Being Ghosted: It Was All A Lie

From the prompt posted on Thecreative.cafe

“Half of the people lie with their lips; the other half with their tears”― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“Ghosted” is a new-ish term to me. I don’t know, maybe it’s been around for a while and I just didn’t know how popular it had become in our current lexicon. When I look up the word in my trusty online dictionary app, the definition I’m referring to in this story is 23rd on the list of definitions applicable to the word, as follows: 

“to suddenly end all contact with a person without explanation, especially in a romantic relationship: They dated for a month and then she ghosted.”

“to leave a social event or gathering suddenly without saying goodbye: I’m getting tired so I think I might just ghost.”

Well there ya go. Now I have a word for what has happened. I’ve been “ghosted”. In my case it didn’t happen in a romantic relationship but rather a BFF relationship (Best Friends Forever, for anyone who is way out of the loop).

I’ve accepted that I am the common denominator; I know I haven’t had the most pleasing personality lately, or the most cheerful heart, as my therapist used to say. I am acutely aware that I’ve become quite unlikeable. But what I don’t know is why? What did I do that was so beyond the pale that someone who had been a very close friend for some 30 years, someone with whom I’ve shared many experiences, talked with every day at least once or twenty times, told each other every single bit of minutiae about our lives because it truly mattered, vacationed together, were in attendance at each other’s weddings, childbirth, divorces, etc.-you get the picture. We were each others’ “person”, our go-to gal for all and sundry.

And then one day, just seemingly out of fucking nowhere, ghosted. Never heard from again. Not answering any calls, texts, letters. Mutual friends don’t know anything, don’t want to get involved. Just……..nothing. Never again.

Come on people! Seriously? She didn’t  have the balls just even acknowledge that a friendship even existed? I’m losing my mind here. The not knowing why part is truly excruciating. Years go by and I still can’t figure it out. I’m still tortured. My husband pinpoints that first ghosting as the beginning of my mental and emotional deterioration.

There was absolutely nothing that I did, consciously, to cause this behavior on her part. I am only left with assuming something had been building up and she just couldn’t take it anymore. And I can accept that, even own it, but she can’t have the simplest decency to just tell me why, then goodbye? She is negating every single thing we’ve ever meant to each other. Her actions, or rather lack thereof, make every day of our decades of friendship one big soul-sucking lie. Really?

I can’t begin to explain the heartache being ghosted causes. It’s sad and hard enough to lose what feels like everything in one moment, but to spend the rest of my life not knowing why, or what, exactly happened the moment my friend decided, “Nope! No more! I’m done with her! She has only herself to blame! I don’t owe her anything!”

Uhhhhh, yes you do, bitch. Who are you, anyway? What a mockery you’ve made of everything. How can you live with yourself? And what kind of loser am I to have loved you and cherished our friendship all these years? And yet you say nothing. You are a ghost, an apparition, a daydream turned nightmare. Did you even exist?

This is not the same as friends drifting apart and eventually just not being in touch again. That’s normal, common, acceptable. People change, their lives evolve, they move on in a different direction. But the friendship did exist. And you can even send a Christmas card each year and feel sure it will be received warmly. But this ghosting business? This is unacceptable behavior, this is wrong on every level, this is war! You just don’t do this to a person.

But she did. It’s quite simply the most gutless, spineless, cowardly, and yes, even stunningly perverse, way to nullify another human being’s existence. I feel so betrayed. So misunderstood. So perplexed. So incredibly hurt. I feel just plain stupid. It was all a lie. I’m nobody to her and I never was.  I cannot and will not ever trust anyone again.

So I’m nobody. It’s all been just one big fucking whopper of a lie. I guess it’s fair to say that I really only exist in my own tortured mind.

I’m invisible. I don’t exist. I’m a ghost.