People wanting to be your friend and then disappearing?

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Has anyone ever wanted to be your friend and then they never log in again after one chat with you or several? Or they just ignore your IMs and claim they are very busy and it stays that way forever? Do you ever think they just pretended to be your friend or do you think they had decided you weren't the person they wanted to talk to after getting to know you better or do you think they maybe got killed or something so they never logged back in?


I have had this happen to me a lot over the years.

I've had it happen before, sometimes I wonder if they're just being overly judgmental or shy and just don't want to tell me they don't like me anymore. I try not take it personally but it does make me feel bad that people don't even have the balls to tell me. My feelings are a little hurt either way.

Just follow this rule: Send one or two IMs/e-mails/phone calls/text messages max. No more than that, or they'll feel bothered.

So how do people stay friends if they make that rule?

I have to admit, I'm guilty of doing this, and not just over the computer. I go through brief periods of being more social, or there's someone who seems particularly interesting or nice -- and they are interesting and nice -- but then suddenly it all seems too much for me and I have to pull back. Also -- and this is something that gets me into trouble fairly often -- I can feel friendly towards someone without needing to be in contact with them. Honestly, I don't really even think about it. I'll think about a person that I like, and then go on and it simply never occurs to me to call them or send an email. Add to this tendency the fact that I don't like to bother people unless I have some substantive reason for intruding upon their time, and I can really go for months without contacting someone whose company I enjoy.

It's a tendency I'm having to combat, since it's been made clear to me that others don't feel the same way. I've made some very meaningful relationships over the past couple of years. I don't want to hurt their feelings or make them feel like I only pretended to like them while I needed their help, but at the same time I have to make room for my own needs, too.

I don't know it this helps at all, League Girl. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the people who are doing this to you may be quite sincere in their feelings about you, but there may be other reasons for their disappearance.

People will act friendly to me and then 'disappear' because (1) I won't give them money; (2) I won't be convinced by their paranoiac conspiracy theories; (3) I won't support their bigotry; (4) I challenge their invalid assumptions; (5) I am not gay; (6) I refuse to "look the other way" when they want to do something illegal, immoral, or unethical; (7) I'm not interested in what they have to sell; (8) Their religion sucks; (9) their politics suck; (10) their philosophies are so convoluted that even they don't understand them; (11) I do not get emotionally worked up over someone else's causes; or (12) Any combination of the foregoing.

happens with me a lot....
people realise after a while that im boring, not their type of person........blah blah

Not really. Of course, it's because I lack that dynamic almost entirely (rarely talk to anyone but established friends and family). I must be highly abrasive, annoying, or just plain confusing. I don't know.

it happens to me a lot. I think a lot of em may of been seirious at the time they 1st messaged but got side-tracked by things/get buy or they forget or don't really know what to talk about(may not be the best conversationalist & don't know what to talk about with you) I try not to dwell on it

I need to expand on that rule:

1) It's the maximum you send before they respond.

2) It applies to people who you don't talk to very often, or have only just met.

I am more likely to be the one to disappear. I may genuinely like someone but if I feel like they have too much drama going on around them I will stop talking to them. The last time I made a friend online, she was having problems with another mutual friend and started telling me all about it. I felt overwhelmed and didn't want to get involved. There was always a lot of drama going on with that group of people so I decided to just stop talking to all of them. I can't handle that kind of thing so it's way better for me to stay out of it.

I've had a couple people intentionally disappear, but most have disappeared simply because life got in the way. I've stopped thinking that someone being friendly means they are a friend for life. People come and go, and it took me a while to learn to be flexible with that concept, but it helps avoid internal pain later. I started going with the rule of thumb that if they didn't specifically tell me they were cutting off communications, then there's no hard feelings and I shouldn't take it personally. I've also learned that if I haven't heard from them in a while or they haven't been able to mutually respond to requests for communication or hanging out, then I need to not feel guilty about no longer trying to communicate so much with them either. It could be that they are trying to get rid of me without hurting my feelings, or they may just be busy, but either way, I have my own limits to how long I will wait for someone else to show good faith at being my friend, and I don't allow someone else to make me feel guilty when I did what was best for me.

This happens all of the time. It's a part of life, a necessary one.

Its not that the people intentionally deceive you. Likely, they aren't realistic of their own time constraints.

Such is life, that we have 1000 things we want to do but we'll never get to all of them.

The most important ones are done first. The others delayed or gone forever.

At that time the person may want to be your friend, but things change.

People come up, events come up, and there's not enough time for everybody.