To wonder whether people who ghost ever feel bad about it?

[OneKhakiSwan]

I don’t mean situations involving abuse, toxicity or a natural drift. I mean friendships where nothing obvious was wrong and one person just stops replying and disappears, leaving the other hurt and confused. Do people who ghost like that reflect on it later? Or does it just feel easier than having an uncomfortable conversation?

AIBU to find that kind of silence harder than an honest ending?

I’ve only done it once, she would say it was for no reason, but there were many. Her inability to see any of these, was the reason it ended as ghosting; there was no talking or resolution to be had.

I don’t feel bad. The never ending drama continues, my life is better without it.

Some people think they mean more to you than they actually do. I don't like any sense of obligation to someone, or them expecting stuff of me, or vice versa, in a casual friendship. I am a bit avoidant and sometimes with some matter of fact autism traits. So at the first hint of a self pitying "I haven't heard from YOU in a while!" I will de-escalate even further and just put in more distance. If they match my energy it's quite possible they will just drift apart from me.

What I'm saying is thst one person might feel ghosted while the other just feels like they stopped talking.

Having said that I would never leave a question unanswered or an invitation unresponded to.

I think if someone makes a conscious decision to cut someone off, it’s very unlikely to be for absolutely no reason at all and if the other person is oblivious to what that issue is then that’s likely part of the problem.

Nope

unpopular opinion but I don’t think ghosting is always bad, I haven’t ghosted a friend but I’ve ghosted men before and no I don’t feel bad at all.

I had a friend who I’ve heard thinks I ghosted her out of the blue.
In reality, I just realised that it was always me texting/calling her first. She never initiated.
I decided to not text first and see how long until she messaged me. We’re coming up to 5 years and nothing yet 😂

I think some people just like to ghost, I don't know why they do so. I kinda miss my old friend, who once ghosted me out of nowhere.

I’ve ghosted several times. I don’t worry about it, because there’s a reason I ghosted them. Only men, not friends.

This. But when people decide to reappear 5-10 years later my door is firmly shut, I'm not interested. They would probably say that I'm the one ghosting by not replying to their attempts to reach out but I've moved on, I don't need you in my life now when you didn't want to be in mine for so long.

I ghosted my best friend. I no longer trusted her after things I kept asking her not to repeat, she repeated to others. I didn’t have a conversation with her because there was nothing she could say, it would have been more gossip for her to repeat.

I miss her (well, the person I thought she was) a lot but I don’t regret it.

Yes, but what it someone cuts most people off? They are surely the reason then, not everyone else.

Yeah this.

I have had so-called friends disappear from my life, after I stopped the contact with them - because it was always ME initiating the contact. When I stopped the contact they didn't bother, so we drifted apart.... And then 3-5 years later, I suddenly heard from them - out of the blue, with a contact message that suggested that we had only met 2 months ago. 'Hello there BCB! About time we met for a coffee no?'

Yes you're right luv - NO. Fecking cheek! 😆I never responded.

I was very glad when I moved out the town I lived in (over a decade ago,) so anyone who thought it was OK to just rock up (or get in touch) when they feel like it, when they hadn't been arsed with me for several years, doesn't know where I am. My Facebook is like Fort Knox. All you can see is a photo of a tree on the profile pic, and a cover photo of a snowy field. And there is no way to add me as a friend. And my name is not my name IYSWIM. So if my actual name is Lynda Jayne Smith, I would be Lynnie Jayess. Sort of like that. So if someone searches for me, nothing comes up under my name.

Re ghosting, as @OneKhakiSwan mentioned. I have ghosted several people over the years, and have also had it done to me. I have never felt guilty, as the people I ghosted were bringing me headaches and stress, and I couldn't have them in my life anymore, and yes they were quite toxic, and they caused me to feel low - and upset sometimes. I have been ghosted twice, and looking back I can see why. (It was a long time ago now, but I think I was intense and needy, and probably suffocated them.)

Upshot is, no-one ghosts someone for no reason. Sometimes it's the best thing to do for your own good mental health. What's the alternative? Telling someone 'sorry dude, but I don't want to be friends with you any longer, or even have you in my life, because you're annoying, intense, irritating, needy, and boring..

Sure! Coz THAT is gonna work! And really?! Who is going to do that?!

The last woman I ghosted was all of these, but also spiteful and catty and very jealous of me. Just plain toxic.. So she was ghosted! I had known her for about 2 to 2.5 years when I finally decided I could NOT have her in my life any longer... Took me ages to shake her and for her to get the message, (around a year,) and I lost 3 or 4 mutual friends along the way as they took her side, as she painted herself as the victim, and me as the villain,... but she was causing me so much stress and headaches. She was just such a horrible person. I didn't realise it at first, and she seemed OK for the first few months I knew her, but it didn't take long for her to show her true colours.

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I think your OP is from a flawed perspective. If you have been "ghosted" it's not out of the blue to the person who's reached the end of their tether.

The Ghoster will have been getting increasingly fed up (or hurt, or distressed) and hit the "drop the rope" stage.

The Ghostee has been oblivious to, or ignoring, or overriding all these stages so thinks it's abrupt.

It's happened to me and in retrospect I can see it had been going pear shaped for a while and I didn't notice or appreciate it.

I've also done it to someone and she honestly couldn't see how toxic things had become because all her relationships followed that trajectory. It was a blessed relief to leave it behind.

I've done it once and there is definitely 2 sides to every story

I did ghost someone and felt horrendous about it for years. I finally plucked up the courage to send her a message a few years later explaining what had happened and apologising. She was really pleased I'd contacted her because she had wondered why. The friendship was lost, and it was entirely my fault, but yes, people who ghost do sometimes feel guilty about their actions.

A lot of the replies seem to be conflating two separate questions. Is it unreasonable to end a friendship because the person is making you unhappy? No. Is it unreasonable to expect someone to read your mind about what is making you unhappy, and to cut them off without explaining what the problem is and giving them an opportunity to apologise (or explain, if there’s a misunderstanding) and change? I think it depends. If you’ve got previous repeated experience of trying to discuss problems with them and they’ve proved they’re not open to that kind of conversation, then maybe ghosting is the only way. Or if there’s been a serious breach of trust, like the ‘friend’ who was gossiping behind a PP’s back. But I always get the impression on threads like these that a certain number of people just cut people off because they don’t like confrontation or honest communication, and they want other people to be mindreaders. In my opinion, yes, that is unreasonable. If you want to end the friendship ultimately that’s your prerogative, but act like a grown up and give the other person at least a brief acknowledgment of what you’re doing and why.

I've ghosted a few times but only when friendships were well and truly dead but we kept up half hearted contact and the odd meet up for no purpose or mutual enjoyment and it just needed someone to call a spade a spade. No guilt about that - I'm sure they felt just as relieved as I did to be free of the social obligation of keeping up with someone just because you were friends once even though no longer anything in common.

I have had it done to me once far more savagely - a very, very close friend. In retrospect the writing was on the wall as I didn't get on with her partner (he is a snobby bigot - though I kept my opinions to myself!) but I was still blindsided when after having been a bridesmaid at my wedding that was the last time I ever saw her, she cut off all contact.

If she's reading this now - it was decades ago, but beyond cruel, and I hope it haunts her.

Very well thought through response. Agree mostly.

Ghosting isn’t calling a spade a spade, it’s the opposite of that.

It sounds a bit like you think ghosting is cruel when other people do it to you, but not when you do it to other people.

People generally don't ghost without a darn good reason or several so if it's been done to you then think on.

People usually ghost for a good reason, and are well aware that those reasons would be very poorly received by the other person if they were to express them.

When people who are being ditched say they ‘want closure’ what they really mean is they want the chance to tell the person what who is ditching them why they’re wrong. People who say all they want is a calm and honest conversation about a friendship ending are kidding themselves. They actually want the chance to have a go at the other person for ending it. They’re rarely fully prepared to accept the ghoster’s reasons for ghosting, and sometimes might find those reasons devastatingly hurtful. The ghoster knows this, so they walk away.

Also, the ghostee might want ‘closure’ but I don’t think that automatically trumps what the ghoster wants. Why is the ghostee’s wellbeing more important than the ghoster’s?

I’ve ghosted a friend before, and my reason for ghosting her wasn’t something she would ever in a million years have accepted. I didn’t feel bad about it in the slightest.

I ghosted my best friend and I often feel incredibly guilty. We lived opposite ends of the country and I found out my husband was having an affair just before I was diagnosed with cancer. I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for the questions she was asking of me, it was very black and white for her and I wanted to make my own decisions - I wasn’t sure I was making any of the right choices, but I needed to see the process through as I saw fit. She kept asking to meet me and I was exhausted from treatment and couldn’t explain that I found having a shower would take 2 days to recover and I wanted to save my energy for my son at that point. She meant well, and was a wonderful friend, but those few years were brutal. I coped as best as I could but she deserved better.

I agree, with the exception that I think some people have a personality that, without being offensive or difficult, becomes something that’s not wanted anymore. It’s not realistic to say that you find someone too intense or you find conversations with them too effortful or uninteresting. So the rope gets dropped and you don’t respond to contact

I've I suppose ghosted friends but to me I just stopped being the one that contacted first. I was always the organiser, the one to check if people were OK etc and then in Covid, I was still doing that. Dropping off care parcels listening to people worries etc and I looked through messages and realised that no one asked how I was or if I needed anything, so one day I stopped. Never heard from a couple of people again. Over a year later, one person whatsapped me. Just 'Hi" . Didn't reply. Don't feel guilty. One lives a long way so no chance of bumping in to and one I recently heard had moved near to me so potentially I will run into them at certain events but I'm happy with not acknowledging them unless they wish to speak to me first. Match their energy. But I certainly wouldn't want to restart a friendship.

I ghosted a friend recently. A male friend. He asked me on a date last year and I said no we are just friends. I got into a relationship with my partner and he just became weird. He didn’t like that I want to do things with my partner and not him (we live together, I’m not doing things alone with a man while my partner is at home. That’s disrespectful in my eyes. If it was a group thing, fine, but partner wasn’t invited to things, only me.) and he said “I wouldn’t want to put you in a position where you have to choose between us” so I chose my partner. All my other friends absolutely love him and they’ve all accepted him into our group, it’s clear why this “friend” doesn’t like him.

I ghosted because it was constant messaging, all the time, wanting my attention, wanting me to call him. No I’m okay thank you, I’m busy. All he had to do was not be weird with me and we’d still be pals probably.