Is Facebook an option for re-establishing contact? As for the professors, maybe they’re still at the college. I know my mom as an alumna of her college can look up any student or professor past or present and get their contact info if they have provided it to the college.
I can’t speak for other people, but if someone I knew “disappeared” for health reasons and they showed up in my life no matter how many years later, I’d be happy at least to know things are ok even if we did not become super good friends again.
And the Steve Fossett story is sad and disturbing. I know you were just giving it as a hypothetical, usedtobe**** and I suppose that would** be a good way for a billionaire genius to disappear, but it’s sad that he died like that by accident. Disturbing only because that’s really unfortunate to never be found except a bone or two.
I read a few of these replies to your post and so far I’m not seeing anybody say this:
When people just drop off the face of the planet, it means they are cowards and afraid to say why they don’t want you in their life. There are of course exceptions to the rule i.e. the friend you mentioned who said they were going through some emotional issues. But, more often then not this is just the person being insecure and not stepping up. Frankly, it is rude and unacceptable behavior and we are seeing a lot more of it in the technology age I have noticed.
If someone does this to you, and they randomly connect with you again without a conversation and an acceptable reason(not excuse -they are two different things), & you don’t say anything and hang out with them, they will view this as acceptable behavior and continue to do this, no matter what the nature of the relationship. I speak from experience, and will not accept this behavior because I know i deserve better and sure you do as well. If you allow this behavior into your life, it speaks to your self esteem and trust me when I say, if this continually happens, your self esteem will plummet and you will actually start to feel worthless. I also find that people expect me to accept them as they are but do not give me the same courtesy.
I hope eventually (speaking for myself), that if I continue to live my life and make plans (even if by myself) and try to meet people, that eventually I will find more real friends again. I hope the same for you.
Just so you are aware, you posted to a thread which was started, and was last active, seven years ago. The person who started it hasn’t been seen here since around that time, so they may or may not ever see your advice.
That is a very unique person these days to actually say sorry and stop by to explain and goes to my other post. They may be a ‘keeper’. Just keep in mind, you should not allow them to make this a habit of behavior. Eventually, sorry doesn’t cut either if it ends up being continual ( not saying it will be).
That notation on our board has confused more than a few of us, too (the apostrophe before the year isn’t always tremendously obvious), so don’t feel too badly!
Not necessarily. Relationships ebb and flow. People come and go into my life. I don’t care. It doesn’t say anything about me, and I don’t think any less of myself for it. I’ll lose contact with even my close friends for years at a time when my life, their life, or both our lives just don’t happen to intersect. I don’t particularly care why. I assume there’s a reason, and my self-esteem doesn’t depend on them having to explain to me why they went away. I’m pretty happy with who I am and who my friends are, and if people come and go, so be it. Why let it bug me? It may very well have nothing to do with me, and it’s rather egocentric of me to think it does.
That’s not really what I meant by self esteem will plummet. Also, not everyone views friendships the same way you do.
What I meant was that, I’m general if you allow people to treat you like crap, most likely one’s self esteem will take a hit. I also didn’t say that it would say anything about you, or me or who it happens to, I stated that it says something about the person who does it to you, that was my point. in my opinion, real friends don’t just come and go, not at least in my life. I don’t feel that treating people like you can do anything you want to them and they still should want to be your friend is unacceptable behavior.
A good philosophy is treat others how you would like to be treated.
I don’t disagree with any of that, really. If a friend just shows up every time they need a favor, they are not a friend. But people coming and going – it happens. One of my best friends disappeared for most of this year; I didn’t think anything of it. We finally reconnected back in September and are back to continually talking. Nothing happened. Life just got in the way. shrug People sometimes need space or time alone, and sometimes it’s for a long time. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. This is not the same as letting people treat you like crap. If somebody treats you like crap, then don’t talk to them and don’t keep up that relationship. Last year I reconnected with a friend I had lost touch with for maybe six years. Now we talk almost every day again. If people disappear, I just assume they have good reason to disappear, or are having some sort of mental moment. That’s cool. I’ll be here when you get back. You don’t owe me an explanation.
As I said, not everyone views it the same way. Plus there different circumstances and maybe even levels of friendship, so to speak. Also, I mentioned that there are exceptions. However, if I am hanging out and or talking to someone every day that am getting to know and then they just drop off the face of the earth and if you ask them to do something they keep saying no, I would say…they are not Interested in being friends, and especially a circumstance like this is where it is not acceptable behavior to just drop off and then pop back in whenever they feel like it. In my experience , this just opens the gates right off the bat for the person to treat you however they desire. And, it is a big red flag of how they will treat you in the future.
Good for you if these people come back into your life on a random whim, but that is not everyone’s experience.
I am fully aware of that. Everyone’s experience is different and their wants and needs in a friendship are different. I’m just providing a counter view to yours. I find this a much easier way to live. I personally just don’t demand much from people, and I have what I would consider wonderful friends who do a lot for me, even if some of them sometimes need time (sometimes years) for themselves. It’s a very stress-free way for me to live. I understand if you have different desires and needs. And, of course, if I feel someone is treating me like shit, I would not continue being friends with them. I said as much in my last reply.
Good grief. There are a whole lot of reasons why people do this. Most people don’t owe you any explanation for why they don’t want you in their life; and sometimes you wouldn’t like it a bit if they gave one to you.
They may well not even actively want you out of their life. They may just be having their time and energy taken up by something else.
I don’t assume, if I don’t hear from somebody for a while, that they’re treating me like crap. I assume they’ve got something else on their minds. If it’s someone I have strong reason to expect to hear from, I may well try once or twice to contact them and ask if they’re OK; and/or I may ask other people I know who also know the missing person whether they’ve heard from them and they’re OK. Unless they’d made a specific promise to meet me on a specific day and/or to do something in particular and then ghosted me on that, I’m not going to be mad at them.
That’s probably accurate. You’re not describing somebody who’s disappeared; you’re describing somebody you’re in contact with but who keeps turning down your invitations. Very likely they don’t want to be friends with you, at least according to your expectations of friendship. They’re letting you down gently. They do not owe you an explanation as to why.
It’s possible, of course, that the reason is that they for any of various reasons can’t keep up a relationship in which the other person expects to hang out and/or talk every day. That’s a pretty intense level of friendship. I’ve got very close friends, who I can depend on entirely for a confidence or for help in an emergency, and who I only communicate with every week or two; sometimes less often. I would only expect to communicate daily with somebody who I was sharing a household with.
This zombie thread is quite appropriate to something I’m rasslin’ with. D and I dated back in '73-'74, so almost half a century ago. All contact and communication ceased in '76 and life went on. Then in 2000 or so, he tracked me down on line - I have a very unique maiden name, so it wasn’t too difficult - and we started emailing back and forth.
At that time he was twice-divorced, married a third time, and 3 of his 5 kids weren’t talking to him. Then his 3rd wife died and within a couple of weeks, he married a 4th time - that severed the other 2 kids from him. He eventually divorced #4 and was dating someone else.
We were still in touch on and off till about 2-3 years ago. I sent him an email complaining about a family situation - I just needed to vent and since he didn’t know any of the players, I figured it was safe. But I never heard back. I waited a few weeks and wrote again. Nothing. And just for the heck of it, I sent him a birthday greeting this past year. Nothing.
He has a fairly common name, but I knew where he’d been living, so I checked obits - nothing. That wasn’t just morbid - I know he had some serious health issues. Of course, if he’d moved, I wouldn’t have known. Anyway, the Birthday ecard was the last attempt to stay in touch. I won’t bother him any more - for all I know, he’s not alive to be bothered. And since I haven’t seen him in 45 years, it’s not like a huge loss from my life. But I’d still like to know…
This is me too. Stuff happens in people’s lives. Moving, job changes, marriage, kids, divorce… It goes on forever. Sometimes things change back enough to get you back in touch again. Often I’m amazed how long it’s been since I talked to a friend or family member. No reason, just life.
I have one sister, married , raised three kids. Once they were on their own, she divorced her husband and hit the road. Small van and a motorcycle. She travels around, works when she needs money, then moves on. Sometimes no one hears from her for two years at a time. Never a phone call, we have no way to get in touch with her at all. No bad feelings from anyone, she’s doing what she wants to do.
This is true, especially the last bit. I cut off a long time friend because I just couldn’t put up with her complaining all the time about everything. You literally could not bring up a subject like puppies or rainbows that she couldn’t find something to bitch about.
I finally told her I didn’t want to talk to her until she stopped her bitching all the time because it was tiring just to listen to her. I finally had to block her number because she kept calling me asking what the real reason was.
First, I was replying to someone else’s question/post. 2nd, the example I used - we just happens to hang out and talk every day it wasn’t something I was expecting or frankly even needed. And 3, I’m sorry i don’t agree that people should just “ghost” someone. It wasn’t like this pre technology age. Now that we have given ‘it’ a Name (ghosting), it is all of a sudden acceptable human behavior. This NOT acceptable human behavior just because now society has given it a name. It is something within you that don’t have the courage to have a conversation with the person, it is easier FOR YOU to not have a conversation. Maybe, just maybe if one gives the other person a reason, that person may take it in and try and work in it - that is if it something they are doing. Obviously, some people don’t and won’t, but at least you have acted like a human being and have given them a chance and the benefit of the doubt that maybe they didn’t realize they were doing something that bothered you. Perhaps if more people would actually have a dialogue, there wouldn’t be so many issues we all have to deal with in this world. Just a thought.
I’m 70; and all of my life, repeatedly declining somebody’s invitations without suggesting specific alternatives has been a common and acceptable way to get across ‘I really don’t want to hang out with you any longer.’ Giving specific reasons was generally not recommended and usually not done. Insisting on specific reasons was not common or encouraged behavior.
And that really seems to be what you’re describing. You don’t seem to be complaining that someone who you were in a long-term intimate relationship with – say, a marriage partner, or a sibling you were close with all your life – suddenly disappeared entirely leaving no contact information. You seem to be insisting that someone who you’ve only recently met owes you reasons for not wanting to continue a casual relationship with you, and is a horrible person for not giving you reasons.
…and as I said this is easier for you (whomever approaches it this way), you are not taking the other person’s feelings into consideration just your own. Not everyone is going to take a conversation the wrong way. It isn’t necessarily easier for the other person not to know not are you necessarily sparing their feelings by not having a conversation. Also, this is not really about people who are still in your life and just ‘busy’ with other things. Let me just say though, if some can’t respond to you or hang out because they are ‘busy’, it just means you are not really important enough for them to respond to. No one is that ‘busy’. People, even when busy, take the time to do things they want to do and talk to the people they want to talk to.
No one ever said we were talking about a marriage partner or a long significant other. I was replying to someone else’s post, just talking about how people act in general.
No, this is psychology 101 or maybe 102. You are telling me you get so busy, you don’t take time out to call, text or meet up with someone or return their attempts to communicate- husband, daughter, best friend… ? More often than not People make time, even in the busiest of schedules to reply, speak to , spend time with the people who are important to them.
