To wonder why people sometimes ghost good friends who did nothing wrong?

[ThatIcyLion]

I’m not talking about abuse, toxic dynamics, safety issues or situations where the friendship had clearly broken down.

I mean situations where the friend had done nothing obviously wrong, you liked them, valued the friendship, things seemed broadly fine… yet you still abruptly stopped replying, drifted away completely or effectively ghosted them.

I find it such a strange and painful thing to experience and I know quite a few people it’s happened to.

After enough time passes, I imagine reaching back out probably starts to feel awkward or loaded, which maybe makes the silence continue even longer.

But if you’ve done this, why? What was going on for you at the time? How do you feel about it now? Do you ever think about reconnecting or apologising?

I’m genuinely trying to understand rather than attacking anyone.

There’s a former friend I’m in the process of drifting away from. I’m sure she thinks she’s done nothing wrong but actually over the past few years she has become thoroughly unpleasant and her company drains me. I have gone out of my way to support her quite recently and now I’m done. Her life is still full of difficulty but I don’t have the capacity to support her. No falling out, no drama, I just don’t like her! But I’m not going to say “Sorry, I just don’t like you very much and I don’t want to be your friend anymore”

I've done this a lot across my life generally accidentally, I just am not very social at all and my idea of social is much much lower than others. I can get on really well with someone, spend a weekend away with them then go back to not being social and assume they are happily getting on with their life too. Then I'll see them again, maybe a year later and be amazed to just get a glare when I greet them. I just forget to be social.

I am an expert in ghosting, I have ghosted many wonderful people who were my best friends at life stages, here are my reasons:

1. When I move life stages I struggle to cope with keeping in touch. There is something wrong with me, I have the best intentions and I just don’t do it. I’ve moved quite a lot due to work.
2. I am in recovery from a secret serious mental health condition and to recover from it I made my life really small and stress free.
3. I am really boring now and love my own company, I can’t cope with plans and obligations so friendships scare me.

Im not proud of this, as I’ve got older I’ve wondered if I’m neurodivergent, introverted or mentally unwell. It’s quite a confusing place to be. Im happy though with my tiny circle.

Just because the person who has been dropped doesnt think there is a reason, does not mean there isnt a reason from the pov of the person walking away.

It would of course be better to talk about issues but not everyone wants to / feels there's any point.

Not knowing the reason or being able to see a reason does not mean there is no reason.

I’d say they don’t think they’ve done something wrong but they have. And they often haven’t taken the hint.

My friend talked really nastily about our other friend and l realised she was probably talking about me too.

I got ghosted when a friend decided to completely reinvent herself. My face didn’t fit and I knew too much. IMO She’d also been convinced I was terribly jealous of her life which she accidentally discovered wasn’t the case and I think it smarted. I think she’d been keeping friends with me for years on that basis really which is really sad because I thought of her like a sister and it wasn’t reciprocated

I ghosted someone long ago, just after my mother died. Constant emotional dumping from her, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I heard from others that she was devastated

More recently I ended a friendship directly at another crisis point in my life. Unrelenting negativity and a lot of bitching about her friends. I could not cope with it. I’d faded somewhat but I needed to be out. She was devastated too, apparently

Fading, blowing it up, ghosting …. Ending friendships is tricky. The dumpee is unlikely to take it well however it’s done

I've ghosted two friends for exactly the same two reasons

They were never the good friends you thought they were. Good friends wouldn’t do that.

The person can never see what they have done which is why they need to be ghosted, there’s no point trying to explain to someone who is so self absorbed as they would never see from anyone else’s point of view, hence the ghosting

I've dropped the ball on a number of friendships when my life's become too busy. I focused on the here and now and didn't give much headroom to people who weren't geographically close.

I've reconnected with most when my life got less busy. I apologised in the sense of saying "Long time no write! So Sorry!" but I didn't feel at fault in some way so it wasn't anything more than that. Some of those friendships picked back up right where they left off. Some are far less close. I don't feel anything particularly about it. I think of it as a natural ebb and flow over the course of a life time.

I ghosted a friend because her husband, one evening, declared an attraction toward me, when my friend was out of the room. She clearly realised, and stopped inviting me to her home, and was keeping me away from her husband. Under no circumstances did I enjoy being treated like a threat to her marriage so I exited. The heavily ironic thing was that she was always having affairs and flirtations and telling me about them. Their marriage was a mess, much as I enjoyed their company, it just wasn’t a scenario I wanted to be part of. Even now, a few years later, I feel profoundly uncomfortable that I’m in the position of knowing about her infidelity and deceit. It bugs me, even though I’m not involved, and don’t see her. I’ve no doubt whatsoever she thinks I’m a horrid person for mysteriously fading away.

So, you've answered your own question with one possible reason.

Others (as pp have said) can be

• you've done something that you are unaware of how much it upsets the person eg, a friend shared a post from Robert Jenrick this morning, and several of her posts have been leaning in a way that really annoys (and surprises) me
• you are either really annoying in a way you aren't aware annoys people as much as it does - eg always being late, or flaking last meeting from arrangements, or making life all about you in some other way and there comes a point when friend no longer wants to put up with it. You aren't even aware, as you have always been like that.
• many friendships are just 'of a time' - eg someone you work with, or someone you train for your sport with or someone you met at a baby group - and once that 'glue' is no longer there, you realise you don't really have much else in common
• as per post above, it might not specifically be anything you've done, but life has just got very busy for the person and they don't have the time or headspace for seeing people

What I found, is that now I am retired and have no dc to look after, have plenty of time, and a little bit more money than when I was in my 30s, I have reconnected with loads of people that I used to know from different places, but just didn't really have time to meet up with in my 30s, 40s, and 50s. I've never fallen out with any of them, but 'drifting apart' had come from different reasons - or combination of reasons - and those barriers are no longer there.

There is always a reason.

Sometimes it is a fault the rejected friend is unaware of - being overly dominant or self-absorbed; being constantly negative and using the friendship to offload; being insensitive about different circumstances e.g. choosing expensive meet ups when the other person is short on cash, or assuming the friend has hours to chat or can meet on weekend daytimes when she has small children.

Sometimes the reason is no fault of the friend but just circumstances - single friends often drop friends who have young children because they have very little in common at that point (or vice versa - the new mums ditch the single friends as they are so overwhelmed and absorbed by their new life.) Some people instinctively go into hiding socially when times are rough - if they are ill or depressed or bereaved. And vice versa. Some people drift away when friends are having a hard time because they don't feel able to offer support. Others drift away when a friend becomes successful. The imbalance puts the friendship out of kilter.

And sometimes a friendship has just run its course. Maybe it was based on being at a similar life stage and that time is over.

Not true at all. My best friend of 18 years ghosted me as soon as our mutual friend died. (She was more a friend of mine than my friends). I messaged to let her know, the next thing, there was a message on social media saying she was coming off there.
Then nothing. It was a few days before my birthday, we had plans. I didn't even get a text or a card. Just went full no contact. Cut off completely.
Then when my dad died 3 years later, she got in touch to offer her condolences. We started talking again and I went over to see her.
She explained that at that time, she had done something really bad, was in the middle of a lot of serious trouble and my announcement of our friends death had sent her over the edge. She just couldn't deal with that as well.
She knew ghosting me wasn't nice, but once she explained everything I sort of understood. The only thing I could say to her (and as my husband said later too) was why the hell didn't you come to us and ask for help, instead of cutting off? She said she thought we'd judge her and wouldn't want to know her. Which wouldn't have been true.
Being ghosted for no reason than the other person has something going on, is awful. I was upset about that and my other friends death. However much I racked my brain, I couldn't figure it out at all and knowing us both well, neither could my husband.
We're as thick as thieves again now and I wouldn't have it any other way.

You kind of proved my point. You said that my comment about there always being a reason is not true, but then outlined your own circumstances in which there were actually quite a few reasons why your friend disappeared.

I've done this. Only once and it is a big regret but at the time it felt inevitable for me.

I was friends with a woman. We got on really well. She moved away but we emailed a lot, got together for a weekend, met up with husbands and kids for a weekend, she visited me with her kids. I really liked her and liked her friendship. But after a few years I ended up just not responding to her - then managed to apologise and get back together. Then did it again and that was the end - she was never going to forgive me for ghosting her.

The reality is at the time I simply did not have any emotional space to manage a long-distance friendship. Keeping it up was simply too much for me. I was living away from family and friends, had long-distance family I was dealing with and trying to deal with some major family issues and the death of a parent etc. Also dealing with some serious stuff with one of my children. My friend was utterly supportive of me but it didn't change that staying in touch long distance felt way too much for me.

Of course I should have texted her or called her and said as much but the thing is I didn't intend to ghost her - i just didn't contact her and then it went on and on and it was too late.

So it was nothing she did. it was just the circumstances at the time and I still feel sorry about it.

I've soft ghosted a few friends over my 60 odd years. There's always a reason. I've also been ghosted once and I'm still not sure why but it's clearly her choice.

I've drifted when I realised that I was the one literally doing all the running...and driving.
I learned to drive and got my first car as a teen and if my friend couldn't get somewhere by public transport/her DP wasn't able to give her a lift/needed something heavy moved from A to B I would help her out. I found out she learned to drive and got her own car in her forties without telling me (that hurt).When i found out i suggested that she could now cross the city to visit me sometimes (we're welcoming to unexpected visitors), she has never been to my house under her own steam. We both live in the same addresses we did since before she learned to drive. It's been 10 years.

Yes but not my reason iyswim? I was explaining why the person who has been ghosted isn't always the one who is the problem.

Sometimes it's not anything personal, it's just life. I've drifted from friends and it's not anything negative about them, it's just they're busy/I've got things going on/time passes. I have some friendships that have lasted years but some haven't and it's largely for pragmatic reasons - geography, life choices, what's going on with them/me. It's nothing sinister.

I really started to pull back from people when I had cancer. I just didn’t have the energy to maintain friendships. My friends were honestly trying to be supportive, but that support cost me in ways that are hard to explain.

most of those relationships never really recovered.

I did this before it was a thing/had a name. I just disliked spending time with the friend and I had spoke to them about things they did that upset me but nothing changed. I didn’t want to have a bust up because we had other friends in common.

I've been ghosted a few times, in reality I thought we were closer than we were, looking back they were always massively one-sided friendships and I'll probably never know why but there must have been a reason.

The reasons I've ghosted people.

1. They've ended up being moaners who refuse to actually take action to make their situation better.
2. Their parenting hasn't been something I can look past. (Overly permissive or overly strict.)
3. Gossipers, if you're talking about your other friends lives, not out of concern but just to gossip then you're definitely doing about me also.
4. Currently I'm ghosting someone who I thought was friend for life material, she hinted at having an affair (I don't actually know for sure), I'm friends with her husband and if I hadn't distanced myself I would have been put in an impossible position of blowing up a family or lying to and for a friend.