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?

Loads, to be honest. I think unless you live in close proximity and see each other often or you just really click and keep communication constant, this happens quite easily. Especially when you’re in that awkward transition from school to early adulthood.

I ditched all my friends and dropped out of school at 17 - didn't explain to even my best friend what was going on i just disappeared. Ignored all messages and calls.

The reality was that I had been raped, had a breakdown and was suffering with extreme mental health issues including agoraphobia which meant I didn't leave the house between 17 and 20 unless I had my boyfriend with me.

When I was 21 I contacted my best friend and a couple of others and explained - i got a few sorry you went through that but no desires to rebuild any sort of friendships.

When you say laughable, did she find it laughable though?

They sound completely unhinged. At least you have the strange satisfaction of knowing that you took up rent space in their heads for years (and possibly still do).

I have one friend who did this to me and I always wonder what I did! Still gets to me. But then I have other friends from younger years who I don’t remember the last time I spoke to and I didn’t have a reason just drifted? Maybe they think the same thing about me that I think about the other friend, who knows!

It happened to me with a very close friend of over 30 years (I’m 52 now).
We became friends at around 19 and very close by 22. Spent loads of time together, partied through our twenties, met frequently as we got older and had holidays together regularly. We used to joke we’d end up in an old people’s home together.
Then three years ago she stopped being free to meet up and sent short replies back to me never initiating contact. I asked if something was wrong / if I’d upset her and silence.
She hasn’t blocked me on anything but we’ve had no contact for over two years now.
It really hurt for a long time. I went through our last conversations and read messages to check if I could have offended her but nothing. It was as if it was fine one day then she didn’t want to know the next.
I don’t want her back in my life now as all trust has gone. I’m sad she couldn’t tell me if I’d upset her in some way but having wracked my brains nothing changed so I guess she just didn’t want me in her life any more. Very sad given how close we were right until she cut me off.

If you were always late, turning up late to her parent’s funeral might have been the last straw…

Yes, I have. I never found out why. Decided not to spend (further) headspace on it.

Yeah just a couple of months ago. Best friends since we were kids, our kids grew up together & we were each others bridesmaids. DH booked a holiday that clashed with an event (an event we had been to before, and fairly local) & I was completely cut off & blocked. No explanation, tried checking in within a few minutes and messages wouldn’t deliver. Still struggling with it as it’s still so recent. Clearly we were never best friends to begin with, it’s only on reflection that she has done this to a few people over the years.

Yeah, this. Being late to your friend's parent's funeral is pretty bad.

Yup. Messaged me night before my wedding she can’t wait to see me in my wedding dress, then on the day asks where to put card and gift when she arrives.

Didn’t turn up to the ceremony or wedding breakfast… never heard from her again 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

Well, no, but if you have…

I’ve had a few friendships fizzling out as I approach my mid-thirties I’ve never tried to reconnect, as I’ve decided not to put any effort into maintaining friendships that do not have reciprocal effort.
On a separate but related note, it’s made me realise just how many of my friendships were because I was going along with everything, and slotting myself into existing dynamics

I love my family. Mum, dad and siblings. Always love me.

Did anyone ever find out why their ex-friend ended their friendship?

A lot is to do with the individual and what they are going through and feeling rather than anything that you have done.
I also always remember the friends are here for a reason a season or a lifetime

My friends are my family.

It's happened to me twice, so it must be me😱

First was a friend I worked with, I would stay over with her if we were going clubbing, we often had lunch together etc. She was getting married and we had chatted about it a lot. Then one day she just stopped talking to me, wasn't free for lunch etc. When she handed out invites to her reception I didn't get one. She changed jobs shortly after and I never found out what I did wrong.

Second was an old school friend who I lost contact with, she went to work for a missionary organisation, well before mobile phones, her parents moved, I moved, so just lost contact. Then we got in contact again, she came to stay a couple of times and another time we had her staying and also someone she had worked with in Kenya who was visiting the UK, we took them round to see the local sights etc. She even came to my wedding. Said goodbye to her at the reception - never heard from her again. I wrote a couple of times but never heard back.

I can only assume I offended both of them, but I genuinely don't know how.

I haven't had this myself, exactly. I've had friends drift away and I've started keeping a couple of school mums at arm's length since I realised they were two of life's takers.

ExP had this, though. He and his best friend, N, were very close and people used to say they were like brothers. N was a a great support after ExP's mum died suddenly and later, ExP supported N after his marriage ended and he became very depressed. He let N live with him for months until he was ready to move out, which was a challenging time as N was extremely low and once attempted suicide (this was before we got together).

N got his life back on track and met a new woman, who appeared to take an instant dislike to ExP and discouraged N from seeing him. So N broke off contact with ExP. It might be that N no longer wanted to be reminded of that incredibly low point in his life, but I think it was more that he was besotted by his new girlfriend and wouldn't stand up to her.

Sadly, N died suddenly about two years later and ExP was very upset, but didn't feel that he could go to the funeral, even though I and a couple of mutual friends offered to go with him. It was all very sad.

Yes - I was that friend! I got tired of the constant put downs and lack of interest in me - so I never contacted them again, and likewise they didn’t contact me, yet it’s very noticeable that they’ve removed me from social media one by one like I’ve done something wrong 🙃

i felt we’d outgrown each other and there was no point in trying to fix things as they were quite nasty to me at times.

I’ve definitely been on both ends. The most recent was someone that progressively got more and more “about them” and I realised they showed absolutely zero interest in me and my family. They just talked at me.

I couldn’t be bothered to say anything, just stopped replying. I have moved away so were unlikely to see them without effort. I eventually removed them from my SM.

This has happened to me twice. One was a schoolfriend who I used to have a good laugh with, went shopping in Camden with etc. As adults, we kept in touch for a good while, then she just cut me off out of the blue in 2013, although TBF, I heard she cut off her family as well after her mum died. Split from her husband and moved to a flat with her two kids. This was a v painful one as I'd known her for so long and we had supported each other through tough times.

Second was my husband's friend's wife, who I met after moving to Ireland in 2021. We both have sons with autism (albeit her twins are more severely autistic than my lad) and would hang out in various places, including her house. My son would attend her son's birthday parties and vice versa. She would also ring me and chat for a while. Then in October last year, she started ghosting me. Heard from her husband that she now only contacts family due to anxiety issues. All very disappointing...

Very strange. I'd want to check that she hadn't been in an accident or something.

She said at least I turned up.

I thought it started at 2:30, but it started at 2 🫣

Definitely not a good thing on my part and I felt absolutely awful about it but they saw it as 'it's typical Chan' but at least she turned up 🫣

Maybe in the end it was that which did it? Could be any reason.

Yes. She started going to therapy and decided to cut out the people in her life who didn’t add anything. I was one of them. Fine, but she pursued the friendship with me 7 years earlier. I’ve never been the same afterwards in terms of friendships. I don’t want any more.

Yes, it's happened to me. Best friend from school. I always wondered how her life turned out and despite trying to find her, she is just nowhere.