Long story short, had a friend I valued highly (I asked her to be one of my bridal party members) and after that she ghosted me for two years, I tried reaching out a couple times and found the relationship began to feel one sided and all agreements to meet up never came to fruition from her side
I went through a bit of a grieving process as I’ve known her for about 10 years through some of the hardest years of my life so she was special to me. I just don’t get the impression I was special to her anymore. This hurt me quite strongly. As she missed a lot of hard times and celebratory times. And I hoped I could be there for her times too but she didn’t include me. Now I am over the friendship loss, and see it as a good friendship for that part of my life.
Once I’d felt ready to let it go, she texts me out of the blue (like they do) saying something quite empty “hey! Long time no speak!! How are you? ”
For how hurt I was about her dropping out , this text is causing me problems about how to respond, I am autistic and have ADHD so I find it hard to know how to interact. I also don’t feel comfortable answering how I am with an empty fake reply and not being genuine. But I also dont want to be on the defense from the off and make her feel dejected for reaching out. How does one answer “how are you” to someone they haven’t seen for years. It’s such a complex question, I feel many things about different aspects of my life and it can’t be summed up in one simple sentence. I have been told before that how are you is just a casual greeting? I’ve also experienced a lot of rejection in my life and it usually happens as a result of me being genuine and honest. So im scared to be honest about feelings / hard times and usually just mirror back to a person some socially acceptable but false response. But recently I have been working with my therapist on being authentic and true to myself and I worry being false will set me back.
Can anyone offer some socially acceptable ways to respond that don’t eradicate my genuine feelings and experience.
9 comments
Be real. The reality is, this friendship may not get back to where it was, and you should communicate that by how you interact with this person. “I’m good. Thanks for asking. How are you?”
No excitement or sadness, just business. She’ll either get it and apologize or she won’t. Let it play out from there and see what happens.
If someone did that to me, I would just not respond.
Thank you, next. If they can’t respect my feelings enough and ghost me like that. They don’t deserve my response and time.
I understand how you feel and I’ve also been that friend you’re speaking about. If you feel it’s worth the effort then see where it goes. Sometimes people go through hardships and it just gets in the way. If you feel as if it’s not worth the effort then go ghost. I think you should see where things go but also be honest with her.
But at the end of the day it’s your life not mine. You have complete control on who you let into your life. Do what you think is best for you and make the decision you know you can live with.
I think it’s your time to ghost her.
They might have as well been dealing with some things internally. If they are meaningful respond. If they aak to meet, chat it up and express the truth in person. After meet up see how you feel, if they flake again, protect your feelings/boundries. Sometimes relationships don’t last forever. 10 years is a long time for anything and it is natural to mourn over friendship or anyone in your life for 10 years. Sometimes ppl grow apart do to communication and/or intrests or lack of.
If you stay friends or not, though it might still be tough, think about the fun things and know that you will create more fun memories as you live your life
In my experience when good friends have disappeared or retreated it’s almost always been the case that it’s not about me or how they might feel about me but about something they are going through – like mental health issues, abusive relationships, addiction. This doesn’t mean it hurts less and I’m certainly not trying to invalidate your feelings but considering that her behavior might not have come from not valuing you as a friend but from how she feels about herself or other issues might be helpful in thinking about how you want to respond.
There’s a number of reasons why your friend might have disappeared.
Are you willing to possibly get hurt by finding out why they dropped out?
Or are you secure enough in your life and friendships that you don’t need another one resurrected from the dead?
If you want to pursue a response, “I’m doing well but I missed you the past 2 years. I’m kind of wondering what happened between us. Is there still a friendship between us or have we outgrown it? Let me know.”
Run that past your therapist if you’d like. It’s honest. I don’t think it sounds desperate. It’s not clingy. It addresses the past and doesn’t point fingers. And it’ll provide you the answer you’re looking for.
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Or just delete her message and move on with your life.
Coming from someone who has ghosted multiple friends in the past, it was never about them. It was always because of my poor mental health.
I recommend you give them the same energy they’re giving you.
I’ve been through something similar. He ghosted me, came back after a few weeks and apologised, the second time was a few months, then after literally 3 years of silence tried to write me a big long apology then ghosted again. I replied every time like hey no worries I get it even though I had genuinely been hurt each time and I guess he would feel better about himself then ghost me again. I wish I had not let him hurt me, and not made him feel better about hurting me and instead just ignored him and moved on. Others might disagree but my advice is ignore it, let them feel bad about it and don’t assuage their guilt because it’ll only keep happening. Take care of yourself first.