Why would your best friend or someoneyou mutually considered a good friend suddenly ghost you?

cheese_greater@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 60 points –

Is there a way to figure out if they blocked youon Signal if you can still technically message them?

Edit: he seems to have blocked me or hasn't used Signal since a single emphatically non-controversial/non-hurtful comment so he either blocked me or hasn't opened Signal for >month. He's not responding to anything else either so he's either depressed or blocked+done with me.

Edit: I'll know when it comes birthday time. I'm not a Bridezilla about birthdays but it would be unusual for him to not wish me one. He's never not done so. I'll have my answer when that happens πŸ™ (namaste) If he wants to be a dick about it and leave me in the dark totally those days are fortunatley numbered :/

Edit: we're white and very (North)-American.

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No real advice to give her, but I thought I'd share this story.

About 6 or 7 years ago, one of my friends unfriended basically everyone we know on Facebook and stopped replying to text messages out of the blue. Some of us had been hanging out with him a few days before, and there was no sign that anything was off.

To this day we don't really know exactly what happened, but we have a pretty solid theory.

My friend was born in the Middle East, but moved here when he was pretty young. His father is from that country, his mother is a white American, and from what I understand is not Muslim. His father apparently got a lot of shit from his family for that.

His father was always very strict, he'd gotten into fights with him before, there was one occasion where his father had threatened to move the family back to his home country, my friend stood up to him about that because his younger siblings had really only ever lived here, and ended up getting thrown out of the house for a while. His father used threats like that and cutting him off from his siblings to keep him in line. There had been some other similar fights because his father didn't approve of girls he was dating and such.

Few if any of us had ever met his father, but I get the impression he probably wasn't a fan of us either.

A couple of us went to his home to make sure he was ok, he answered the door, we didn't really get any answers except that he had made the decision with some other people that he couldn't associate with us anymore.

We later found out that he had been dating a girl, probably not one his dad would have approved of, and had also ghosted her at the same time.

Pretty much everyone left on his Facebook at the time were people with Middle Eastern names.

So we're pretty sure what happened is that his father came down on him with some big ultimatum to cut ties with anyone he didn't approve of or else.

A couple of us saw him in the wild once, he wouldn't acknowledge any of them. I shoot him a text once in a while, I have no idea if he's seen any of them, but I've never gotten a direct reply. A couple years ago, another friend's father passed away, we all used to hang out at his home, so I reached out to someone I knew from high school who wasn't defriended, and asked if they could let him know, and they did, the only reply I got through that mutual friend was a quick thanks.

Sometimes there's some really heavy stuff going on under the surface, and you can't always count on getting a solid answer.

Try to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them space. Tell yourself things like they may have had a death in the family, or their phone got stolen/broken. Try your best to focus on other things and take on something new and interesting. Use exercise to adjust your brain chemistry if your feelings are overpowering your logic to give them space.

If nothing serious has happened, you learned a valuable lesson about them, and know to maintain more distance.

Stay classy!

Do you think its over tho ;(

After a broken neck and back, and everything I've gone through in life, the most valuable lesson I can share is deceptively simple in thought but equally powerful in practice; only worry about the things you can change right now in this moment. Everything else is a waste of time and energy. Anxiety will get you nowhere. Relationships are brain chemistry too. They are addictions. They must be actively managed for your best health. If you are having trouble, go for a walk somewhere safe. The exercise will help get it off your mind.

It could be. Unfortunately, all things come to an end. But as they say, "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.".

For me it was a sharp decline in mental health.

My best friend of 10 years vanished as he was fighting depression and most probably still is.

A message that someone is in your thoughts with no ask can be a great thing to toss to a friend in this situation. Just make sure you aren't pushing for any kind of response.

Not getting an answer is an answer. I wouldn't insist on contacting them.

For me it was that my friend just took one too many opportunities to twist a knife in my gut, and I realized he was only pretending to be my friend in order to hurt me.

Can you talk more about that? I dont think thats the case here but you've got me curious?

This sucks, I know. I just responded to a friend's message from two months ago, and I've felt bad about not responding since then. But life happens, and for me at least it had nothing to do about that friends behaviour.

Whenever I "ghost" someone, it's usually because the friendship isn't working for me, or it didn't turn out to be what I thought it was. I put "ghost" in quotes because I don't really block people, I'll just stop initiating and then put the onus on them to maintain the relationship for a bit until I feel better about it.

So far, none of them have really cared enough to pick up the slack, so blocking them wasn't really necessary. Good moves on my part I guess.

Thats not ghosting tho. Ghosting is when you basically shadowban someone from your recognition or communication and do nothing (or worse, blocking them without a way to touch base one last time) to establish why or how to make it up to them if you both consider it worth saving or at bare minimum to clarify what went wrong. Maybe not everyone shares my believe in the value of a friendship exit interview but if I give a shit about them I wouldn't want them to be blind to what screwed it for me.

Thats interesting. Definitely my approach on recognizing birthdays and anniversaries because I strongly believe if you 365 dates to recognize youmre basically gonna be doing that every day and I dont relish that burden

You know sometimes it has nothing to do with you. Some people's first instinct when things go wrong is to limit the number of people they deal with. Heck I will admit it, I broke up with a girl a long long time ago just because I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to have a girlfriend and deal with everything else.

If someone wants space from you let them have it. Don't creep don't force yourself on them and don't take it personally.

I'm just emotionally detaching from it. He felt that was necessary for him so I fee it necessary to limit my exposure to folks who do that kinda thing. I don't allow people to play tiddlywinks with my emotions and friendship like that so in my way, I'm grateful he finally confirmed his cowardice and flakiness (i know, unemotional, amirite? Work in progress ;)

I would say that there can be many reasons for a persons absence in you life. But in this absence we can also see our own fears.

I am literally slightly ignoring someone whose uncanny birthdy is today. A person from the comments said it. some people reduce their circle when it gets tough. For me, i find it hard to be person right now. Every single day is the make or break of my life. Massive debt, constant house of cards feeling.

I recieved a message, she said it's her birthday. I look at my personal calender, i reply, yes it is, what you want me to do about it.

I was rude. I know that someone really cares and it's her birthday even, why not just be nice?

Then again if someone is willin to force quit a friend just because they are absent is just having trust issues. And as someone who is still my best friend to this day once said. "you don't just throw this away."

I honestly hate when people try to nudge you into recognizing their birthday. Its like "we can't upset the Beavis" and its like, fuck off. If I feel close to you and you're in my program, I'll prolly get around to it assuming you haven't ruined it by soliciting.

People who do that get a wish at 11:59pm lol and next time they do it I stop completely because they got it covered for me so well :) People who obsess about dates like that are an enormous turnoff to me, whether its family or friendz

U took away your own upvote eh πŸ˜‡

that is always my instinctual reaction too and why i was harsh in my reply to her, however i recognise it is much more complicated than that.

again why someone tries to remind you of their birthday can be because of many reasons. Maybe it is a male, and you are the only person that remembered it last year and accidentally he let fear take a hold of the keyboard. Maybe it is someone that is always used to getting best wishes and let audacity take hold of their keyboard.

It is spoken expectations that sour a relationship, but fulfilling unspoken expectations is a the relationship.

when you expect people to not break contact you might not be compatible with people who expect that they can come and leave.

But it is okay to have different types of expectations for different people.

It is okay to adapt to someone elses unspoken terms somtimes, you will find that many beautifull people can be very hard to communicate with.

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I don't wanna cause any undue paranoia but it might be worth looking back on anything that might have offended or hurt your friend that you might not have realized.

I once had a friend that was gaslighting me about his attempts to cozy up to my girlfriend / childhood friend and "accidentally" touching her inappropriately after I told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn't comfortable with it and didn't trust him. Eventually, in a drug induced grandiose rant, he admitted my suspicions were correct the whole time, and afterwards he refused to apologize because he didn't believe he did anything wrong. So I ghosted him.

I'm not saying it's likely you did anything that horrible to your friend without knowing, but I am saying my best friend firmly believed he had done nothing wrong and maybe it's worth considering or reconsidering the last month or two of events leading up to him ghosting you.

Have you tried getting a second friend to see if they can contact them?

Ya, I just gotta let it be for a while. If they were mine they'll come back to me, if they dont, they were never mine to begin with 😭

I refuse to give them that satisfaction if thats the case. I dont chase people who make it difficult to chase them

We always come back to each other though.

Thats chicks but we're male. Not sure if that changes the calculus

I'm female tho

So when I said thats chicks, that implied my understanding that the two of you were women.

I'm saying I believe as males its different

Not really any different for men.

I think guys can have more pride + shame involved. Thats absolutley a defect of our gender. I dont want to get into sexist stereotypes but its often different as males

I think you're reading into things a bit too much.

Friends come and go with time, even close ones. You may not talk to someone for months, then randomly one day out of the blue you connect with them again like nothing ever happened. There's no ego involved in temporarily "losing" a friend, only to reconnect later.

There is cuz if I'm correct he literally couldn't be bro enough to let me know he didnt want to talk to me anymore and let me waste time reaching out when it was hopeless. I don't believe in shadow-banning people, I believe in having a pair and using your words.

Also i felt like we were bffs for life (i know how childish that sounds) but i felt like we would always count on each other. I have another friend now like that so maybe its for the best. She'll be there for me and I'm glad he's sort of silently confessed what we mean to each other if it turns out there's not actually a good reason for it. I respect myself more that and I'm okay paying a theoretical price for that

He's turning out to be that Californian stereotype applied to friends: sunny and friendly and laughs till they turn or think little of you behind their backs but refuse to be explicit about their contempt

They've suddenly landed in a really controlling environment (be it a partner, parents, or a government), and wish to hide your relationship/keep you out of the crosshairs.

Do you think thats honestly plausible? I know we left off genuinely ok and just nothing

It's likely in some cultural groups - and has been true for a friend or two of mine. A particular example was someone going to a Psych ward, where their phone was kept in a vault. Obviously you know more context than me. But the probability is nonzero.

It doesnt matter if they blocked you or not. If theyre not talking to you theyre not talking to you.

I once ghosted a friend of some fifteen years after a friend of nearly twenty years told me he had raped her a few years prior.

I'm not sure I believe it (there was alcohol involved and he's a super kind person, so my suspicion is that she regretted it and saw it as rape because they were both drunk), but I believe she believes it and she is my number one.

Not saying you raped anybody. Just giving an example of a reason.

Sometimes whatever it is is just out of your control anyway. Lost a great freind because a now exfriend of mine lied about me to get closer to her and date her. Intially just thought she was going through something. They, shockingly, ended up splitting but honestly I have zero interest in talking to her again if she's willing to believe that type of things about me. Still waiting for my chance to fuck with that guys life though. I'm a petty son of a bitch if you give me the opportunity.

So I'm not trying to judge or talk shit, but I am curious. Why would you choose to live that way? At least in my experience, being petty or spiteful always makes me feel worse. You might be happier if you let it go, especially since you by your own admission you wouldn't be friends again anyway.

Because I have to choose between either having to see him or no longer being friends with basically the only friends I still have. So it's either I have to see his ass or I recluse. Spite is me coping with that, and it feels fine tbh. I don't think about him unless topics like this come up or I have to see him. It's not like it's running my life or anything, I'm just looking for my opportunity.

Ya, I'm sorta over it. The guy expressed constant like "anything you like I'll hate even if i only start after you indicate your liking" and he's honestly someone I wouldn't confide super personal or controversial things in cuz I felt the need to be a bit more polished.

I also expressed i considered him my best even that might not be reciprocated and he never denied or fought that characterization too hard. I just never dreamed he was actually as flaky and delicate as hes demonstrated here so honestly its whateves.

On the plus, he's balding anyway and I won't share the cure with him because he would just hate it and go out of his way to avoid it the moment I shared it since it came from me. I like when people act contrarily towards me to benefit of their own peril and write me off as someone who doesn't have wise or useful insights cuz I read and question

i just don't understand. We left off positively.

I noticed for the sending receipts they used to show two checkmarks but now just one :(

I checked message info and one moment they say delivered , the next message it only registers as sent

This behavior kind of feels borderline neurotic. I'd just give them some space, and try not to hyperfixate.

Honestly, dude, im leaving it be. Nothing actively done. This is my best friend I thougt I had, please try tk stop being a dick, how can you not get why I woulnd't be super distressed and invested in this

I literally have no choice in any case so please stop. I'm not asking for people to enable me, im just asking for understanding and...i dont effing no...good night everyone, i just dontknow anymore

Fwiw, as long as you're not spamming them or anything I don't think there's anything neurotic here. There's nothing wrong with being emotionally invested in a friendship, or being stressed out about signs it might have ended or changed.

At the same time, because I know nothing about you or your friend, I feel compelled to reference one of my favorite pieces of advice from a classic rock song: "hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly, you might lose control." Meaning holding on too tightly to someone might be off-putting whether them distancing themself was intentional or not. Your best bet might just be to demonstrate your independence as a person and wait to see what happens.

Oh I absolutey am cutting him loose as he's done to me until he answers for it, we're going on 3 months soon so that is unacceptable to not recognizing someone and preventing them from contacting them. At some point, there is only one explanation and at the end of the day, I feel my time is more valuable than ceding freely to someone who objectively makes it impossible to touch base with em and letting me waste more time finding out what the deal is.

Even then, if he wants to be balding baby about it, he's probably out anyway. I've grown tired of (t)his bullshit

One tick means sent, two means delivered.

There are a lot of reasons you might be seeing only one tick, but it does mean they're not getting your messages.

I've wondered the same thing about my friend too, but we just saw each other a few days ago for the first time in nearly ten years and everything was fine, just like it always was, even though I missed him terribly in the meantime.

It's hard staying in touch. If you have an email address for them, just reach out occasionally to let them know you're thinking of them. They'll be back in touch when they can. And if not, well, like you said it's not worth getting upset over anyway, and there's no shortage of things that are worth getting upset over to hold your attention!

Did he delete the app or block me tho?

Does blocking cause the one tix?

Yes, a single tick will be displayed if you are blocked.

Honestly, just leave it for now. If they don't see your messages in a couple of days, ask a mutual friend or something. But for now, I don't think it would be good to attempt further contact, or worry about it too much.

Also only if it was sent but they havent opened app yet. A family member i know would never block me hasnt opened one yet :)

I use signal a lot and sometimes people's phones will stop signal from running in the background. This can cause the behaviour you're seeing, as their phone wont receive the messages until they open the app manually

If suddenly they ghost you then they aren't a real good friend, good friends make clear if there is any problem and generally it get solved.

Just as a tip: real good friends are counted with the fingers of one hand, they are very rare and unconditional in life.