ASK Musings

I’ve been with my husband for nearly 14 years, but in the time before I met him, when I was dating, I don’t think I was ever ghosted. There’d be an uncomfortable email or maybe text, but no guy just disappeared. I do understand the inclination to avoid the awkward conversation with someone you barely know; it’s easier (though not, I would argue, better) to dissolve into the fog of night than send that text or email and possibly get something unpleasant in return.

However, even though I’ve never been ghosted by a potential romantic partner, I have been ghosted twice by people who I considered good friends. I know folks have written about ‘friendship break-ups’ before (I’m not breaking new ground here), but I find it interesting that ghosting in a romantic sense gets so much attention when I would argue that friendship ghosting is a much more painful experience. A guy or gal who spends a couple of dates with me and decides there’s no future there? Eh, it happens. But someone who knows me well and decides the friendship isn’t worth it to them? That cuts deep.

Even though it’s only happened to me twice, it takes up a lot of space in my head, and I’m hoping that writing about it will help me move past it.

The first time it was former classmate turned roommate. We lived together for two years, then she moved to another state. I also moved away, and she made the effort to come visit me. We spoke on the phone every month or so, and I invited her to my wedding. She didn’t come due to a work event, which I think was probably an obvious sign in retrospect. She got engaged, and called to share the news. But that was the last time I heard from her. I saw she got married because she was tagged in some photos on social media; she didn’t respond to a couple of emails from me so I stopped trying.

Maybe she just didn’t feel like keeping up another long-distance friendship. Maybe I’d said something in a conversation that deeply offended her. I’m not sure what that would be (and as I’m fairly judgmental of myself, and am constantly replaying conversations in my head if I think I’ve said something wrong, I think I would have recognized it) but maybe over time she’d changed and I’d not been around to notice. Maybe it wasn’t a choice, it was just something that happened, and there was no need on her end to try to reconnect.

It happened a second time, about six years ago, and that one hurt even more. And still does, to some extent.

When my partner and I decided to move to London, one thing I was excited about was getting to spend time with my friends. I’d lived in the UK before, and have some good friends who had stayed after grad school. I also had one friend who I met in 2002 in NYC who lived in London and who I was so excited to see. We had kept our friendship up after living away from each other for maybe ten of those years; it was great to spend time with her the first time I lived in the UK.

I think I probably had some odd expectations around what our friendship would be like. When we had lived in the same city before, we saw each other often. When I moved to London – we didn’t see each other much. Obviously people have lives and things going on, but I thought more than once every couple of months wasn’t odd. She also sort of disappeared for a couple of months at a time. With people I consider close friends, we’ll exchange texts every few weeks (if we aren’t in the same town), and more often if we are. Not so much with her, which again, fine. Everyone has their own style.

When we did hang out I found it to be like most other friendships. But I definitely did most of the initiating, so that’s one sign. Over one summer she went silent for a couple of months; then she responded and we got together for lunch. We got dinner and saw a movie with her partner (also a friend), and then had lunch again a month later.

But around Christmas I stopped hearing from her again. My birthday came and went with a text from her partner but not her. I sent a text to share a milestone (finally got my own credit card here!) — nothing. Finally, I sent her an email seeing if she was okay. The thing is, she’s never been someone who is overly open about her life. I have no idea, for example, what her romantic life was like before she met her partner. Not much insight into her childhood. But she was always a good friend in the moment — understanding, willing to listen, offering advice, or just commiserating about the state of the world.

But the more I’ve thought about it, it’s likely that if she were telling this story, it’d go something like this:

“Yeah, I was okay friends with this woman in grad school and after, then we went our separate ways, then she moved to London for a year and we hung out. But she just moved back and wanted to hang out way more than I did, so I just decided to let her down easy because we aren’t that close. Like, I’d listen when she shared stuff but didn’t share the same back so I mean, she must have known it wasn’t that kind of friendship. I’m assuming she got the hint.”

Which is totally valid – not everyone is going to view every friendship the same way. But that doesn’t make it any less sad for the person who thought they had a close friend, y’know?

There’s a part of me that hopes there’s an explanation, because otherwise, I’m just the person who thought she had a good friend but didn’t. Especially, as I get older, I like making new friends, but I also value deeply the people who have known me over the years. She knew me at 22, and knew me at 38 and it’s odd that our shared history just … went away.

In the end, though, just as I wouldn’t actually want to date someone who didn’t want to date me, I don’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t care for me. I was going to say life is too short for that, but actually, I think life is too hard and too wonderful for that. I know not every friendship will look the same, and I have some fine acquaintances and surface-level friendships that work great. But for my close friends? I want people who are there for me when I need them, and who I am there for as well. For the fun, silly stuff, and for the hard stuff. I thought I had that with her, but I don’t, and it’s time to move on.