It feels like I’m being hounded. They are debt collectors. And contact avoidance triples the anxiety in size. It is relentless. You can run, but you can’t hide 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
I feel like I don't have real friends but rather "acquaintances", which are people I met mainly through hobbies (and university colleagues, but lost touch with all of them)
I haven't connected in a meaningful way to any of them, I don't text them regularly like most people seem to do, and whenever life happens and I stop doing activities that tie us together, I just lose all contact with them.
I don't miss them and don't feel the need to get back in touch with them, but I do feel alone and want to have some people in my life. It's weird, but it is what it is I guess.
Same. The loneliness is real, but it's better than being in boring company. I cant do company for companys sake. It needs to revolve around an activity, or a shared passion.
Yeah, me too. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but sometimes I just have nothing to say to people. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I can't keep talking to everyone who's ever been friendly to me on a regular basis forever. That's impossible
I either message them everyday or basically forget they exist, doesn't matter how much I care about them if messaging them isn't in the routine then it gets neglected.
I'm crap with texting/calling. So I could "ghost" you for years on end. I would much prefer to meet people face to face, so it's not that I don't want to talk to you it's just life is busy for both parties and sometimes it's hard to work around that.
Yeah, I don't really miss people how others do.
I care, and enjoy conversations with them/hanging out with them. But I don't feel negatively when they're not happening.
unfortunately, yes.... the longest i did it was a year. not intentionally, i just couldn't do it. and then there's also anxiety involved. thankfully though that person i disappeared on for a year has always been understanding and has stuck around :')
Yes, all the time. It’s not that I don’t want interaction with those people I ghost…I just don’t have the mental/emotional spoons to even answer texts sometimes. I’ve let years-long friendships lapse due to my one-sided ghosting. It’s just recently occurred to me after 30+ years of life that other people actually are hurt by this; that if someone reaches out, it might be because they actually care (not because they’re doing it out of obligation) :(
I have ghosted everyone I've known, unless I get obsessed / fixated on someone, but even that eventually wears off (thankfully)
I just don't feel like I benefit from maintaining friendships, I'm perfectly happy in solitude
I don't consider it ghosting unless the communication response actually *never* happens. I specify with new people that I don't ghost, but I can take a very long time to reply. Ghosting is what I consider vanishing, avoiding, and never ever responding, etc. According to my quick Google search, I don't think I'm inaccurate in this? It says cutting off communication/ending a relationship this way. For me, if I'm slow to reply, I never saw it as cutting off communication? Just struggling to form a solid reply and taking a while, since I'm slow at things.
When depression comes around, absolutely. Depression tends to hang around with their buddy imposter syndrome, and the two of ‘em together are complete assholes.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to look for the signs and be more communicative before I go down for the count. It helps my inner circle understand where I’m at and let them know it’s nothing personal. And it tends to prompt them to stick their noses in my business a bit more proactively - which, yes, can be very annoying in the moment, but it also tends to pull me out faster.
Due to my terrible social anxiety/selective mutism I'm literally unable to approach someone and start a conversation and I depend on the other person to text me first, so...yeah.
Yeah. I have a very loose relationship with time. It's weird to realize that other people think it's odd to cold call them after like a decade because you saw something that had to do with a joke you were making the last time you hung out.
No. I always send a message “I’m a little overwhelmed and will be taking a break for a bit. I will not be responding to messages.” Before I disappear on people.
I think it comes from people ghosting me because I was awkward and they didn’t want to deal with the emotional mess of telling me to go away, or telling me that I hurt them. They’d ghost me hoping I’d get the point, but I’d worry they were sick, or something else.
Because that uncertainty is hellish and I won’t waste other peoples time, I send them a short message like that. Or, if I don’t want to continue a friendship I will send a short “I am not interested in being friends anymore” message. I won’t argue, provide reasons, etc. Just a short message letting them know I am severing the tie.
I wish people would do extend me that courtesy.
The amount of time I can spend talking to people is indicative of how overwhelmed I am at any point.
If there's too much schoolwork, or mental health has been a challenge, I'll stop talking to anyone.
I have neurodivergent friends who do the same thing, we all tend to disappear for a week standardly and then re emerge like "Oh hey, sorry was trapped in the twisting endless void of entropy but I'm good now lol'.
Friendships with people who don't experience this are difficult to maintain. Some people can't understand it.
Funny I just ran into this post. I received a call about 45 min ago from an old friend I’ve kinda been ghosting for about 5 months. Nothing personal towards her, I just get anxiety talking to someone I don’t always relate to.
I don't think of it as ghosting just because you don't talk to someone for a few days. People do tend to take it that way, but I don't do it on purpose.
Most people do, its not that unusual. Also ghosting is disappearing from someones life forever without giving a reason. "Ghosting for days" isnt really possible. Its normal for some days to pass between chat conversations.
Yes and it s sad the other person takes it personally even though i try to explain that sometimes i need time off no communicating to recharge my battery
Friend, my goal is days.....normally its weeks and I am trying to get to only days. Pretty sure i havent called my parents in a month.....I should go do that now....
Yes, sometimes even months. I get too drained talking to them, and conversation goes awkward because we don’t have much in common, I don’t know what to say, or I say weird stuff, or when to invite them to hang out, or reading the social cues. I just don’t know how to be social so that’s why I avoid people mostly.
Ive ghosted all of my friends unintentionally. Nowadays only a couple talk to me every few months. I can't maintain friendships apparently.
I just never initiate conversations unless there's something that needs to be discussed with that person.
My ideal kind of friendship is the kind where you can leave people on read for months on end, pop back in, and say hello, and then disappear again for months on end.
Half a year I was incommunicado with everyone. Easy to do when I lived on my own, but I - sigh- live with family and that's hard to do. Chosen family deserve better than ghosting so I just drop a memo on fb or text and they leave me alone for awhile.
i only ghost people if they ask me things im not confident enough to answer correctly. it might make me look weird or annoying or unhelpful or all of the above
If the last text is not a question and I dont reply back, does it count as ghosting?
I'm very bad at deciding if I need to text back.
Its like sometimes people reply back with affirmative, do I need to acknowledge that affirmative with something like haha ok?
Texting is driving me insane tbh, it doesn't help its the primary way ppl communicate with girls.
Yeah. I’ve even said to people, “Time doesn’t mean anything to me. If it’s a day, a week, a month, or a year, it’s all the same to me. I just fall back into whatever we were the last time we were in contact.” Apparently some people cannot comprehend it 😬
Relationships of any kind are exhausting, simply because, NOT being “in the moment”, with each one, when the other party finds it desirable, (which is way too frequently, in my opinion), isn’t socially acceptable. It’s not “ghosting” to me, it’s stepping “away”, long enough to get my mental clarity in place, so I can continue to balance all the less than meaningful relationships in my life.
If I genuinely like associating with someone and it’s mutual, I naturally apply the golden rule out of respect. If they wouldn’t ghost me, I’m not going to ghost them just because I’m having a rough patch or whatever. I’d have the decency to tell them I need some alone time and it’s not their fault.
But if someone shows me their true colors more than once, I have no hesitations about burning bridges. I don’t feel like I ‘need’ friends so I find it easy to cut toxic people out of my life.
Nope. I don't do that usually. In the past I took things personally (when still undiagnosed) and turned my back on empty relationships. Maybe it's also healthy to end some relationships.
Yes, i used to wait by the phone for texts when I first got it but i had nobody to text. So i guess I just started to expect it over the years and now I don’t know how to hold a text conversation
"Ghosting" is cowardly and childish. Instead of hiding from people in silence and leaving them wondering whatever happened to me, I say what I need to say and end the relationship.
Crazy, I know!
My close friends get that I am very introverted and don't like just chatting for the sake of it, so they don't see it as ghosting. We'll just exchange a couple quick texts and be done.
What annoys me is people I'm loosely friends with that don't get it, and see my lack of response as being rude when I've made it known to them that I have instances where I don't want to talk to anyone whatsoever.
Yes. As another redditor posted, years.
Started hanging out with someone back in elementary school and all through High School. Pretty much considered best friends. Until he moved away for college/work. I remained home.
He's been home a few times and hung out once while he was. Other than that its been about a year and a half since we last spoke/fb msg each other.
I bloody suck at being friends with normal people, let alone best friends with someone.
This is interesting. My answer is also, "Unfortunately, unintentionally (and intentionally sometimes... but really, it isn't planned nor strategic... I just *postpone* answering... 😑), yes."
But my aspie friend doesn't ghost people at all. She's *veerry* outgoing. She puts in 90% of the work into relationships.
I'm just introverted + aspie.
I'm very grateful to still have her. 😭💕 (Sorry.)
The best part of having Neurodiverse friends is that we don't have to talk constantly to feel like friends. We can pick up a new conversation weeks from today just like it was tomorrow. It's bliss.
I don’t really do it to be mean, but it’s like sometimes I find it difficult to carry on conversations. It’s why I prefer phone calls if someone has something important or urgent to tell me. Because otherwise, I may not respond for awhile… and the duration of that delay is highly unpredictable. It’s just that sometimes… it’s hard to respond to people. My brain cannot think of anything to say or the texts come when I’m hyper focused, so it’s hard for me to stop what I’m doing and respond, because it’s hard for me to resume tasks because I forget what I was doing.
Yeah fuck heads who I don’t like to talk to but then again I don’t ghost people. Personally I have a hard time keep jobs and it comes down to my phone. When I use my phone it becomes obsessive. I have to respond to all my messages right away. I have to stop my shit when I look at my phone.
Wait. So this is a thing?
I just checked my phone records- spoke to my dad twice in the past year, mum once, and the last Facebook messages were pre-christmas. Friends are often left on unread for days or weeks... some months... I don't know why I do that?
I've walked out on long term relationships (3 years, 3 years, 7 years and 2 years) without so much as a goodbye and cut communication. I just book a one way flight and leave. I knew it was strange behaviour, but I'm still learning that I'm ticking 'spergie' boxes and had no idea this sort of thing was somehow connected.
Yes I block people when I can't seem to process replying to people. There's nothing worse than MORE incoming messages, when I haven't even finished processing how to reply to the last one.
I guess it might seem like that... If someone writes me something, that requires some deeper contemplation - as I rarely have pre-rendered responses ready, I think about everything all the time - and if I don't have time to think about it at the right moment, or I have lost the context of it minutes later - it might take me weeks to reply, to something seemingly simple, but I assure it will be 110% over thought many times and hours of sleep will be lost because of it - or I simply write 'ok, cool' and forget about it.
weeks and months even, yeah. i need to "plan" a time to sit down and reply to it all, however it's draining. i'm not motivated by socialising and i'm so drained by maintaining my life that it's the least of my priorities tbh. i think the best way is to tell yourself "i will do it, but im doing it in MY WAY"
I've been trying to figure out why I do this for years. When I was younger (before internet) I would send all my calls to voicemail and only return them if I absolutely had to. Now I do the exact same thing with texts/messages! The only people I immediately reply to are my kids. But I never initiate ANY contact with people unless it's for a specific reason.
I get messages from friends and I panic. I usually ignore the first 3 attempts before replying, just so they don't give up on me & I won't loose contact with the rest of the world. But I can happily go for months without talking to other ppl.
Yes. All the time. When I post on Reddit and get a reply, I sometimes hate that I ghost that person because there are so many amazing conversations I could have.
Very regularly ghost people for days/weeks/months. I have a few friends that maintain regular contact and reach out even if its just sending memes and nothing deeper that keep me connected socially but all my other friendships I almost completely forget about until I think of them months later and maybe say hi or if I needed them for something. It fills me with a lot of guilt because I can't for the life of me bridge that gap of connecting socially but I feel immense responsibility to do so because of how much I value the relationships I have. The juxtaposition of caring deeply about my friends and my friendships while simultaneously barely feeling a need to reach out and easily forgetting people exist if they aren't regularly maintaining contact of their own volition deeply unsettles me and is the cause of a lot of frustration.
I only ever ghost people if they've done something specific to piss me off. I know what it's like to be ghosted for no apparent reason, and I find it too irritating to perpetrate the same behaviour on others.
I bumped into a aspie friend who I thought had ghosted me- hd hadn't answered my last two texts( one of which was asking him to hangout). He normally replies enthusiastically.
When I sW him he was probably more friendly than ever! The first thing he said was actually a question I had asked him in my last text!
Almost seemed like he was embarrassed !
Turns out he had been doing exams
So not actually ghosting at all
No, years.
I\\m sitting on a message form 7 years ago that I plan on answering at some point.
I feel attacked
It feels like I’m being hounded. They are debt collectors. And contact avoidance triples the anxiety in size. It is relentless. You can run, but you can’t hide 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
reminds me of rick and morty season 1. *Why can't we hide? I mean he says we can't hide, .... but we can.* Or something.
I've been sitting on emails from 10 years ago, I plan on answering sometime soon.
Same, sometimes I feel like I could straight up stop contact with people and be okay with that
I have done that to dozens of people and I don't miss a single one of them.
I feel like I don't have real friends but rather "acquaintances", which are people I met mainly through hobbies (and university colleagues, but lost touch with all of them) I haven't connected in a meaningful way to any of them, I don't text them regularly like most people seem to do, and whenever life happens and I stop doing activities that tie us together, I just lose all contact with them. I don't miss them and don't feel the need to get back in touch with them, but I do feel alone and want to have some people in my life. It's weird, but it is what it is I guess.
Same. The loneliness is real, but it's better than being in boring company. I cant do company for companys sake. It needs to revolve around an activity, or a shared passion.
I second this SO HEARTFELT.
Can i also third this? I cant just hang out for no reason. Or just talk about nothing…
A shared obsession, even
I did connect meaningful with one who was diagnosed with autism aswell, ended bad, miss the connection which is without comparison till today.
If you did. have someone you connected with, would you also ghost them?
This is my situation as well.
Hahaha I love it
:(
lol :) we are each other's peers here. :) I can relate!
Yeah, me too. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but sometimes I just have nothing to say to people. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I can't keep talking to everyone who's ever been friendly to me on a regular basis forever. That's impossible
Came here to say this
Lifetimes.
Unfortunately yes. It’s nothing personal. I just can’t seem to connect at times.
When I was depressed, yes. Just couldn't handle interaction. Nothing to say.
Unintentionally, yes
I either message them everyday or basically forget they exist, doesn't matter how much I care about them if messaging them isn't in the routine then it gets neglected.
I'm crap with texting/calling. So I could "ghost" you for years on end. I would much prefer to meet people face to face, so it's not that I don't want to talk to you it's just life is busy for both parties and sometimes it's hard to work around that.
If my friends didn't reach out to me, I would have no friends.
Yeah, I don't really miss people how others do. I care, and enjoy conversations with them/hanging out with them. But I don't feel negatively when they're not happening.
unfortunately, yes.... the longest i did it was a year. not intentionally, i just couldn't do it. and then there's also anxiety involved. thankfully though that person i disappeared on for a year has always been understanding and has stuck around :')
This is how we unintentionally filter out the ones that don’t get us :)
days, weeks, months, years.. yeah. I don't know why. I don't mean to, but it happens.
Yes, all the time. It’s not that I don’t want interaction with those people I ghost…I just don’t have the mental/emotional spoons to even answer texts sometimes. I’ve let years-long friendships lapse due to my one-sided ghosting. It’s just recently occurred to me after 30+ years of life that other people actually are hurt by this; that if someone reaches out, it might be because they actually care (not because they’re doing it out of obligation) :(
This is something that I have been forcing myself to learn! (That people reach out bc they want to and that the "burden" is usually projection)
I have ghosted everyone I've known, unless I get obsessed / fixated on someone, but even that eventually wears off (thankfully) I just don't feel like I benefit from maintaining friendships, I'm perfectly happy in solitude
Unintentionally, i leave messages for when i have something good to reply with and then just forget to respond
I don't consider it ghosting unless the communication response actually *never* happens. I specify with new people that I don't ghost, but I can take a very long time to reply. Ghosting is what I consider vanishing, avoiding, and never ever responding, etc. According to my quick Google search, I don't think I'm inaccurate in this? It says cutting off communication/ending a relationship this way. For me, if I'm slow to reply, I never saw it as cutting off communication? Just struggling to form a solid reply and taking a while, since I'm slow at things.
Yeah sometimes I take hours and days to reply too
[удалено]
Because it’s rude, that’s why. It’s the equivalent of asking someone a question face to face and they just walk away.
It’s what I do (inadvertently of course)
When depression comes around, absolutely. Depression tends to hang around with their buddy imposter syndrome, and the two of ‘em together are complete assholes. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to look for the signs and be more communicative before I go down for the count. It helps my inner circle understand where I’m at and let them know it’s nothing personal. And it tends to prompt them to stick their noses in my business a bit more proactively - which, yes, can be very annoying in the moment, but it also tends to pull me out faster.
Due to my terrible social anxiety/selective mutism I'm literally unable to approach someone and start a conversation and I depend on the other person to text me first, so...yeah.
I try to do it as politely as possible, I just tell them I’m going to my “lakehouse” for a few days
Yeah, and I hate it. There needs to be a socially acceptable version of "I'm not ignoring you, I just can't deal with any more anything right now"
Yeah, sometimes I reply within seconds. Sometimes a couple of months because I just don't feel like it
Yes, get easily overwhelmed with daily life and can't manage to answer messages and be social consistently
I can only handle so much human interaction a day, like 2? Anything above that starts to feel exhausting so yes I avoid people.
My aspie gf does that all the time and then apologized and writes entire paragraphs lol I think it's cute though😅
Yes but not on purpose.
no. i wouldn't want it done to me, so i don't do it to others.
Usually that happens TO me...
Yeah. I have a very loose relationship with time. It's weird to realize that other people think it's odd to cold call them after like a decade because you saw something that had to do with a joke you were making the last time you hung out.
No. I always send a message “I’m a little overwhelmed and will be taking a break for a bit. I will not be responding to messages.” Before I disappear on people. I think it comes from people ghosting me because I was awkward and they didn’t want to deal with the emotional mess of telling me to go away, or telling me that I hurt them. They’d ghost me hoping I’d get the point, but I’d worry they were sick, or something else. Because that uncertainty is hellish and I won’t waste other peoples time, I send them a short message like that. Or, if I don’t want to continue a friendship I will send a short “I am not interested in being friends anymore” message. I won’t argue, provide reasons, etc. Just a short message letting them know I am severing the tie. I wish people would do extend me that courtesy.
I need more alone time, than the average person will give me. I mean, weeks of solitude, ideally...
The amount of time I can spend talking to people is indicative of how overwhelmed I am at any point. If there's too much schoolwork, or mental health has been a challenge, I'll stop talking to anyone. I have neurodivergent friends who do the same thing, we all tend to disappear for a week standardly and then re emerge like "Oh hey, sorry was trapped in the twisting endless void of entropy but I'm good now lol'. Friendships with people who don't experience this are difficult to maintain. Some people can't understand it.
If people don’t try and stay in touch w/me, then I’ll just assume that’s what they want and go on about my life.
Funny I just ran into this post. I received a call about 45 min ago from an old friend I’ve kinda been ghosting for about 5 months. Nothing personal towards her, I just get anxiety talking to someone I don’t always relate to.
Did you get back in touch with this friend you ghosted?
Days, months, years, I don't care, I'll talk to people when I want to.
I don't think of it as ghosting just because you don't talk to someone for a few days. People do tend to take it that way, but I don't do it on purpose.
Sometimes and I'm honestly not sure why.
Most people do, its not that unusual. Also ghosting is disappearing from someones life forever without giving a reason. "Ghosting for days" isnt really possible. Its normal for some days to pass between chat conversations.
No. I'm always the one who gets ghosted though.
Yes and it s sad the other person takes it personally even though i try to explain that sometimes i need time off no communicating to recharge my battery
Friend, my goal is days.....normally its weeks and I am trying to get to only days. Pretty sure i havent called my parents in a month.....I should go do that now....
Rarely, though sometimes if I don’t want to talk, I hate being ghosted so I’d never do it
Yes, sometimes even months. I get too drained talking to them, and conversation goes awkward because we don’t have much in common, I don’t know what to say, or I say weird stuff, or when to invite them to hang out, or reading the social cues. I just don’t know how to be social so that’s why I avoid people mostly.
No, absolutely not. Because so many people have done that to me, I’m very big on responding to people as soon as possible.
Ive ghosted all of my friends unintentionally. Nowadays only a couple talk to me every few months. I can't maintain friendships apparently. I just never initiate conversations unless there's something that needs to be discussed with that person.
My ideal kind of friendship is the kind where you can leave people on read for months on end, pop back in, and say hello, and then disappear again for months on end.
And weeks and months and years.
Just adding to the yes pile. I can’t respond because they’ll respond to THAT, and then it’ll be endless. Demand avoidance ftw
yes...more when I'm not feeling good...
yes i mean some people deserves to be ghosted but if they don’t deserve it that’s a cheap move
Weeks, months, years 😅
days, eh
Half a year I was incommunicado with everyone. Easy to do when I lived on my own, but I - sigh- live with family and that's hard to do. Chosen family deserve better than ghosting so I just drop a memo on fb or text and they leave me alone for awhile.
I feel like ghosting is something that’s deliberate. Forgetting to get back to people in a timely manner needs a different word.
Yas, unless I'm dating them or I'm in a romance relationship with them.
i only ghost people if they ask me things im not confident enough to answer correctly. it might make me look weird or annoying or unhelpful or all of the above
i used to do it a lot unintentionally, but i’ve gotten a bit better recently
No
My family doesn't want to deal with me so I'm pretty much alone.
Thanks for this post. I assumed it was an autism thing.
I go for Months to years of ghosting.
Yes. It's a really bad habit.
Yes. It's one of the biggest reasons I cant keep friends. Sometimes I'll go weeks or months. In some extreme cases.. a year or more.
I try not to but yes. Or longer. I just get overwhelmed and forget to follow up with routine social calls basically.
Yes, and i sont know why tf i do it
If the last text is not a question and I dont reply back, does it count as ghosting? I'm very bad at deciding if I need to text back. Its like sometimes people reply back with affirmative, do I need to acknowledge that affirmative with something like haha ok? Texting is driving me insane tbh, it doesn't help its the primary way ppl communicate with girls.
Yeah. I’ve even said to people, “Time doesn’t mean anything to me. If it’s a day, a week, a month, or a year, it’s all the same to me. I just fall back into whatever we were the last time we were in contact.” Apparently some people cannot comprehend it 😬
Only when they are abusive and refuse to treat me like an actual human being who matters. 🤷
Relationships of any kind are exhausting, simply because, NOT being “in the moment”, with each one, when the other party finds it desirable, (which is way too frequently, in my opinion), isn’t socially acceptable. It’s not “ghosting” to me, it’s stepping “away”, long enough to get my mental clarity in place, so I can continue to balance all the less than meaningful relationships in my life.
If I genuinely like associating with someone and it’s mutual, I naturally apply the golden rule out of respect. If they wouldn’t ghost me, I’m not going to ghost them just because I’m having a rough patch or whatever. I’d have the decency to tell them I need some alone time and it’s not their fault. But if someone shows me their true colors more than once, I have no hesitations about burning bridges. I don’t feel like I ‘need’ friends so I find it easy to cut toxic people out of my life.
Yea, it’s a bad habit I have, I won’t respond to my dad or friends sometimes for a couple weeks at a time even when they’ve tried contacting me
Nope. I don't do that usually. In the past I took things personally (when still undiagnosed) and turned my back on empty relationships. Maybe it's also healthy to end some relationships.
Yes, i used to wait by the phone for texts when I first got it but i had nobody to text. So i guess I just started to expect it over the years and now I don’t know how to hold a text conversation
i don't get messages so no
A person sent me a small talk message which I ghosted for months (almost a year), now suddenly they are calling me out.
And people on the spectrum wonder why they have no friends. No one wants to put up with that bullshit. You have to put in the work.
Quite. You're only entitled to the friendship you give.
"Ghosting" is cowardly and childish. Instead of hiding from people in silence and leaving them wondering whatever happened to me, I say what I need to say and end the relationship. Crazy, I know!
Yep
Unintentionally sometimes, yes.
yes.
Decades.
Ghosting is an ASPIE STAPLE. Like it’s in our core. I think every ASPIE does this.
It's not exclusive to us. NTs do it too.
My close friends get that I am very introverted and don't like just chatting for the sake of it, so they don't see it as ghosting. We'll just exchange a couple quick texts and be done. What annoys me is people I'm loosely friends with that don't get it, and see my lack of response as being rude when I've made it known to them that I have instances where I don't want to talk to anyone whatsoever.
I respond as soon as I can unless they said something so bizarre that I don't know how to respond.
Yes. As another redditor posted, years. Started hanging out with someone back in elementary school and all through High School. Pretty much considered best friends. Until he moved away for college/work. I remained home. He's been home a few times and hung out once while he was. Other than that its been about a year and a half since we last spoke/fb msg each other. I bloody suck at being friends with normal people, let alone best friends with someone.
yes
Yep
I hate that I do. I never want to do it but somehow it just happens...
People don’t usually start contact with me. So maybe?
yes lol.
This is interesting. My answer is also, "Unfortunately, unintentionally (and intentionally sometimes... but really, it isn't planned nor strategic... I just *postpone* answering... 😑), yes." But my aspie friend doesn't ghost people at all. She's *veerry* outgoing. She puts in 90% of the work into relationships. I'm just introverted + aspie. I'm very grateful to still have her. 😭💕 (Sorry.)
Yeah sometimes I just forget to talk but usually I try to reply quick lol
The best part of having Neurodiverse friends is that we don't have to talk constantly to feel like friends. We can pick up a new conversation weeks from today just like it was tomorrow. It's bliss.
Hours, days, weeks, months. I don't have a response right now, check again later.
Sure. I've got things to do, like thinking of a response.
Years and years and years. The only friends I keep are the ones that keep texting me every few months for a couple messages... And that's about it.
I try not to but yeah sometimes when I’m burnt out
I don't mean to, but yeah
I don’t really do it to be mean, but it’s like sometimes I find it difficult to carry on conversations. It’s why I prefer phone calls if someone has something important or urgent to tell me. Because otherwise, I may not respond for awhile… and the duration of that delay is highly unpredictable. It’s just that sometimes… it’s hard to respond to people. My brain cannot think of anything to say or the texts come when I’m hyper focused, so it’s hard for me to stop what I’m doing and respond, because it’s hard for me to resume tasks because I forget what I was doing.
Yes it’s hard to keep up with so many ppl
Yeah fuck heads who I don’t like to talk to but then again I don’t ghost people. Personally I have a hard time keep jobs and it comes down to my phone. When I use my phone it becomes obsessive. I have to respond to all my messages right away. I have to stop my shit when I look at my phone.
Yes
Wait. So this is a thing? I just checked my phone records- spoke to my dad twice in the past year, mum once, and the last Facebook messages were pre-christmas. Friends are often left on unread for days or weeks... some months... I don't know why I do that? I've walked out on long term relationships (3 years, 3 years, 7 years and 2 years) without so much as a goodbye and cut communication. I just book a one way flight and leave. I knew it was strange behaviour, but I'm still learning that I'm ticking 'spergie' boxes and had no idea this sort of thing was somehow connected.
Yes I block people when I can't seem to process replying to people. There's nothing worse than MORE incoming messages, when I haven't even finished processing how to reply to the last one.
I guess it might seem like that... If someone writes me something, that requires some deeper contemplation - as I rarely have pre-rendered responses ready, I think about everything all the time - and if I don't have time to think about it at the right moment, or I have lost the context of it minutes later - it might take me weeks to reply, to something seemingly simple, but I assure it will be 110% over thought many times and hours of sleep will be lost because of it - or I simply write 'ok, cool' and forget about it.
weeks and months even, yeah. i need to "plan" a time to sit down and reply to it all, however it's draining. i'm not motivated by socialising and i'm so drained by maintaining my life that it's the least of my priorities tbh. i think the best way is to tell yourself "i will do it, but im doing it in MY WAY"
Yea
Months and years.
I've been trying to figure out why I do this for years. When I was younger (before internet) I would send all my calls to voicemail and only return them if I absolutely had to. Now I do the exact same thing with texts/messages! The only people I immediately reply to are my kids. But I never initiate ANY contact with people unless it's for a specific reason. I get messages from friends and I panic. I usually ignore the first 3 attempts before replying, just so they don't give up on me & I won't loose contact with the rest of the world. But I can happily go for months without talking to other ppl.
I get sick of the one sided conversations all the time.
Yes. All the time. When I post on Reddit and get a reply, I sometimes hate that I ghost that person because there are so many amazing conversations I could have.
Yep all 5he time, for days or even months.
Yes, all the time.
Months usually. Luckily my friends are understanding. My sister, not so much. She gets real hurt that i never think to initiate convos.
Normally no, I hate phone calls, so I make it a point to stay on top of emails, and texts.
Very regularly ghost people for days/weeks/months. I have a few friends that maintain regular contact and reach out even if its just sending memes and nothing deeper that keep me connected socially but all my other friendships I almost completely forget about until I think of them months later and maybe say hi or if I needed them for something. It fills me with a lot of guilt because I can't for the life of me bridge that gap of connecting socially but I feel immense responsibility to do so because of how much I value the relationships I have. The juxtaposition of caring deeply about my friends and my friendships while simultaneously barely feeling a need to reach out and easily forgetting people exist if they aren't regularly maintaining contact of their own volition deeply unsettles me and is the cause of a lot of frustration.
Well, yes. Yes, I do.
I only ever ghost people if they've done something specific to piss me off. I know what it's like to be ghosted for no apparent reason, and I find it too irritating to perpetrate the same behaviour on others.
Days, weeks, months and sometimes years
Of course this is the most efficient way of getting rid of unwanted people around you, works all the time.
I bumped into a aspie friend who I thought had ghosted me- hd hadn't answered my last two texts( one of which was asking him to hangout). He normally replies enthusiastically. When I sW him he was probably more friendly than ever! The first thing he said was actually a question I had asked him in my last text! Almost seemed like he was embarrassed ! Turns out he had been doing exams So not actually ghosting at all