

You need to be kind to yourself, if you have family then engage with them, leave your 'friend' alone to do whatever she needs to do.
Be Well

The friends’ actions have everything to do with OP, as you would know, had you read the thread. She insisted on a level of contact that the friend couldn’t sustain and when she told OP that, she got a faceful of nastiness in response. So OP is fully aware of why she was blocked - she left the friend with no alternative. OP posted several times back in October. She’s clearly been brooding and obsessing ever since, and has resorted to several anonymous phone calls to try to trick the friend into talking to her. She’s well on the way to police involvement if she doesn’t get help with her obsession.

Well, on one of the October threads OP says it's fine, I have other friends. Now on this thread she's stating, I have no friends left now. Says everything to me.

This is a really interesting post @spanieleyes22. It holds the key to what happened in your friendship.

You didn't say boo to your friend. What did you say to her? What were you desperate to explain when she stopped contact?

If you really want to understand what happened ask yourself these questions and answer them honestly. Focus on your behaviour, not hers.

I'm sorry you're struggling.

I wondered about this too. She now says she only has ‘acquaintances’ and still she isn’t doing any self examination as to why this is. And this thread seems to have been started with the sole intention of gaining support for another round of harassment of this poor friend - this time by anonymous phone call. I also seem to remember a couple of different threads about different friends - maybe that’s the reason there are none left. I fear that if OP doesn’t stop navel gazing and get some actual help with mental health she’s going to end up with the police knocking at her door.

The last thing @spanieleyes22 need is to be kind to herself!

It's the victim, poor me, martyrdom complex that got her here. She wallows in it and dwells on it, while blaming everyone else and getting passive agressive about it.

OP need to take responsibility for her own behaviour, stop hounding this poor woman (a thread every three months at least) who has clearly articulated why she'd had quite enough, and start behaving like an adult.

Doing some CBT or other counselling to look at her thought patterns and reslience would do her far more good than 'being kind to herself."

Yes I agree, CBT would be a good start.

Whether you feel whatever happened does or doesn’t warrant this behaviour, is not relevant, she has made her choice. You need to respect her choices and her boundaries, and leave her alone.

If she changes her mind and decides to give your friendship another chance, she will reach out to you.

Mate, I can't read your comments where you're calling yourself stupid and needing to know what happened to cause this without coming to you to say, if she can do that with no explanation and no contact then maybe she wasn't as good a friend in the beginning.

I live with rejection sensitivity dysphoria and I upset my two bestest friends whom I had grown up with. Friends for over 30 years and my need to know if we were okz, had I done something to annoy them made me obsessive.
My situation maybe different in that it involves a sudden loss of a parent. They had each other, I had no one to grieve with and why should they be thinking about me but I couldn't stop thinking about them. I felt like I needed to grieve with them but this was around the end of lockdown and was all messy anyway I digress.

I deleted them from FB. I deleted their phone numbers because I knew I wouldn't be able to help myself one day despite the awful message I received from one of them after I reached out to him.

Please know that you are not stupid!!
Be kind to yourself. A loss is a loss so grieve the loss of the friendship and grow/learn from the experience and put your lovely energy to something else

@spanieleyes22 If you need someone to chat to, feel free to pm me, OP. If private messaging is back on yet?

I hadn't seen this before my comment.

Hmmm, yesssss 🤔

I appreciate you say that you don’t know what you’ve done to get yourself blocked, but whatever it was must feel pretty significant to her. Blocking someone isn’t something most people would do over something minor.

You need to stop contacting her, she’s made it abundantly clear that she wants nothing to do with you. By continuing to harass her (and it is harassment as it’s unwanted contact) you won’t change her mind. I imagine it must be incredibly hard to loose somebody you thought was a close friend, but it’s over now, the friendship os irreparably broken. Move on.

if she can do that with no explanation and no contact then maybe she wasn't as good a friend in the beginning.

The friend didn't do it with no explanation, she asked OP for space and OP wouldn't stop. OP has posted multiple times about this, wanting posters to tell her she's been wronged and shore up her victimhood. OP behaved badly and doesn't want to take responsibility for that.

You should probably read OPs posts on this and previous threads, before offering to become the next person being overwhelmed by her.