Poll: A good friend of yours suddenly decided they're not talking to you anymore. What would you do?
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Well, in the half-dozen or so times this has happened to me, I've just returned the favor. People are like that sometimes.
I'd try asking why in order to find out if it's something I've done wrong. If it's because of something out of my control then try to reason with them. However, if they refused to be reasoned with or won't tell me why then I'll just return the favour and move on because it's clear they're not really worth having as a friend.
I'd probably be angry, honestly.
It's hard for be to sever an attachment like that.
It has happened in the past, and while it took a while, I did get over it.
It's hard for be to sever an attachment like that.
It has happened in the past, and while it took a while, I did get over it.
Honestly? Angry and dramatic. This happened to me once in high school and not only did she refuse to tell me what I did, she never told anyone else either. She didn't speak to me for a good year until high school finished and I never saw her again. It really fucking bothered me for ages, and I kept having weird dreams where we talked it out, only to feel really shitty when I woke up.
Anyway, one day during sport our class was playing football (soccer) and I kicked her in the shins as hard as I could. She got really mad and started telling everyone she would beat me up, but they all took my side because I insisted I was just going for the ball. After that I felt a lot better and was able to move on. I'm such a petty asshole.
Anyway, one day during sport our class was playing football (soccer) and I kicked her in the shins as hard as I could. She got really mad and started telling everyone she would beat me up, but they all took my side because I insisted I was just going for the ball. After that I felt a lot better and was able to move on. I'm such a petty asshole.
"I would be sad and upset about it for a long time afterwards"
The key word here is "good" friend. Not just some person you talk to now and again on Facebook, but someone close to you who you have built a relationship with for several or more years. Yeah, there's no way I could just walk away from such a thing and ignore it. I'd be beat up about it for a long ass time, and would always wonder what it was I did that fucked it up.
The key word here is "good" friend. Not just some person you talk to now and again on Facebook, but someone close to you who you have built a relationship with for several or more years. Yeah, there's no way I could just walk away from such a thing and ignore it. I'd be beat up about it for a long ass time, and would always wonder what it was I did that fucked it up.
I'd ask them why they weren't talking to me.
If they refused to give me a reason or if it was something I couldn't fix, I'd probably try to move on.
Luckily, none of my friends are immature assholes so they would never do anything like that. If we have problems, we talk it out.
If they refused to give me a reason or if it was something I couldn't fix, I'd probably try to move on.
Luckily, none of my friends are immature assholes so they would never do anything like that. If we have problems, we talk it out.
If it's sudden then I'd ask but otherwise, I try not to pry into people too much.
Like lots of people I've drifted away from really good friends, I'm pretty sure I'm on the tail end of drifting away from a really good friend right now. Yeah, it hurts, and I'm a high-emotion guy I have trouble letting go but I'm recovering and understand that it happens sometimes. We're still friends, not as close as we used to be but we still talk every once in a while.
I suppose I can't really answer your question that well since I've my friends and I just grow apart, we've never just up and stopped talking but I'm just throwing an answer in here based on similar circumstances.
Like lots of people I've drifted away from really good friends, I'm pretty sure I'm on the tail end of drifting away from a really good friend right now. Yeah, it hurts, and I'm a high-emotion guy I have trouble letting go but I'm recovering and understand that it happens sometimes. We're still friends, not as close as we used to be but we still talk every once in a while.
I suppose I can't really answer your question that well since I've my friends and I just grow apart, we've never just up and stopped talking but I'm just throwing an answer in here based on similar circumstances.
I live in the kind of area in which, after high school, you may not see the same people for 30 years or more, if at all. Rarely, RARELY they come back. That's why I never liked riding with my dad - on occasion, he'd meet some guy from school that he hasn't seen in 20 years, so a 5 minute gas stop quickly turns into 2 hours of catching up. Having borne witness to this, and taken in the sunburn to prove it sitting in the car, I'd never do that to another human being. Friends? I have none. They all GTFO as soon as school was out. I on the other hand had no place to go. This was *mumble mumble* years ago and I rarely, if ever, think "Where are they now?", except for that one time a name I knew showed up on the state ballot, independent democrat. Still haven't looked him up - he's not even the same class of society now and we had little in common to begin with.
Well, I tried that once. Except instead of cutting contact he walked up to me and punched me in the gut before leaving the school we attended together entirely without a word.
Still haunts me, I've studied phsycology to see what the heck could cause something like that. Was he just wierd?
Still haunts me, I've studied phsycology to see what the heck could cause something like that. Was he just wierd?
This has happened to me four times in the last year and a half and it never gets easier. Only four people have ever been friends with me for over a year, one of whom I haven't talked to in a very long time, and the other three have disappeared since last August without explanation. (No, the four who left me aren't the four I'm talking about in the last sentence - that's simply a numerical coincidence.)
Unfortunately, this is common for those of us with mental illnesses, which is bipolar disorder in my case. People meet me when I'm perfectly stable and leave when my brain chemistry goes out of control. More specifically, the more introverted people leave when I got hypomanic because I'm being "too loud" and rambunctious, and everyone leaves me when I get depressed. Thankfully my brain doesn't go out of control very often because I'm good with my meds, but it still happens every few years, and sometimes several times a year.
Most of the time I'm numb about it because they leave when I'm already at my lowest. It's when I begin recovering that I'm drawn back into sadness because of the people I lost. Last week marked the second year in a row that nobody even offered to hang out with me on my birthday, but the last year of my life has been so bad that the lack of social interaction put me in the hospital this past weekend.
So no, I don't handle the loss of friends well because I only beat myself up about it. I shouldn't have been depressed, I shouldn't have cried, I shouldn't have burdened anyone by telling them I was upset or (at my worst) suicidal, and I shouldn't have been dumb enough to wish for someone to understand or care about me.
Unfortunately, this is common for those of us with mental illnesses, which is bipolar disorder in my case. People meet me when I'm perfectly stable and leave when my brain chemistry goes out of control. More specifically, the more introverted people leave when I got hypomanic because I'm being "too loud" and rambunctious, and everyone leaves me when I get depressed. Thankfully my brain doesn't go out of control very often because I'm good with my meds, but it still happens every few years, and sometimes several times a year.
Most of the time I'm numb about it because they leave when I'm already at my lowest. It's when I begin recovering that I'm drawn back into sadness because of the people I lost. Last week marked the second year in a row that nobody even offered to hang out with me on my birthday, but the last year of my life has been so bad that the lack of social interaction put me in the hospital this past weekend.
So no, I don't handle the loss of friends well because I only beat myself up about it. I shouldn't have been depressed, I shouldn't have cried, I shouldn't have burdened anyone by telling them I was upset or (at my worst) suicidal, and I shouldn't have been dumb enough to wish for someone to understand or care about me.
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I would let them be because that's what I do, I don't ever talk to them and if they don't talk to me I stop, pretty much means I have only one friend because she's the only one that keeps showing up and talks to me but I don't know, it just has to be that way, if someone wants to be my friend they really have to want to be because I can't be bothered to put any effort into it, but to be fair if you're in trouble I'll help you, even if I hate your guts so I'm not all that bad, still I'm a pretty big asshole and fairly insensitive, cold and tactless so honestly it's probably just for the best that the only people that talk to me are the ones that have to and the one that wants to.
If somebody simply stops talking to me without any warning, I return the favour because in the vast majority of cases, they come back and we go about like it was nothing. Sometimes people's mental chemistry just changes in a way that makes you and them incompatible as friends; best to just give it time until harmony is restored. Making a fuss about it only makes the recovery more awkward.
If somebody outright tells me that they're breaking friendship, obviously I'll ask why. Whether the reason is good or stupid, see above.
Throughout my life there's only one situation where this hasn't happened (yet. I think it still will someday) and it's because it was with an ex, in a super super complicated issue.
If somebody outright tells me that they're breaking friendship, obviously I'll ask why. Whether the reason is good or stupid, see above.
Throughout my life there's only one situation where this hasn't happened (yet. I think it still will someday) and it's because it was with an ex, in a super super complicated issue.
A mixture of two and three. I'd stop talking to them, too, although it'd weigh on my mind while I tried to forget them.
I'd to get them to talk to me about whatever it is, but it they refused it would hurt for a long time.
I've done this to people before and it was always for an incredibly stupid, petty and selfish reason, and now I regret being that way. I've irreparably damaged some friendships that I've come to realize made my life a lot better.
A plea to those out there who might be giving someone else the cold shoulder: evaluate why not talking to them is better than hashing out the problem. It might be hard to talk about in the present but if you talk it out now it'll help that friendship later, and as painful as it could be, at least you won't randomly think about 6-7 years later and regret it. Either that or you'll come out of the conversation with justification for why you decided to end the friendship.
I've done this to people before and it was always for an incredibly stupid, petty and selfish reason, and now I regret being that way. I've irreparably damaged some friendships that I've come to realize made my life a lot better.
A plea to those out there who might be giving someone else the cold shoulder: evaluate why not talking to them is better than hashing out the problem. It might be hard to talk about in the present but if you talk it out now it'll help that friendship later, and as painful as it could be, at least you won't randomly think about 6-7 years later and regret it. Either that or you'll come out of the conversation with justification for why you decided to end the friendship.
If he behaves like that, it's obviously not worth your time to fight for this friendship. Just stop talking to him, too.
Well, I have had this happen to me before.
I tried to find out the reason, but when I did, I realised that this friend of mine was not much of a friend (basically long story short he stopped talking to me because I got a boyfriend). After that I was sad, because it's not easy for me to make friends, but at that point I had lost quite a bit of respect for him and thought it was best we didn't speak any more.
I tried to find out the reason, but when I did, I realised that this friend of mine was not much of a friend (basically long story short he stopped talking to me because I got a boyfriend). After that I was sad, because it's not easy for me to make friends, but at that point I had lost quite a bit of respect for him and thought it was best we didn't speak any more.
Had this happen to me a year ago, with my best friend. Wasn't quite sure why. We were bickering a bit at the time, but nothing major. One day she just cut contact.
This wasn't the first time she did that and when we were younger I'd chase her around, try to get her to talk to me, she'd avoid my calls, it would go on for about a week, then she'd agree to talk to me provided I apologized first (generally without knowing what the hell I was apologizing for) and it would usually turn out to be a misunderstanding of some sort and I hadn't done anything wrong after all.
However, when it happened a year ago, I ran out of fucks to give. I'm almost 30 and that high school drama bullshit just wasn't something I could be bothered with. So I kept away. Once a month I'd send her an SMS to ask how she was doing and ask if she maybe wanted to hang out or something. The message would get ignored and I wouldn't follow up until a month or two later, usually with one pretty much like it. I wanted to let her know that I wasn't angry or spiteful, but I wasn't about to beg her for anything.
It worked, we started talking after a year (well, she started, I never stopped) and it seems we're cool again. I never did find out why she flipped out, don't really care to ask and dig that shit up again.
This wasn't the first time she did that and when we were younger I'd chase her around, try to get her to talk to me, she'd avoid my calls, it would go on for about a week, then she'd agree to talk to me provided I apologized first (generally without knowing what the hell I was apologizing for) and it would usually turn out to be a misunderstanding of some sort and I hadn't done anything wrong after all.
However, when it happened a year ago, I ran out of fucks to give. I'm almost 30 and that high school drama bullshit just wasn't something I could be bothered with. So I kept away. Once a month I'd send her an SMS to ask how she was doing and ask if she maybe wanted to hang out or something. The message would get ignored and I wouldn't follow up until a month or two later, usually with one pretty much like it. I wanted to let her know that I wasn't angry or spiteful, but I wasn't about to beg her for anything.
It worked, we started talking after a year (well, she started, I never stopped) and it seems we're cool again. I never did find out why she flipped out, don't really care to ask and dig that shit up again.
