My buddie of several years has completely written me off, apparently. No phone calls made or returned, blown off two different events we were going to do, no drop-ins for a quick beer or nothin’. I dropped in a while back and he was in no mood for company, so I just went home. Nothin’ since.
Kinda knew it would happen eventually (wife predicted it years ago). Suppose there are lots of sides to every story, but the dude was borderline narcissistic. A couple months ago I called him on some of his bullshit and this is the result.
Oh well. I still got my dogs and my neighbor will have a beer with me once in a while. And am really enjoying Chess Titans in Windows 10 on the new computer! (It basically lets me cheat! :o )
There is a car thing coming up in a couple weeks, he might be there (we both own the cars, so we’re both in the “club”). That might be awkward. Most of it is driving, so I don’t have to hang around actively avoiding him. Or I could just stay home and watch football. But I ain’t gonna miss it solely on his account.
Getting ghosted feels weird. I think women go through it more than men do, however, that could be a generalization. At least you have an idea what caused it, there is a recent /current? thread about friendships that end suddenly without warning or apparent causation. I had a few of those but also a few oddball ones.
I had one situation where I thought I was being ghosted but it turns out it really “wasn’t me, it was her”. She was going through a mental health crisis and kind of discarded her old life for a few years. I always stayed civil and friendly from a distance. We became friends again about 7 years later and are still close (except then I moved a few years back, so we are close by email and Facebook and stuff)
That happened to me once when I was 12 or 13 years old. A buddy I had been running with for at least two years totally cut me off. Wasn’t any internet back then, we had to do things manually. No words, no fights, no conflict. I was completely baffled. And crushed. It worked out after a while, but I finally worked it out that it was a religious issue. Or not. But I will tell you that it was worse than breaking up with a girlfriend. I was only 12. I didn’t have girlfriends till later.
My brother’s wife apparently routinely writes off friendships without explanation, but she never comes out and says it to the persona non grata. My brother is left to explain to them that they probably shouldn’t bother trying to stay in touch. Although he has no idea why.
Almost every time I thought I’ve screwed up a friendship, it was actually a personal problem the other person was experiencing. Just went through this with a secondary friend about 2 weeks ago actually.
I very gently asked “everything OK dude? Just want you to know I’m thinking about you and wish you the best.” and a couple of days later he came out of his shell and gave me the sob story. Thanked me a bunch of times for my concern, said it really helped him to know that someone was wishing him well. Pretty big of him to talk to me about it as we’re not the best of friends (kinda between friends and acquaintances).
I would bet that Gato’s friend is experiencing some sort of issue.
I had a friend from college, kept in touch for years. I’d seen him ghost other people, and figured one day my time would come, too. And it did - been 10 years since we’ve talked.
He’s the kind of guy that really likes something (music, cars, food) and makes that thing an integral part of his life. Until he decides he no longer likes that thing. Then he adopts the attitude that he NEVER liked it. Not one bit.
When I was a teen I had a friend ghost me. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong until later I found out he picked up with a group of pot heads who liked to torch up before classes started. They didn’t want me around because they though I would go all “student cop” on them.
Later my buddy and I re-sparked the friendship when he found out that I wasn’t adverse to pot.
Then he went all Jesus Freak Evangelical and I quickly ghosted him.
My two best friends from High School went down the God Well, too. We’re still friends, but don’t hang out too much anymore. One, because he lives across the country. The other lives close by, but I think I offend his wife.
Happened twice more since. Neighbor quick drinking beer altogether and his woman keeps him on a very short leash. Haven’t seen him in weeks, till yesterday. I was off-roading with the dogs and on the way back in, came across him. Didn’t even recognize him. He looked surprisingly better, and yet much worse.
Had an “internet friend” totally pull the plug on me yesterday.
I had a good friend in the US. In fact, she was a girlfriend of mine maaaaaaaany years ago. But we remained friends, I went to visit her in the US, and she came to Europe a couple of times to visit. We got along very well.
She cut all contact with me a couple of months ago.
I suspect that it was because of politics, but I honestly don’t know.
I had a high school buddy who was somewhat closer than a twin brother until we were in our early 20s. Then he married a woman with very selective notions of what friends should be, and it wasn’t long before we were no longer in touch.
Small town princess, daddy was the Cadillac dealer. Says it all, really.
An online-only friend of mine has a habit of periodically going completely offline for months at a time. It feels a lot like being ghosted, but but then she’s absolutely inactive as far as social media are concerned. It’s like she doesn’t exist, except that whatever she did/posted before going offline is still there.
We have a long time circle of half a dozen high school buddies who all grew up together.
One ghosted away when he went down the God hole, he was brought up very religious and always seemed nervous of his ‘heathen friends’. Eventually became a minister.
The other is trickier, we can only speculate why he ghosted away. We suspect that while the rest of us went to college, got married, and managed to escape the small home town, he never left the small town part-time job life. Doing his own thing apparently, but freezing out any who’d left town.
