I Was Ghosted By My Best Friend

If you’ve never been ghosted (aka, someone, usually a romantic partner, stops contacting you all of a sudden. All communication just stops, as if they died), consider yourself lucky. Personally, I can’t really remember any romantic ghosting incidents, but I know it happened in college. And, in a much more devastating turn, I know my best friend, my soulmate, my “biffle” did it to me too. 

People don’t consider friendship ghosting to be as severe, but I consider it worse. Like I said, I don’t even remember the guys who ghosted me, but I know that my best friend suddenly ending our extremely close relationship without a word (literally) or a reason will stay with me forever. A girl’s best friend is everything to her. If you’re lucky enough to have one, you know important this relationship is. Which is why, when it ends, it seems mind blowing that no one seems to understand how devastated you are. But that’s the thing. We’re expected to be upset about romantic and sexual relationships ending, but friendships? There’s no movies about a heroine being dumped by her best friend, only to find her true best friendship at her new Soulcycle class. It’s not considered important enough. 

But I’m here to tell you, it is. There should be movies, TV shows and books about those relationships. I’m not talking Sex and the City, we all get along and have totally different niche personalities types of movies, but ones about real friendships where you talk nearly every day and there are occasionally catty comments or petty jealousies, but the underlying factor is the intense love and support you bear for each other. Girl friendships can be intense (Hi Thirteen, anyone ever seen that movie?), but if they’re intense in the right way, they’re beautiful. They help you grow, they provide this amazing support system and confidante who’s always by your side and they are a source of comfort and a self-esteem booster whenever you need one, which, as a young woman in this day and age, can be very often.

These relationships are real and now that mine is over, I feel a little adrift. Who am I supposed to talk to all day about inane pointless things? The harshest of you would say, “No one, obviously. Why would you even need to talk about what color hairbrush you prefer?” But that is the point, so to speak. You can talk about anything and everything in these relationships and know that the other person is always there to respond, to discuss the probability that you did leave your straightener plugged in, or to debate the minor differences between two brands of lotion, or that weird freckle you SWEAR is growing. If that person suddenly no longer exists, you’re simply left drifting in a sea of doubt and confusion.

It’s strange how quickly you forget about the good times. It’s almost like the memories are tainted. I supposed that’s your brain’s way of helping you get over the pain of losing that relationship.

This post has taken me a long time to write because I wanted to talk to said friend to see if I could find out what happened before I posted it. Last October (yeah, I said it's been a while) I visited her. We'd spent months talking about all the things we were going to do, getting pumped about the weekend of sleepovers—it was a long distance relationship from one where we'd spent literally every waking moment together, we were excited, people. But then I got there. Things were a little off on occasion, I even ended up going out with other friends one day because she decided to go home for a break and then just didn't come back, which was fine because I had to catch up with them anyways, but it did feel a little weird. Finally, the last day arrives and she is being extremely distant. I asked multiple times if she was okay, but finally gave up after several brush offs, so I just tried to make the most of our last few hours. On the ride to the airport, I babbled on and on just trying to start a conversation, but it was like talking to a wall. We said our goodbyes and I tried to ignore the uncomfortable questions needling me.

Once I returned home, I shot her a "I love you, thank you so much, blah blah blah" text and then gave her a few days, figuring she just needed some time to decompress after all the activities and having someone so up in her space for a few days. But that weekend was the beginning of the end. We had very superficial conversations from then on, if she even responded to me, even though I kept trying to bring us back to our usual awesome friendship. I sent her a Christmas gift and never heard from her. A few days after it arrived, I sent a quick text letting her know it was there in case she'd missed it. A couple days after that, she said she hadn't had time to open it, but "thanks!" ...yeah...bullshit. It takes two seconds to open a box. So that's when I really knew we were in trouble, but I still didn't know why. I tried to ask multiple times and she would shut me down, again, if she even responded to me. So finally, I stopped reaching out. I figured I would give her some time to work through whatever it was, but I knew we'd never be the same and it broke my heart.

That’s when I realized something strange. She'd always been one of the top names to appear on my social media and I gradually noticed she wasn't liking anything anymore and had even stopped looking at my stories, which really threw me for a loop. My birthday came and went, she didn't reach out. At this point, my family and friends were all telling me to move on, clearly she wasn't worth it, but we'd had an almost obsessive relationship for the last five years, how could I just give up on it? I decided I'd give it till her birthday, a month away. I sent her a birthday text, posted for it and sent her a small gift, all I got back was a thanks to the birthday text. So that was it. 

But I still couldn't quite give up. I'm not a quitter and at this point I knew the friendship was like Chernobyl—it had exploded and no one could pick up the pieces, so instead just left it to rot—but now I just wanted to know why. Why are we here? What happened? What did I do wrong? Cue early April. A mutual friend tagged us on Instagram and I realized I hadn't seen anything from her in a while so I went to look at her profile. That's when I found out I was blocked. This was huge because this was the one place we used to be able to communicate like normal even after moving over a thousand miles apart. So I got the nerve up to finally call her (we both hate talking on the phone). No answer, which I kind of figured, so I didn't leave a message. I thought, ok, maybe she'll call me back in a couple days when she decides what she wants to say. Three weeks passed. I'd been beating myself up wondering what I did wrong for SIX MONTHS. I was done. I was pissed, I was still heartbroken, but, most of all, I was done feeling like shit for no reason. I wrote out what I wanted to say in a note on my phone, it was literally five sentences, but I didn't want to mess it up. As soon as I got home from work, I read it over again, took some deep breaths and made the call. No answer again. I left my message, saying I didn’t know what had happened, but I respected her need for space. I told her I truly hoped she had a wonderful life and wished her the best.

And that was it. I was ready to move on with my life and stop worrying and stressing about this relationship. But then, lo and behold, the next night she texted me and asked if we could talk the following week. I said sure and she said "We don't have to, just let me know if you want to." Now this infuriated me. I was finally ready to get on with it and forget about her, but here she was, making me chase after her like a manipulative on-and-off-again boyfriend and asking me to beg her to speak to me. I said "If you would like to or think it'll be helpful at all, that's fine." Never heard from her again.

So here we are. It's been almost three months from that day and I just found out she blocked me on all other social media. Even Twitter, which was almost more of a blow because I don't even use that app except for entering contests. And I'm talking blocked. Not just unfriended, but full on blocked so her name doesn't even show up. And that's why I came back to this post, months later, ready to talk about it again. I started this post in January, but, as I said, I didn't have any answers, so I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and I waited. Plus, I wasn't ready to talk about it. There was no conclusion, so how could I? Again and again, I put little mental deadlines on our friendship, hoping I'd hear from her or she'd reach out finally and say "hey, sorry, I just need a break, can we talk later and I can explain?" But, six months out from that date and nine months out from the original disintegration of our friendship, I think I’m ready to talk about it.

Is that pathetic? Maybe. But as I said above, we don't give enough credit to our friendships. If this were an ex, people would say, "Oh, you dated for five years? Well it takes about two to get over them!" But friendships? Even best friends? Why are you still hung up on them? I knew the relationship was never going to be the same even if we’d started talking again after six months, but it was still such a huge, overwhelming and wonderful friendship that I thought we could still get past this. Clearly she can’t be bothered and, now, neither can I. 

I'm not going to discuss my hunch behind her reasoning. I have many friends, an incredible boyfriend and the obvious go-to—good ol' mom—who have sat through months of me crying, wondering, debating and torturing myself over why this happened. And they've told me their opinions, they've told me it's not my fault, I did everything I could, but I think I'll always wonder because that's what happens when there's no closure. You always wonder.

So, finally, finally, finally, I can say I'm ready. Finally, I can get back to focusing on the real relationships that matter: the ones who show me love back, the ones who care, the ones that make me happy and that are easy. Because, yes, there's low points in every relationship, but you should never feel bad about yourself or feel the need to hide your happiness in the good ones. In the good relationships, the other person wants the best for you and you for them. I know that, I've always known that, but I got sidetracked by something I thought was good. Now I can leave it behind. 

You were my soulmate, my go-to, my greatest and best friend. But, to quote Gotye, "Now you're just somebody that I used to know."