My close friend of 25 years started ghosting me out of nowhere
DEAR ABBY:
I’m a single man with a close female friend who is also single. We live about a half-hour apart, and for the past 25 years, much of our friendship has been over the phone. We used to talk almost every day.
Two years ago, I noticed she stopped calling me except to make plans to meet in person. When I called her, she often let it go to voicemail and didn’t return my call for days. About a year ago, she stopped returning my messages entirely. I tried cutting back on calling, and I switched to texting, but she doesn’t respond to those either.
You might think she’s pulling away, but that’s not the case. We still get together often for dinner or a movie—usually at her suggestion via email—and she acts as if nothing is wrong. Still, being ignored when I reach out feels hurtful. When I ask her about it, she brushes it off, saying she “didn’t hear the phone” or is “bad at checking voicemail and texts.” Her latest excuse is that she’s “just not good on the telephone.”
I understand phone habits have changed, but we are in our 60s, and for 25 years our friendship was largely maintained through calls. Wanting to cut back is one thing, but ignoring my now-infrequent attempts to connect seems hurtful. Is this normal? Should I still consider someone like this one of my closest friends?
—GHOSTED IN THE WEST
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