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?

Kind of. When I lived in another country I worked with a girl I became really good friends with and ended up house sharing with her. There was another girl in the same job who hated me for reasons I never found out and when they became better pals, my friend just kind of stopped hanging out with me. Her sister also started being weird with me. When I moved out to move home she wasn't around, didn't really say bye. I never done a thing to any of them and in fact the girl who hated me I always said to someone to ask her to the pub with us on Fridays because I didn't want her to feel excluded. So there was no falling out, no event that I was ever aware of to have caused it. I can only assume there were things said behind my back that were untrue.

I kind of had a few hellos with her on facebook years later and she got married and had kids which I was happy for her about as it's what she had always wanted. But I never knew why we had gone from really good friends to nothing.

A couple- one was a good friend from school, post uni she suddenly vanished on everyone. I heard second hand it might be connected with her having a car accident where someone else was injured (, not seriously as far as I know) but she was very shaken up by it. She has a very common name, so no way of googling her.

Another friend was always a bit flaky but eventually just drifted off - I think he moved in with his girlfriend who loves in another town. I hope they are happy- she, and her kids, I think were good for him and helping him grow.

Yes, I have. Used to go to a health support group and got to know one person quite well…….we were all in the same situation but of course she had got it worse, she struggled more, she needed help from the rest of us…….get the picture???

Well, one day I was so ground down with the negativity in her text messages that I told her firmly to STOP buying fizzy drinks, biscuits, chocolate, cakes etc and then she would have the temptation there to scoff it. Never heard from her again.

Believe me, I will help and support anyone but when time and effort is channelled into advice which is then totally disregarded I just can’t do it any more.

Yes, pretty much everyone I have ever counted as a friend. It is never an acrimonious thing, just a drifting apart. I've moved homes a lot and that hasn't helped. I envy people who are still friends with people they knew as children. I keep saying to dh we must make an effort to make new friends to sustain us into old age but he isn't really bothered about it like I am.

NC for this. Yes, we went to school together and she was my maid of honour. We grew up in quite a deprived community.

She had a very disrupted childhood (no father on the scene and a half sibling by another man) and slept around a lot as a teenager/young adult, cheated on her husband before they were married.

No judgement from me, this is background which I think explains her behaviour.

She's very bright and subsequently moved to a different place, and had a respectable job in the health service. We were still within easy travelling distance of each other.

Then she reinvented herself and lived what I think of as an AA Milne / Enid Blyton atmosphere type of life - period house with antiques, going to the opera, cultivating friends who were doctors, name dropping.

When she had children, her mother cared for them and she encouraged her DC to call her mum 'nanny'. (We had an actual nanny for our DC - there was a definite aura of allowing people to think her mother was the paid help rather than this being a family title - 'nanny' isn't a usual GP title where we live, it would be Nanna or Nan).

Anyway, the social climbing is understandable, lots of people do it, I wouldn't describe myself as working class now even though those are my roots.

She started dropping off people in the social circle and they couldn't understand why. Then it happened to us.

What hurt the most was when DH's mother died in the hospital she worked in.

There were no condolences to us, especially DH. Instead, within hours of the death, she told people in the social circle whom she had kept ties with. (And they did send condolences and come to the funeral). I'm sure if we weren't so sad, we could have complained to the hospital about the breach of confidentiality.

We sometimes see her at social gatherings and you'd swear nothing was amiss, she seeks us out and sits with us. But there's never a follow up. I'm frosty with her now.

Very strange. I don't know if it's because I knew too much about her past or what.

There isn't family for everyone sadly. If you are an only child yourself and don't have children, friends are everything. Also people can be estranged from their families.

I have been this friend. My friend was my best friend through secondary school, but in truth I actually felt quite trapped in the friendship - she wasn’t a bad person but she could be unkind and manipulative. I started to dread having to go things together because I didn’t know what she was going to be like that day.

I found I was often trying to appease her or bending over backwards to do whatever she wanted so that she’d be nice to me. Thats not my personality, but that’s how I was with her and I didn’t like it. I don’t know whether that was her intention or not, but that’s how I felt.

As I got older (through school) I realised this wasn’t a proper friendship, I didn’t want to argue or have a show down, there was no point, it seemed to just be her personality and I think arguing about it would just have been worse for us both.

We left school and I started to distance myself - I often felt guilty but one day at a meet up something was said by someone else in our friend group and it dawned on me that she was talking about me behind my back to our friends. I had never done that to her, despite her treatment of me and despite the fact that others did try to talk negatively about her to me. I really thought despite how I felt that we were at least loyal friends to each other and that’s what made me feel so guilty about distancing. From that point there was no guilt - took a year or so to phase out but eventually she stopped messaging. I’m sure she still thinks I’m just a boring friend and she couldn’t be bothered with the effort of engaging / chasing me any longer (she was always more knowledgeable and had a top trump story to whatever someone said!).

She might be different now - but I just don’t care. I don’t wish her ill in any way, I just didn’t want to be her friend anymore, and she must have come to the same conclusion, and that’s perfectly fine.

We were only teens of course. I’ve no idea if she was hurt by my distance or not.

Yes. A friendship of 19 years. Last time I saw him he visited me at home. It was all completely normal and friendly, no disagreement, no oddness. There were no signs at all that he was fed up with our friendship. We had supported each other through lots of highs and lows over the 19 years, he was like the brother I never had.

I hadn’t heard from him for a while and text to ask how he was. I had a one word reply “fine”, I text and asked how his wife and children were and he didn’t reply and I’ve never heard from him again. That was over 10 years ago now. I did wonder if something had happened in his life because I’m not on social media to see, but someone showed me his socials and other online presence and he has a thriving business, lots of happy and exciting photos with his wife and family. But he seems to only associate with other rich and successful people now so I wonder if that was behind him dropping me. I will never know.

I miss him which is pointless because he obviously doesn’t give me a seconds thought.

Yes. Close friends since school, saw each other through divorces and a few rocky relationships, went out together, weekends away together. She was godmother to my first child. Never lived in each other's pockets, but whenever we got together the conversation picked up like we'd never been apart. She then met a widower and told me about him, and how wonderful he seemed. I never met him, he was part of a different social group of neighbours near where she lived. I invited both of them to my 50th birthday party, and she phoned me to let me know they couldn't make it due to a prior commitment. Never spoken to her since, and that's over 20 years ago. I do wonder if it's because I knew about a few flings she had after getting divorced, and she thought I'd tell him (I wouldn't, and am not known for gossiping!). I know she married him. Such a shame that a friendship of almost 40 years just got dumped.

A great friend from uni. We had been housemates and everything. She vanished and stopped being friends will all of us after we graduated. There was no fight or disagreements. We meet as a group of pals now for uni reunions as we graduated many years ago now. No one has ever heard from her, we’ve stopped trying to contact her. None of us know why we were all dumped.
we know she is alive and working

Only happened once, a really good friend got married. I have looked back over the texts SO MANY times. We were chatting weekly in the lead up. Then I attended the wedding and then didn’t hear a word for about 7 years. Not even a thank you for the wedding gift. My friend that I attended the wedding with also didn’t get a thank you.

I texted intermittently over the five years to make clear the door was still open. He text back super randomly out of the blue about 7 years on. We met up and it was exactly like old times and we’re back to perhaps monthly rather then weekly contact. Very bizarre.

Yep! And it does really hurt, especially when they are someone who was close to your DC and they called her "Auntie"! I recommend the book Bad Friend by Michelle Elman to anyone who has been through this.

Yeah a few friends who made me feel like the backup option (I don't think intentionally, more that their lives had moved on. I stopped catching up and staying in touch, never heard from them again. The odd like on social media and that's it. I like to keep it so that if I bump into them it's friendly so there's no showdown but really I think with some friendships the energy just fades away and that's that.

Yes, we’d been friends for over twenty years. I tried for months, sent texts asking for an explanation for what I’d done but was completely blanked.
It was really hurtful at the time but I’m over it now, I think ghosting is a really pathetic thing to do to someone.

this is ghosting isnt it? Yes i had a very good friend who stopped speaking to me when i found out my (now ex) was visiting sex websites and messaging other women. I texted her telling her and asking if we could talk and she messaged back saying 'will call soon' and never called. We used to message all the time and see each other about once a month. About 6 months after that she texted saying something like 'i suppose it's natural for friends to fall out of touch'. i went back and said would be good to catch up and she didn't. message. again. A few years later I found out my exH would routinely message some of my friends so I always wondered if they had been messaging each other. I'll never know!!

Not a friend but a neighbour. In fact my next door neighbour who lived in the other half of our semi detached. I'd be coming home and heading for my door and she'd be coming out of hers. We'd be 3 feet away and I'd say hi and she'd walk by like she didn't hear me. And I know she wasn't deaf. I don't know what I did to offend her other than move in to the home attached to hers.

Yes. We were friends for years, saw each other every week and would message daily (initiated more by her). She started mentioning a new friend that she’d met, then one day contact with me stopped. I never asked why as I presumed that I must be a boring friend in comparison to the new one. I also considered that maybe I’d upset her somehow; I couldn’t think of anything and thought we’d been good enough friends that if this were the case she’d have said something. I didn’t ask why so I guess I’ll never know, but it’s knocked my confidence as I thought we were close.

One who just disappeared I had known her for almost 30 years. Just after lockdown and around 5 years after she disappeared I looked her up, she had died during lockdown. She had moved to Australia about a decade before. We had been in touch loads though she was overseas. It turned out after the birth of her second child she had dropped all her friends from school and college and had only remained in touch with her friends from University. I did actually know these women but not properly. Just been to a couple of parties at their shared house when in my twenties.

We met as toddlers and were best friends since. Both moved schools as teenagers, not knowing anyone else there. We always walked together, but one time I called for her and she'd already left. She completely blanked me from that moment on - no explanation.
Just daft kids stuff, I know. It has really affected me ever since though and I suppose I keep all friendships at a superficial level.

Yes, a close friend from schooldays. Silence, suddenly. Have tried a tentative email over the years but nothing. She's OK, her business does well, she's just had enough of me I guess. It must be more than 30 years and I still miss her.

Hmm kind of. Once a friend had repeatedly warned that she wanted to lower her fb friends, and I made the cut until one day I didn't. That hurt, as I had done a lot of supporting her over the years, and many of our conversations were on fb.

I've been the one who stopped replying, twice, both times the friend had decided to fall out with me about something utterly petty and ridiculous, and it was the last in a long line of reasons I'd got fed up with them.

Yes a few over the years. And a few where I've been the one to pull the plug. With me it's mostly friendships that have run their course and we've seen each other less and it's more forced. Eventually someone has to press stop otherwise it would limp along forever, each of you suggesting a meet up neither of you want to do, then eventually meeting up and it being no fun, before being compelled to say 'oh we must do this again soon'... nah.

I have one at the moment. Lovely friend and former neighbor. Moved to the middle of nowhere where she has no mates and is lonely. Everyone had warned her not to do it. Most of what we had in common was we were neighbors... we had people and locations and stories in common. Have met up a few times since (always me traveling the 3 hours to go see her as she doesn't have a car) and it's just not enjoyable. I'll have to eventually ghost her as otherwise I'll keep feeling guilted into giving up whole weekends of my life to go and keep someone company who I don't really have anything to say to any more? Life's too short.

Lots, but then I have dropped the rope myself. I've learned to see behaviour as communication. If they wanted to talk to you, they would.

Twice - one was a slow drift, and one was my own fault

The slow drift - known each other for years. She doesn't like my DH (he is very quiet, and she takes it to mean he's grumpy or bad-tempered for some reason). She also thinks am Au ADHD and seems to think he is the reason I have not listened to her about being reviewed for it.

The second was a reconnection. We were firm friends who lived and studied together, and when we qualified, worked together - until I got a job abroad, and she fell pregnant and got married, so we drifted.

Facebook came about we found each other years later. We had a few tentative meetups at hers, then places out and about, and realised the old connection was still there as we had a great time. She had been hinting that she was unhappy with her lot in life, her home, job and her relationship (adored her kids loved to being a Mum) - but we had not really started progressing into those kinds of conversations yet.

We were building the foundation of our new friendship when she came to stay at my new house overnight before she carried on down to meet her sister for a day out in London (it was arranged that she stay at the old house, but she pushed it back to after we moved because of co-parenting issues).

She arrived and kept saying how much she had always wanted to live in a farmhouse, and the day before I had been given chickens by a neighbour, so I was giddily painting a chicken coop when she arrived (no knowing it had been a life's dream of hers to have chickens).

My boss called me (on the landline in those days - she told me to pick it up as she had given the co parent the number just in case) to tell me I had been promoted, and to add insult to injury, the post arrived while she was there, and I got a notification of passing a course that my work had funded for me. My DH then arrived with a car he had bought me that I had always wanted (totally unexpectedly). Another friend also popped in unannounced to drop off a HUGE bunch of flowers and a gorgeous cake to thank me for sorting something out for her and waxed lyrical about the new car, house and chickens were.

It was a pretty awesome day, totally unarranged, totally out of my control, and I didn't mean to be insufferable, I didn't do it on purpose - but looking back i was a total knob because I was overjoyed.

I never heard from her again - unfriended me on Facebook

Yeah I had one friend who decided to end our friendship on my wedding day. She never turned up and didn’t even say she wouldn’t be coming. I felt very hurt and annoyed as that place could have gone to someone else (we were on a budget) I reached out afterwards and she never responded. I moved area about a year later and never heard from her again.