Hey, guys – welcome back to TNTH!
I hope those who are on Spring break get as much rest as they need, and I hope those who celebrate Passover or Easter have a great holiday weekend!
It’s been a hot minute since a Self-Appreciation Saturday came out, and half of that reason was that I simply had nothing to discuss. It wasn’t until I went to school this past week and found some inspiration.
This past week, I bumped into an old friend of mine who I had a couple of classes with during my undergrad years. It’s never common for me to bump into anyone while I’m on campus because 85% of the people who go to CSI are out for the day by the time my class starts at 6:30pm. This day, I was on campus earlier than usual for a thesis meeting, and I was surrounded by the majority of students who attend CSI, so it wasn’t a surprise that I was going to see someone I know. So whatever, we had a brief conversation and when I asked this person if they keep in touch with anyone else from our old classes and she simply said no. I pretty much said the same thing with the exception of my college best friend who I keep in contact with frequently. Although it was very sweet to see this old friend, it made me think about my life during the time where I had friends that I thought were going to be my friends forever. Some of these people were the legit reasons why that particular year was amazing. I sometimes have to tell myself that life happens and that people got lives to live, and I can totally respect that. So, I don’t hold anything against that group of people I was once friends with. What we all had was great, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
This is where the inspiration for this post comes in…
I will be the first to say that I am horrible at keeping in contact with long-distance friends. Every friend I had in public school I don’t really have anymore, and I partially put the blame on me because I don’t try and reach out to them. When I do reach out, I reach out to certain people because they were legitimately good friends to me and I never had any problems with them. In other words, I’d reach out because the friendship was still there and there wasn’t any awkwardness that came with reaching out to them. But what happens if that friend automatically ghosts you? Did you do something to hurt them? Were you not being a good friend? Most of all: what the fuck happened?
I once had a really good friend “ghost” me for months on end. I’d tried reaching out and catching up and salvaging what was left of the friendship after it being on hiatus forever. After trying to rekindle the friendship multiple times, I ultimately gave up. Now, I’m not writing this to negatively bash on this person; I still hope this person is doing their thing and living life the way they want to.
I’m writing this because as a society, we have a problem with making and keeping friendships.
We, as a young society, think that just because we have a person on social media, we don’t have to actually talk to each other. People will like your Instagram photo, like your Facebook status, retweet your Tweet, and watch your Snapchat story and STILL ghost you. They will still comment on how beautiful you look in your photo but won’t text you to see how you are doing. People will continue to only talk to you behind a social media profile instead of a text message or phone call, and I had to realize that the hard way.
I’m not saying I’m some sort of saint, I tend to ghost people too. I think everyone does to some extent because it’s just the culture we live in nowadays. As a society, we think social media contact is enough. I thought at one point that was enough until I saw my partner and how frequent he sees his closest friends. I see how easy it is to be like, “yo, let’s hang out for a bit” and do exactly that. There are no rainchecks or ghosting happening and pretending you didn’t get the text. I see that human contact with friends never changes; it’s the way people communicate that did.
For those in a situation where you once had a good friend and they are now “ghost” friends, there’s only so much you can do. You can’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, so the most you can do is let them know you are reaching out and leave the ball in their court. Nobody wants to be in a one-sided friendship, not even the nicest people in the world. When you’re the person being ghosted, it does leave you with all these questions that make you think you did something wrong. Let me reassure you: even if you get a friend back after ghosting you, you’ll begin to see the reasons why they ghosted you in the first place: they were never really there in the first place.
I personally have to realize that not everyone is my friend, and those who want to stick around are the ones who actually want to be my friend. Friends make the effort to check up on you and see you if you live in close enough distance. Friends wish you a happy birthday through phone calls and messages, not Facebook posts reminding you to say happy birthday to your friend. Friends are more present in your personal life than your social media one. Friends don’t ghost friends.
If you’re someone who ghosts people, I suggest you be honest with yourself and ask if you’d like it if someone who you thought was your good friend suddenly just ghosted you. I know that the answer for me is no. If you’re someone who’s been ghosted, don’t automatically assume it was your fault; rule out the possibilities of why the friendship turned out this way in the first place. Did you guys have a close friendship in the first place? Are you guys at two different paces of life? Were you really destined to be “friends forever”?
In other words, people come and they go and yeah, it hurts when friends just leave your life without warning. You have to remember that you live and you learn, and holding grudges on people isn’t the healthiest thing you should be doing with your life. Go out and meet new people. Go out with your actual friends instead of chasing after the ones who aren’t.
Life goes on, and you’ll be fine going through it.
-Liz. (:
Letters From Liz. 