My Friend Ghosted Me — I Wish I Knew Why
Two years ago Shelly suddenly stopped responding to emails, phone calls, texts, or private messages on social media. I still ask myself “What did I do wrong?”
Shelly and I met at a writer’s group a year earlier. We clicked. We shared a lot of similar interests. Shelly was smart, ambitious, a whiz at marketing, and outgoing. But …. it was Spring 2016 and two completely opposite candidates vied for the White House. We each held strong feelings for and against one of the candidates.
More than strong feelings, she aimed for a high-level position in her candidate’s campaign. She posted daily on social media about how wonderful her candidate was. I hesitated. So often the political choices we make reflect the core values of who we are and what we are willing to fight for. And I was willing to fight against her candidate.
I hated that it was hard to consider a friendship with someone of such divergent beliefs and attitudes. What have we come to as a society?
Yet, as humans we are naturally drawn to like-minded people.
Today, most of us self-select our news outlets or biased websites because their bias reflects our own. On social media, we block or unfollow people who post on politics opposite of our own. The 2016 election as more contentious, divisive, and turbulent than any in my lifetime. (See American Psychological Association, “Politics is Personal,” November 1, 2019.) The divide has only grown since 2016.
Yet, I wanted to be that person who crossed the divide, who proved we can still come together as Americans even if we disagree on a major issues. I chose honesty, explained my hesitations and we agreed to a boundary of zero mention or discussion of the presidential election, candidates or politics.
It worked, or at least I thought it did.
We met for breakfast every two weeks at a local family restaurant. We often splurged on the Champion pancakes, an indulgent plate of huge whole wheat pancakes stuffed with granola, blueberries and almonds. Calories don’t matter between friends. My mouth still waters at the memory of them.
Back to Shelly. We had so many other common interests, I respected her for a huge personal sacrifice she had made a few years earlier at the height of her career.
In turn, Shelly believed in me, my book, and loved every part of marketing like it was a game. She regularly offered her time and strategic advice. Given her background in corporate marketing, and my reluctance for self-promotion, all her suggestions were solid and propelled me forward. I sometimes worried it was a one-sided friendship, but she asked for nothing, and never suggested or accepted an offer to meet any other time or to do something fun.
During our year of friendship, she lost both another family member, and a long-time mentor who qualified as adopted family. She grieved. I hurt for my friend. I offered support and brought her flowers. Things fell to her to pick up the pieces of their lives afterwards. We cannot fix others’ tragedies, we can only be there for them to lean on.
Then, nothing. She disappeared off the radar and I never heard from her again. No more talks. No response to my texts or emails. I messaged her on social media, where she more than 25K followers.
Finally, after a month of no response, I mailed a short hand-written note asking if she was ok, and letting her know I was there for her. I apologized if I had said or done something wrong or offensive. Still nothing.
True confession — there have been times in my life I’ve spoken before thinking, and inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings or strained a friendship. I wish I could take those moments back. I’ve done my fair of apologizing in my lifetime. If there was a split, I usually knew why, and owned up to it.
But I could not think one thing I had said or done. She simply vanished and never came back to the writer’s group. Her social media posts stopped, then resumed at one or twice a month, and were all shared posts.
The posts confirmed she was alive and she had not blocked me.
Then I realized, I didn’t really know my friend.
We always met for breakfast at a restaurant close to my house, or I’d make homemade waffles or cheese omelets at my house. But Shelly never invited me to hers or talked about where she lived. I knew vaguely where she lived in a certain part of town, and she had alluded to having roommates. Her mailing address was a PO box.
Clearly, she has moved on. To where, and to do what I will never know. I didn’t understand the term ghosted before until my daughter explained it. I have friends who we grew apart as we had less in common, or our schedules stopped matching up. But never a wall of sudden, unexplained distance and unresponsive silence without explanation.
What did I do wrong? I will never know. I let it go.
Still, occasionally something will remind me of Shelly and I still hope that she is OK.
