Possibly on receiving end of avoidant behavior

[CotswoldsOlish]

I had a phone conversation with a very frank and charming person to talk about my volunteering. Everything seemed great.

We left it that we would meet. I tried to arrange a time, it fell through. I noticed it was me doing all the running, so I stopped bothering.

Because of things I’d said, I’m 50% sure this person recognised me somewhere and deliberately ignored me, possibly more than once.

I know they could be busy and have forgotten about my offer to volunteer. Or perhaps there isn’t a role for me and they’re too embarrassed to say so. Or maybe I said something wrong.

I find it really strange that someone could be that frank and charming and then nothing. Is this behavior common?

Needless to say, I won’t be volunteering.

Volunteering for what?

You're overthinking this. If you really want to volunteer, see if there's anyone else you could reach out to. If not, move on and forget about it.

@CotswoldsOlish Turn the tap back on we don't need dripping.
I'm curious.
Volunteering is a great thing.

It was to help out a charity very close to where I live. This person and I both have near identical professional interests so we would have worked together.

I have moved on and will volunteer somewhere else if anything turns up. I’ll just forget I ever tried to volunteer at this charity.

But it’s very strange running into this person who is now behaving like we never spoke at all. That’s why I posted in the relationship section. I just wanted to know if this is something that people do a lot. I don’t mean accidentally, I mean on purpose.

I know that in this particular case it could just be the person has genuinely forgotten me or there is some other explanation like social awkwardness. I’m not going to waste any more energy trying to second guess the reasons behind their behaviour.

it sounds like this person is a poor communicator for whatever reason. I would tend to be upfront and say, oh, it’s a shame you didn’t get back to me, but then move on. That’s because I grew up with this kind of gaslighting so as an adult and see it as unhelpful to all to maintain silence over things!

That’s the perfect response if we ever end up speaking to each other. Thanks @dotdotdotdash It works whether the person has done it intentionally or not.

Just go up to them and say "I haven't heard from you about volunteering- no worries if there's no role for me, just want to know what's happening? Do you have any recommendations for other opportunities elsewhere?"