How do I start talking again to my friend who I took waay too long to reply to 2 times on FB, and do you think this counts as “ghosting”? Could anyone provide advice on making sure this friendship intact?

So first of all I’d like to make it clear that I didn’t “ghost,” (I’m not actually sure whether that term would even apply to this situation) or stop talking to this person to hurt/offend them or out of any negative feeling towards them.

I am a dude & the friend in question is also a dude, we’re both in our early 20s (if that information helps in any way, just thought I’d add that), and I became friends with him about 8 years ago as we were both part of a larger group of friends I met in an after-school club.

To be honest, we used to talk way more a few years back but he and I live in different towns, he started University a couple years ago, moving even farther away from the town where I live. We’ve been talking less & less as a result, always on FB messenger.

The reason I sent him a message recently was actually because I wanted to connect with him again, he’s a cool guy & I wanted to start talking more frequently, ask him to meet up for some coffee or something.

Now – here’s what happened: recently I’ve had a crap tonne of things come up in my life, I’m studying myself, and that’s lead to me being super busy, having a lot of papers to work on and reading to do etc. Some family stuff I’ve also had to deal with.

So, I sent a message his way on FB, I started talking to him about something I saw on his Instagram page.

He replied & I sent him a message back … but then I didn’t reply for a while because I had to finish some work and I dedicated my time to that.

I put off replying to my friend, time flew by and I only got round to it 2 days later. I told him I was busy, he said “No worries it’s fine,” and I was relieved he didn’t get pissed off or anything. It had only been 48 hours after all.

Our conversation continued until once again I had some work to attend to as well as family issues. Now – I’ll mention that I didn’t say anything about having other stuff to do and being away from messenger… Looking back I probably should’ve clarified it to him but, I didn’t at the time.

The problem is that my to-do list was huge, so I prioritised that for some days, and looking back at messenger, I realized a whole week had passed and I felt like I’d ghosted my friend. I struggle with anxiety and my anxiety-filled mind went blank about what to say, so I said nothing. I was worried about it and put off replying, and now it’s been a month either of us have talked on FB…

How do I start talking again and what can I say to ensure that we stay friends??? Any ideas? Would you say this is “ghosting”? (I personally don’t believe so for as far I know, ghosting is usually done out of some negative feeling and very deliberately, which wasn’t the case in my situation.)

Obviously I know an average person may not think this a big deal or something to be at all anxious about but yeah … welcome to having anxiety and having a chaotic life in general lol. ✌️

TL;DR: I have friend who I met when I attended an after-school club during high-school days around 8 years ago, used to meet regularly but talked less and less in the last few years. I messaged him to start a conversation and maybe meet up face-to-face, he replied and we talked but I went off-radar for 2 days without warning due to being busy. He was cool with it, but a few days later I went off-radar again (again I was busy), this time for a whole month. Don’t know what to say about it and feeling anxious, what do I do?