Have you ever had a friend that you just never heard from again?

[BeBusyBird]

No big fallout. No dramatic ending. Just one day they stopped reaching out, didn’t respond to your calls/texts and that was it. Did you ever find out why? Did you try to reconnect or did you let it go?

No but I have done it. Dear friend from uni. Moved abroad. Became increasingly unhinged on social media. But I still kept in touch and met up when she was back home for visits. Until she started posting every day about Palenstine and anti Israel stuff by which point I’d had enough so I’ve just stopped interacting with her and if she asks to meet up I probably will reply vaguely. Feel really sad as she was truly a dear friend and is lovely otherwise but I can’t deal with her politics.

Yep. Best friend in my teens and early 20s. Had been there for her through thick and thin. I moved abroad for a year and she took it almost personally. She sent me a beautiful card wishing me luck for the future and we talked on Facebook the first few months when she stopped responding.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the tables had turned and now I needed her shoulder to lean on when she disappeared. When her mum died I tried one more time and she blanked me. That was ten years ago and it’s still a sore spot.

Yes. I invited a friend and her husband to my wedding. They RSVP-ed to the church and the wedding breakfast / Reception afterwards. They came to the church, but didn’t show up at the Reception. So we had two empty seats at one of our tables. They never contacted us to explain. It was really bizarre. I was too cross at the time to contact them myself (there was a couple at the church who were only coming back for the evening do, who I could have invited to join us for the meal had I known my friend wasn’t planning to come). And then it felt like too much time had passed and it would be weird to contact her.

Quite a few from uni. School friends. I am very old though so not surprising. Though one of my oldest, closest friends who I lost touch with when she moved countries and I moved house i did meet again last year.
DH had a a uni friend who, despite being really close to many just said he would never contact anyone again. And he didnt.

I've remembered so many friends from school and now uni (I thought uni friends were friends for life) who ignore me when I reach out and it hurts

Met one through school reunion got on great. Then ghosted. Was keen to stay in touch. We laughed over school days. Then nothing. It hurt. She took ages to reply also. I give up😒

I was the person who dropped contact ‘with no drama or reason’ - except the reason was the person I was friends with treated me like crap, constantly belittled me to make herself feel better and refused to have any discussion about her behaviour as it was me being jealous or stupid. So I just stopped taking her calls and answering her messages. Nothing I would have said would have made a difference to her behaviour.

I was a lot younger and do regret not being clear on what I was doing and why, but by that stage I was beaten down by her reaction to me asking to be treated with respect.

She did get in touch a few years later to let me know she had had a baby. I was touched she was still thinking of me and considered this an olive branch til a mutual friend - who had also ghosted her for the same reasons - pointed out it was more likely her saying ‘look I’ve got everything and you’ve got nothing’ because she thought me choosing to be childfree and being single at the time was a sign of being pathetic and a loser.

I was part of a wider group of 4 people who were also all friends with her and who all ghosted her for the same reasons.

I looked at her social media recently as a friend was talking about her. She doesn’t seem to have changed and I recognised so much of myself in the body language of the women posed round her on her pictures. I have no doubt I and the others like me are all villains in her retelling

Yes, a friend I met about 10 years ago. We met online and got on, things were really intense for a while. We were in contact A LOT, we met up in person a lot, she came to my house. She confessed she wanted to be with me romantically but I wasn't into it. But we continued to be friends.
Shortly after, I met my now husband and the contact dwindled. I felt like every time I messaged her she didn't want to hear from me, so I deleted her number with the reason behind it being she'd have to be the one to be in touch of she wanted to speak to me. But I never heard from her again and that was that.

Had a friend I met through previous job, we had been good friends for over 20 years. I always made an effort to drive to her home town as she suffered with anxiety and didn’t want to drive far. Had a baby, moved down the road, barely heard from her. Then out of the blue she messages me to say she hadn’t see me post photos of my ex husband and had something happened. So basically lives 15 minutes away and can’t be fucked to make an effort but happy to get in touch for gossip. Nasty and not what I call a friend. I have blanked her and she has de-friended me. Upsetting but I guess people change.

Yes! It still really upsets me as I thought we had a great friendship and to be dumped with no explanation is horrible! I lost saw her at her wedding in September 2023, thing is she is married to another friend of mine so I've lost 2 friends now (I introduced them). I wish I hadn't gone to the wedding now, I didn't want to go but was bridesmaid so had to! When I agreed to it I was only supposed to have my eldest who would be 16 months at the time of the wedding. I got pregnant with our second quite quickly after our first and so had a 16 month old and a 10 week old at the time of the wedding. It was also 1.5 hours drive away, we didn't have a car so my mother ended up picking us up and driving us there, we had to pay for a cottage for the night (at the wedding venue so wasn't cheap!), and our DC really struggled to settle for sleep so I was exhausted! But because she's my best friend I did it for her, so when she stopped speaking to me I was upset and angry. I still don't know why she won't talk to me and I still get really upset. I've messaged my other friend (her husband) and not had a reply either, last I heard was a year ago and he said she doesn't want to tell him why she won't speak to me anymore, and gets very angry about it?! So confused! People are strange beings, I'd at least have the balls to tell her why I didn't want to talk to her again and I'm glad I don't live in my home town anymore!

Stepped away from friend of 30 years when she told my daughter that she was an accident and that her father and I weren’t sure we would continue the pregnancy. This wasn’t true. I’d had a heavy bleed and wasn’t sure I was still pregnant. My teenaged child was devastated. Former friend’s attitude was that my daughter had to know sometime. No she didn’t.

This woman knew all of my secrets. After that I couldn’t trust her not to keep them.

We see each other occasionally and are amiable, but trust has gone.

Placemarking

@BigBubblesX you had the audacity to have a baby and not make your entire world about her in the lead up and on the day? Some people are honestly unhinged about being a bride. You can only hope that when they are knee deep in dirty nappies and haven’t had a night’s full sleep for a very long time they will have a think about the effort involved in attending a wedding with a very young baby and young children (if indeed that is her problem with you).

@StrandedStarfish I’m surprised you manage to be polite when you see her. That is a truly terrible thing to say to a young person and potentially very damaging. It sounds like she had some very negative intent given that she was prepared to bend the truth as presumably she knew the real story.

I’ve just looked back at the last message I sent one of my closest friends, we were living in different cities, both starting professional careers. We met when we were 4, together all through school, lived in the same village, parents were friendly. We had some brilliant holidays to Ibiza, I supported him coming out to his parents and rooted for him when he met his first boyfriend.
Living in different cities with our partners did mean we barely saw each other but we checked in on special occasions. 10 years ago was the last time he reached out. The last text I received he said Happy Birthday and I replied and asked about his family, his partner, his job, but nothing back. No idea why that was the very last one. The things that have happened in those 10 years…my wedding, my two children, moving back to our home town. Nothing. It’s sad, I try not to take it personally but it’s hard not to. There obviously wasn’t enough about me he wanted to hold on to.

Sadly yes. She cut off several long term friends at the same time. I think it's because we all had kids and were now considered boring (and no, she wasn't jealous, she is adamantly cfbc and living her best life).

She was a close friend and I spent two years occasionally messaging her with no response. I've given up now. I finally heard from her in a group message but don't really trust her anymore. I'm very sad about it.

Yeah, from this thread it looks like it happens a lot.

Yeah and it still baffles me now. Not spoke in 3 years. We met up and I told her I was pregnant with my twins. She seemed happy for me, she was one of the first people I told. Then throughout my pregnancy I never really heard from her, she didn’t reply much to me. Then I had them, sent her a courtesy text and she said congrats she wants to meet them. I said no problem let me know when you’re free. No response. She then messaged me saying she wants to meet 3 months later. Agsin I said let me know when you’re free as I was home all the time so I was ‘more free’ than her. No response and I’ve never heard from her since. Odd! Saying that she’s only 3 weeks older than me and I know she really wanted kids but had recently got divorced without children at 36 so I’m not sure if that played a part. But it’s ok, she was in my life for a period and I’m ok with that. I hope she’s doing well!

I had a friend for over 30 years and we remained friends even when she moved back home. We even went on holiday together that. Then I noticed she was not contacting me, though I was ringing her. So after a few years I stopped ringing her. I guess the frienship had a timespan.

When my eldest was a baby I joined an online mum group thing and hit it off with another mum. It was an online friendship, we didn’t live close to each other but would message most days talking about anything really. She was hilarious and we had a right laugh at times, we were both young mums and i had no other friends with children, her kid was also the same age as mine so it was nice to connect with someone. One day around the time I was due to give birth to my second, she blocked and deleted me off everything. No explanation or anything. When I thought about it I realised she had become distant before the block happened, I think I just put it down to her having a rough time with her mental health so didn’t think much of it and tried to be understanding and the next thing I know, she’d disappeared from my life. Couldn’t even reach out to get a reason, got over it eventually, we weren’t even friends for a full year so although I was upset/annoyed when it first happened I got over it quite quickly.

Another time I had this friend who I knew from school, she also didn’t live locally anymore but had family in our town so when she was visiting we’d meet up, she even came on trips out with me and my children. Like the above we’d message at least a few times a week which I know is a lot for some people but for us it didn’t feel forced at all we were just talking casually about our days or funny things we’d seen online etc. She suddenly just stopped talking to me but unlike the above didn’t block me or anything. It’s been years and my kids have no memory of her now. I was too scared to ask what was wrong.

More recently, another friend i’d known since school. We weren’t the best at keeping in touch with each other over the years, but every few months or so we’d meet up for food and/or drinks and have a great time. She also invited me to her hen do, wedding (well the reception, maybe that was a sign?), baby shower, child’s christening etc. Meet ups were sometimes initiated by her and sometimes me so I just thought we had that kind of friendship where it didn’t matter how much time had passed because when we got together it was like no time had passed at all. Eventually her responses to messages took longer and longer, I was left on delivered, not even on read for days/weeks before she’d reply. Then one time when she did get around to replying she told me her and her husband were splitting up, I thought fair enough no wonder she’s not replied she obviously got a lot on. I offered support, said to reach out if she needed anything, no reply. Couple of weeks later I messaged to say I was thinking of her, she did reply to that. We started to arrange a meet up but she eventually stopped replying so it never happened. Few months later she messages me after my birthday to say happy birthday and sorry she missed it etc, I replied. A couple of months later it was her birthday, I sent birthday message, no reply. From what I can see she still hasn’t read it months later so I’ve given up now. It’s sad but you can’t force people to be your friend. Only thing that annoys me slightly is that I felt a bit used by her at times. Occasionally she’d randomly text me out of the blue asking about things I had knowledge on, one time called me in a panic saying she was down my road and needed help so I went and found her in a bit of a state and brought her to mine to calm down, gave her child snacks and made sure she was ok. Yet I’ve never really had the same level of support from her. I don’t understand how you can leave someone on delivered, not even reading the message they sent you. It’s almost worse than being left on read.

At this point I feel like the common denominator in all these situations is me, I’ve obviously done something wrong to put these people off, but no one has ever told me what that is. I do a lot of self reflection and I’m not perfect but have good intentions. I’m still not sure what I could have done to warrant being blocked/ghosted like that. I just try to accept now that people move on from friendships sometimes. The not knowing why does play on my mind occasionally though, think it’s the lack of closure.

Yes, happened to me a few years ago. A group of school mums started a social group, and one lived really close. Regularly met up and messaged with the one who lived nearby, and then after a few years she suddenly stopped messaging, took ages to respond to my messages and things just felt frosty when we met up as a group. I rolled with it for a few months, but then bit the bullet and asked if I’d offended her in some way, and got denials and reassurance, but still very little effort, and she did the same to a mutual friend. Meanwhile she was clearly getting closer to others in the group. So I walked away.

The consolation was that I’m in my 50s, but my teenager was also going through friend drama so it was a useful reminder of how painful rejection can be.

I did it to friends.

My life had changed and I wanted a different group of friends. They did nothing bad, I just felt like I was moving away from that era of my life

Well, at least your DH's uni friend was being honest about it. I appreciate people who are honest. Maybe he just wanted to move on without the added stress of constantly keeping in touch for years to come.

I had a best friend of 16yrs who was always having dramas and I was always there for her. Her adult son would phone sometimes and beg me to go round because she'd lost the plot.

8yrs ago, I had the worst time of my life and she blanked me. I gave up reaching out to her. Blocked her everywhere and moved away. 2yrs later, because she couldn't contact me, she sent a text to my then adult DC, begging me to get in touch, she was so sorry, it was all her fault. DC didn't reply and blocked her too.

I’ve been the one to stop.
Friends for over a decade, but I didn’t notice how toxic she was until she was unbelievably rude to my partner. I then saw how rude she was in general, and how self-absorbed.
An example that sticks out, is when we went for a long walk to catch up, think 2hrs+, and she proceeded to talk about EVERYTHING in her life, including ex-colleagues of hers, then as we were getting close to home again, she finally asked about my recent engagement, and if she would be bridesmaid!! 2hours talking about herself, and less than 5 minutes talking about the biggest moment of my life (up to that point).

I took a big step back from then, grey rocked her, then eventually stopped replying.

I still feel bad sometimes, but it was for the best, imo.