To ask: have you ever had someone just stop speaking to you for no reason?

[GutsyBrickMoose]

Not a big argument, not a clear falling out - just silence.

Someone you were close with suddenly withdrawing, ignoring calls or messages, and acting like you no longer exist.

If so, how did you deal with it and did they ever come back?

Yep she has gone to my hairdresser and friend of 10 years and slagged me off. How sad.

Because you didn't invite her to your wedding?

Sort of. It was always me going the extra mile in the friendship and making the effort, particularly after she had children, but I enjoyed her company and her children so I didn’t really mind. When I had ds1 though I couldn’t really afford to drop everything for her anymore and I think she took it as a bit of a slight. One time she even stood me up for lunch because she forgot. I kept in touch but she was always suggesting meeting up and then not following through with making arrangements. We did eventually meet up again after I had ds2, which I now realise she just wanted to meet him and wasn’t really interested. Never saw her again after that even though the meet up was lovely. She just stopped bothering to reply and I couldn’t be bothered to keep pressing it so I let it lapse. A few years later she must have got wind of my dad dying and me getting divorced so she asked me if I wanted to meet for a chat. The cynical side of me just thought she just wants to meet up to hear what my life is like so I just left her on read.

I am ashamed to say I did ghost someone a few years ago. She has two children the same age as my two. But her dd was always so badly behaved and awful. I mean I’m tolerant of children mostly but her dd was dreadful and the last time we met up she pushed my ds1 over and caused him to rip his trousers. My friend sort of did a sing song laugh?!?! When we got in the car to go home my ds1 cried and said that he didn’t want to see them again. He is also usually tolerant of most children so I knew it had taken him a lot to say that. So when my friend asked to meet up again I stopped replying. It wasn’t nice because I really liked her but she was incapable of telling her dd off. I didn’t feel I could tell her the reason.

Yes, best friend from school. I moved to a different country with DH but always kept in touch and tried to meet every time we were back. It started with not replying to my messages until we'd left the country again ( things like would have been nice to meet but I've had flu) .This happened every time. Eventually she stopped replying completely. I sent a couple of hope you're well messages a few months apart- nothing back. I've tried to forget about her now. I know she's OK ( well as far as we can tell) as my family have bumped into her ( small community). DH thinks it might be because I'm in a place she would like to be, married with kids, while she's single, it's possible but my life isn't always rosy either!

Thinking about it, I did this too. Caught my friend/colleague snorting lines off the kitchen work top.

She begged me not to tell her work. I didn't.

I’d had a dreadful day out with her and her ‘friends’ who were definitely taking advantage of her (and me). I’d only gone to hers to drop off a Christmas card and have a coffee!

Never contacted her again, but she knows why.

I made a good friend of one of the school mums while my eldest was in primary school. I was divorced at the time with a volatile ex but had started to come out the other side and felt more in control.
She was in the middle of a seemingly coercive relationship and relied on me a lot for support. She eventually LTB and we continued to be close.
I met someone else and had another baby, though we still saw each other very regularly and after a while she just cut me off.
I was quite willing to accept that I must have upset her in some way and wanted to make amends (had no idea what though), but she refused point blank to discuss it with me.
i was absolutely devastated, that was 10 years ago and I still have no idea why.
Fortunately our kids have moved on so our paths don’t cross anymore.

No but I have done it once. I had a ‘friend’ that constantly flirted with my boyfriend, it was just so irritating. Then she passed along info about a job that she was offered but refused as it wasn’t a good fit for her. I got the job, several months later she lost Her job and made snide comments that my job should have been hers! Not jokingly, full of anger. The last straw was inviting her to see our new house and new baby and she exclaimed ‘I wouldn’t like this at all! It’s too big, no I’d hate a house like this’.

I cut her off; she wrote me letters asking what she did wrong. I never responded, I gave her the chop and that was that.

Yep. I met a guy through an introduction agency (not online). We quickly realised there was no romantic future but we felt a connection and I spent the next six or eight months seeing him most weeks - he was the closest thing to a brother. We told each other about our dates through the agency and just had a good time going to galleries, out for lunch and just gossiping. He had mostly female friends and was pretty social and was fun to be with.
He eventually met a girl he liked and told me all about her and invited me over to meet her and she seemed very nice and I was happy for him.
Then I think in an exchange I was a bit rude about something, I can’t remember what but I think I did offend him a bit. I didn’t think it was that big a deal but I emailed a heartfelt apology the next day.
But then nothing. I wrote one more time. He never communicated with me again.
A friend told me once that she made a new friend about a year before she got married. This new friend was enthusiastic and helped out a lot with the planning and organising. My friend was grateful and they seemed to get on like a house on fire. Then out of the blue the day before the wedding the woman called my friend and said she couldn’t make it to the wedding. She never heard from her again, despite reaching out to her a few times.

My daughter made a really good friend in the last two years of school and, after a while, the girl's mum and I would message each other about plans for who was picking them up or taking them somewhere. The messages became more chatty and we'd run into each other here and there and SHE asked ME to go for coffee one day. We did and got on really well and SHE asked me over to hers a few weeks later, which again went really well. She came to mine, same thing. Nice, thought I was making a nice, if casual friend.

I messaged her about meeting again and got no reply. Sent two further messages in about a two week span, as I know her job is very busy and stressful. Eventually got a terse reply that she was too busy to meet up any more ever.

Despite it only being a few meetings, I was really hurt and searched my brain for what I might have inadvertently said or done, but I can't think of anything. I'm certainly not going to get in touch and say, "What did I do? Why won't you be my friend any more?" but if I'm honest, I'm still very tender about it and it's made me pull back a bit from people.

Her daughter and mine are still great friends, incidentally, so...who knows??

Yes. In the first couple of years my wife and I were together, we still had our own places in different areas, but eventually moved into my place as she had been wanting to sell hers for a while. Prior to this we'd been really good friends with my wife's neighbor Jane, used to hang out all the time in each other's houses, go for drinks, and even went on holiday together.

My wife told both sets of neighbours she was planning to sell her house and this neighbour became very aloof with us, and the next few times we saw her, both of us felt she was outright rude. We then got our own place together a few months later and invited Jane and the other neighbors round for drinks in our Whatsapp group. She completely ignored the message. We saw her again at another get together with another friend and she just walked out.

We carried on for a while making sure to invite her to any social events and messaging periodically but she clearly didn't want to talk to either of us. I still to this day have no idea what we've done to upset her and it's now been 5 years. Our friends and other old neighbors have attempted to get to the bottom of it too, but she refuses to talk about it....

Yes a woman I worked with.

dropped her home one day and the next day she just cut me dead, not a word. For almost 2 years she behaved like an absolute child. No idea what her problem was, definitely unstable. People used to laugh about her behind her back.

Yes. We’d been friends for years, raised our children together. Then she went silent. It’s no exaggeration to say I was devastated. We were so close and I was also worried what I could have done to deserve this treatment.
After a few years, circumstances meant we ended up being back in touch. She’d had a tough few years and this is the reason she withdrew. I’m so glad to have her back and know she is okay, but will always feel hurt that she didn’t trust me enough to confide in me.