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.

I semi-accidentally ghosted a friend who had health anxiety. Just kept putting off messaging her, with every intention to, but kept forgetting, and now it's been too long to reach out. To be honest, I don't really want to.

There are definitely friends I don’t keep in touch with anymore. Either it just fizzled out because we didn’t really have much in common (they are still partying 5 nights a week in their 40s and sleeping til 10am, and I have kids and a career and am in bed by 9pm with a peppermint tea 😂).

Or more recently, I was diagnosed with cancer and honestly I’m too bloody tired and ill to keep up with messaging. I mean, I guess it’s not like those friends were in touch loads either or being like, hey, let’s meet for coffee or I’m dropping you off some brownies ahead of your treatment, so maybe they ghosted me!

I think sometimes people think stuff is all about them and ‘being ghosted’ when really it’s just you aren’t that close anymore and it’s a natural shift in the friendship.

@EmeraldShamrock000 were you the poster whose friend went funny because they were unhappy with the wedding seating? Apologies if that wasn't you.

@ThatIcyLion I have a feeling if you ask some of my friends who disappeared "why?" they would just say we grew apart. Whereas I was just wondering.

Now that time has passed, I think that lockdown was there excuse, and they really wanted to end the friendship after getting married and having children.

Yes but the underlying reason sometimes it’s got nothing to do with a friend that they ghosted.

I’ve known people who have done this because they were really unhappy with themselves and they wanted to separate themselves from the people around them or those closest to them. The people who knew them the most and the best because they couldn’t hide the difference between how they were behaving and the identity that they were wanting to portray

So Yes, I agree with you. There is always something underlying it but it’s not always to do with the ghosted person.

They’re lying. The friend did something (at the time) that they didn’t want to deal with.

I’ve disappeared before when I was struggling with my mental health - after my father died and I was simultaneously supporting my partner with a cancer diagnosis ( now stable) - I just couldn’t do it. I had nothing left to give. I hadn’t the energy to chat or go out and didn’t know what to say in texts. By the time I could do that again it felt too late to resume contact. I lost friends during that time - good people who had not done anything wrong. I regret it but I was just too overwhelmed to manage

It happened to me and I found out why years later. My friend was in a bad relationship and asked advice, I asked her what she thought and it all came out - affairs, violence, drugs. I told her she deserved to be happy and to think hard where she wanted to be in 10 years. She dumped me, not him and told everyone I looked down on her. It was a shame but tbh I am glad because he he never changed and she stayed with him and has become every bitter.

I’ve been ghosted and been the ghoster. I’ve recently ghosted a woman I’d know for about 20 years. She is nice, genuinely sweet and not a bad bone in her body but I was finding her draining and increasingly chaotic and making what I considered to be really poor choices. However, that is entirely my issue not hers - who the hell am I to sit her down and tell her that? It’s her life and her choice, nothing to do with me. She’s done nothing wrong. It just showed me how poles apart we are and had nothing left in common, and I was done picking up the pieces of her chaos. I do feel bad as she has reached out but I don’t think there’s a kind way to end it. I just said I no longer have the capacity to give her the friendship she needs and deserves.

I’ve been ghosted several times and yes it hurts, but i assume they no longer enjoyed my company or found me increasingly annoying or I no longer served a purpose. It is what it is 🤷‍♀️

But this is your answer. If there's genuinely a good friendship, then the ghoster will be going through crap in their own life. The fact that they haven't shared this crap suggests the relationship wasn't everything the ghosted person thinks.

I don’t think friendships are sustained by doing ‘nothing wrong’. We don’t ask people to stay in romantic relationships that aren’t working for whatever reason and it needn’t be anyone’s fault. I’ve drifted from friendships when I’ve started to low level dread meeting up or when our values have started to diverge or I’ve outgrown the person. All relationships have to work for both people.

@MrsJPBP "Ijust said I no longer have the capacity to give her the friendship she needs and deserves."

so you didn't ghost her? You actually told her the friendship was over.

I would have liked the same courtesy.

Me too. After leaving a marriage that was toxic with addiction and emotional abuse, qualifying in a high stress job and lone parenting a crowd of SEN kids, my mental health hit the skids for several years. I couldn’t pretend to be OK, and I didn’t want anyone to know how bad things were. I lost many friends in that time; the only ones I have left are ones who don’t mind that I rarely reached out to them for a while. One old university friend I was quite close to had a baby and I didn’t message her, I feel really bad about that. I think about her a lot but it’s been too long, I don’t even know what I’d say.

I've had it done to me by my baby group. We were super close (one in particular I considered my best friend), met when pregnant, met up at least every week for about 8 years, went camping together, growing apart a little when the eldest kids all started different schools. Then, I was always the one trying to arrange a get together and everyone was always too 'busy'. I accepted that until some years later I found out on FB the others were all invited to my former best friend's 50th. As far as I know I didn't do anything to offend anybody. I've had a couple of brief text conversations with a couple of them over the years and one was fairly friendly when I attended an event relating to her artwork. Still feel miffed that I was apparently the only one who got dropped and I don't know why.

Life gets in the way. It’s not always deliberate.

The main reason I have done it in my 20s/30s is because they started having babies, which I had no interest in.

@EmeraldRoulette and @MrsJPBP I used the phrase ‘no capacity’ when I told someone I could no longer be their friend. It didn’t go down well. It was not regarded as a courtesy

There isn’t a comfortable exit imo

Well admittedly this was about 8 months of not responding to her and she reached out to ask if she’d done something wrong. I didn’t have the heart to ignore that, I didn’t know what to say. I agree there is no kind way to say it.

I disagree with the posters saying there is always a reason.

I realise it's a terrible habit, but sometimes I just don't want to reply to a message right then and think I'll reply later or tomorrow. And then I put it off again the next day or forget, and the same again the next day. And suddenly it's been a few weeks and it feels too awkward to reach out again.

It's something I very much don't like about myself and make a conscious effort to not do anymore, but yeah sometimes it's probably because they're a procrastinator and lazy with responding to texts.

Examine your conscience- and don't be kind to yourself when doing so. Look into every crevice.

I did this with one of these types and was forced to reluctantly conclude-a conclusion shared by others- that the fault was not on my side!

Some people are just ignorant, unmannerly lumps and that's the reason-there is no point looking for motivation.

This person then apologised for being rude in ghosting me. I accepted her apology and then, bugger me, she did it again!

I thought I was a good friend to her but now her arse can set on fire, light up Guildford and burn out before I would lift a finger to help.

She probably doesn't give a toss and nor, now, do I.

I did it to four friends when my daughter died.

I just didn’t have it in me to reply to them. I didn’t have the energy. I didn’t have the inclination and I didn’t have the strength to force myself.

They did nothing wrong and I’m sure it hurt them, but at that time I didn’t have it in me to care about that.

One of them is one of my closest friends again now. She recognised what was happening and stayed in basic contact - Christmas cards, birthday cards, and always recognised my daughter’s anniversary. She never asked for a reply and that bizarrely made it easier to reply two and bit years later when I wanted to.

Two drifted. I know from a mutual friend that they said they would never be in touch again in case I just dropped them. The fourth actively called me out a month after my daughters funeral and then spent many many many months making passive aggressive comments on social media about how everyone has troubles but doesn’t treat friends badly.

Also sometimes it’s life & life stresses. One of my friends sort of did it to me, I just kept in touch every now & then & said I will be here for her when she’s ready. She had health problems & withdrew from life.

I've done this quite a lot tbh - reasons have been:

1. Person was 'a bit drama' for me, I don't care to be friends with people who are always embroiled in some minor issue or another.
2. Person was CONSTANTLY talking about themselves, it was like they didn't see me as a real person with my own shit going on / weren't interested.
3. I was just too busy to sustain the friendship - can honestly only keep in with a small group of people with full on work and family life.
4. The person was SO NEGATIVE over a sustained period of time, drove me nuts and I realised they weren't going to change.

I've just done a slow fade and sometimes a ghost - seemed kinder than being like "You always talk about yourself, shut up" lol.

ETA - with another person I drifted because they were very intense, texting all the time and inviting me places etc. Sounds like I don't have any friends left lol but I promise I do 🤣

I’ve done this recently I’m afraid to say. I suspect she’d say what you are op. However for me it’s always drama from her life, all very negative and I found it dragged me down. Little acknowledgement of my life. There was no fun left so I slowly drifted away.

I think sometimes life moves on and you can let people go. Sometimes it's forever and sometimes it isn't.

I have friends from uni whom I've not seen for many many years but I still think of them as my friends. I still care about them and hope they're living well.

I have friends from a few years ago when my son was small who I haven't seen for a long while. Partly because I now have an illness and I can't socialise easily. Partly because they are so bus. I think people also changed after the pandemic. Some became more insular and family focused.

One or two I've grown apart from. I still have love for them but perhaps don't have the energy to be able to hang out with them or so much in common.

I can think of only one friend who I drifted from which was for a reason. All the rest are still my friends in my heart. I miss them sometimes but I think sometimes friendship means letting people have space and asking nothing of them. They may come back. They may not. Either is ok. Life moves.

I did it when a friend kept shagging married men and then telling me about it
I didn't fancy a confrontation but I realised her values were just so fundamentally different from mine in that respect that I wanted nothing more to do with her

I’ve done it when going through my own stuff, never personal to them. Then it felt awkward to get in touch and time passed.