Why would a new “potential friend” ghost you after wanting to form a friendship?

Hi all,

I’m 29F, and about 8 months ago I met a woman (39F) on a women’s advice forum group a few years older as I’d put the question out there if anyone was local to me – she reached out and we hit it off well and met up at a local pub. We spent hours chatting and we both helped each other out on issues we were having. At the end, she initiated a hug and said she had a great time hanging out and would love to hang out again sometime soon and said she hoped we could eventually visit each other’s houses etc.

Once she got home, she texted she’d had a great time and a few weeks later, she wished me happy birthday (she’d remembered) and said she was looking forward to hanging out again and I said “me too, definitely”

After that, when I initiated convo a few days later, she didn’t respond for weeks and then messaged to say “sorry for the delayed response”, that she’d caught covid and then went away for a week to see relatives and asked me how things were and if I’d been up to anything nice. I responded to that and didn’t hear back from her after that at all. I reached out again to check if she was OK a few months later, and no response so I left it and now it’s been 11 months without a response, so clearly ghosted.

I put another message on the women’s forum group thingy recently asking if anyone was local to me there and she’d also viewed the message so she’s definitely alive, online etc. I know people can get busy with stuff (she’s married, no kids) but it seems kinda odd to me that someone could go from having a great evening out and actively initiating plans to meet again to not responding back to a simple “how’s things?” text for 10 months..

I know the whole “people can have whatever boundaries they want to have” thing but I guess I’m still curious what the reason may be. **She did go to a school very close to mine, grew up in the same town and knew people from my school – we realized this on the evening out when we spoke about our childhood. I almost wonder if someone from school days warned her off (I wasn’t the most popular person in school) but that seems a stretch too.** I know we likely won’t ever speak again but would be good to hear people’s thoughts on what their gut instinct is on this? Also useful learnings for me, in the future.

Thanks!

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tl;dr Met a random woman on a woman’s advice forum who was local to me, we met up, she said she had a great time and she was the one that kept asking to hang out again, wished me happy birthday etc. but then went completely silent – no reply for last 10 months. She has been online etc. I’m not too bothered about the ghosting itself but more perplexed as to what may have been the trigger.