I’ve (F29) always been terrible at maintaining friendships. I have suspicions I might have ADHD or some form of autism as I often have trouble with social cues.
I have two instances that are currently bothering me badly.
Friend #1 – Friend since kindergarten, she was my maid of honor at my wedding, etc. Suddenly she just kind of randomly stopped talking to me. I’d text or reach out and she’d flat out ignore my messages. One time I reunited with a mutual friend, and as soon as she heard the mutual friend was visiting, she immediately dropped what she was doing and rushed over to hang out. I reached out once more after that to see how she was doing – ignored. I even followed up saying if I did something to offend, I apologize. I was ignored. Even a random Facebook post – she posted about her job hiring. I commented asking if it was remote…no response. I tagged her in a Facebook memory and said “Hope you’re doing well”. Several of our mutual friends liked it, she didn’t. She views my stories of my kids and stuff often, but never engages with me. She does actively engage with other mutual friends, though.
Now friend #2 was a close friend since fourth grade. She basically lived at my house. She moved when we were in sixth grade but we kept in touch and she came down for my wedding. She still occasionally likes and comments on my posts. But she posted a few days ago that her mother passed away, and went on to say there is no funeral service due to a lack of funds (she’s always struggled with money, hence the reason they moved away).
I reached out via private message offering my condolences and shared a fond memory I had of her mom, then also let her know I’m here for her and offered to pitch in financially if she needed it. She read the message but never responded. I showed the message to my husband, and he said she might’ve been put off by me offering to pitch in for the funeral arrangements since it’d been so long since we’d seen each other? Either that or she just can’t deal with talking about it at the moment? I don’t think the notion upset her though, because she did like a status of mine afterwards.
Idk, I have severe social anxiety and I feel everything I do to take a step towards friends pushes them away, and I’m not sure how to fix it. TYIA.
2 comments
I wish I had a solution for you, but I just came to say I hear everything you’re saying. This could have been written by me. Sorry you’re dealing with it too. The only thing I can say is at my age I’ve learned to just accept it and I think I’ve kind of gone numb on feeling bad about it. I’m F58. I don’t know if the numbness is just a defense mechanism because I got so tired of feeling bad or if it just comes with age, but I’ll take it for now.
How many friends do you have? Me, I have about 10. And maybe 2 close ones. So, take 100 people with 2 close friends. How many do you think have close friends who ghosted them? The number has to be non-zero.
My point is…it doesn’t sound like you’ve done anything wrong. So id leave the door open for them to come back into your life. But otherwise just consider yourself one if the unfortunate 100 where these two friends moved on. There isn’t always a reason for something. And even if there is, its not always possible for you to fix things. Friendships are a two-way street.