My friend moved without telling me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any mutual friends you can get the tea from? I would be dying to know the whole story. And of course want to hear now when you hear!

+1

Although she sounds like a real pos. She sounds absolutely bizarre and not a good friend at all. I would drop her. You’re never going to see her again anyway. (I am sometimes more invested in friendships than the reverse, I only just realize that about myself about a year ago, and that might be your case as well.)

[Anonymous]

That's odd and I'd probably close out the friendship in my mind. Although it's over the top, it's possible that she didn't want to move and didn't want to talk about it. We moved to the Midwest from the DMV a couple of years ago. I did not want the move and I didn't talk about it barely at all. I just didn't want to deal with it. I did tell my friends though. I may have missed telling some friends who I didn't see regularly (which you did). I held very few goodbye get togethers. I just couldn't...

The move was fine and I'm happy in the new place but, at the time, I was very unhappy about the prospect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people just drop "friends" whenever they move. It's a weird kind of compartmentalization. OP, I would consider the friendship over and move on. She couldn't have been more clear she doesn't intend to work on maintaining the friendship, which sounds like it was pretty superficial anyway.

Is she in the military, or have they moved often for work/other reasons? Because people in the military know how to make friends easily and also know how to leave without feeling pain. They have to.

[Anonymous]

My ex-SIL moved this year suddenly to her home state to help parent with cancer treatment. She pulled kids from school to take them temporarily to stay with her parents. She intends to move back to her home.

Perhaps she had a family emergency?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't drop it. "Wow, I had no idea! Is everything ok? What's your plan out there?"

I too would check in to make sure everything is okay. But I’d wait a week or two until the immediate aftermath of the move dies down. She may be too overwhelmed to adequately respond, especially if it was a sudden/unexpected issue. Assuming OP was actually somewhat close with this person, I think a text 2 weeks later and if no response then maybe 3 months later would be appropriate. Because it would be awful to just lose touch with a friend in the midst of a crisis when that person isn’t able to interact normally. After a couple attempts though I’d let it go unless the person came back later with some sort of explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back with an update. Our girls are in 5th grade, so I'm confident DD got things straight. DH was surprised too. I hung out with my friend (one on one) a week and a half ago. She mentioned nothing. We talked about trying to firm up summer plans and vacations and such. We talked about the books we're reading, Love is Blind, all normal things.

In general, DH and I like to assume the best of people, so that's how I approached it. "Hey, DD told me today you guys moved to Wisconsin? Did she get that right? If so, please send me your new address so we can send you a housewarming gift! Also, so sorry we didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person. Hope the move wasn't too crazy!" She texted back over an hour later "Yeah lol" So ... I guess drop it?

You sound passive aggressive, pushy and invasive. And her response to you makes it clear as day you’re not a real friend. Drop it.

What a strange impression, PP. She was trying to be polite and kind and confirm that her friend had indeed moved and what the heck is going on. On no planet is that pushy, invasive, or passive aggressive. OP, loved the way you chose to handle. Very appropriate.

1: they are clearly NOT friends
2: she was just ghosted but this person and immediately asks for her new address

This is creepy and pushy. Back off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:did she seem spectrum-y?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back with an update. Our girls are in 5th grade, so I'm confident DD got things straight. DH was surprised too. I hung out with my friend (one on one) a week and a half ago. She mentioned nothing. We talked about trying to firm up summer plans and vacations and such. We talked about the books we're reading, Love is Blind, all normal things.

In general, DH and I like to assume the best of people, so that's how I approached it. "Hey, DD told me today you guys moved to Wisconsin? Did she get that right? If so, please send me your new address so we can send you a housewarming gift! Also, so sorry we didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person. Hope the move wasn't too crazy!" She texted back over an hour later "Yeah lol" So ... I guess drop it?

You sound passive aggressive, pushy and invasive. And her response to you makes it clear as day you’re not a real friend. Drop it.

What a strange impression, PP. She was trying to be polite and kind and confirm that her friend had indeed moved and what the heck is going on. On no planet is that pushy, invasive, or passive aggressive. OP, loved the way you chose to handle. Very appropriate.

1: they are clearly NOT friends
2: she was just ghosted but this person and immediately asks for her new address

This is creepy and pushy. Back off.

If she had been ghosted, there would have been on response to OP's text.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back with an update. Our girls are in 5th grade, so I'm confident DD got things straight. DH was surprised too. I hung out with my friend (one on one) a week and a half ago. She mentioned nothing. We talked about trying to firm up summer plans and vacations and such. We talked about the books we're reading, Love is Blind, all normal things.

In general, DH and I like to assume the best of people, so that's how I approached it. "Hey, DD told me today you guys moved to Wisconsin? Did she get that right? If so, please send me your new address so we can send you a housewarming gift! Also, so sorry we didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person. Hope the move wasn't too crazy!" She texted back over an hour later "Yeah lol" So ... I guess drop it?

You sound passive aggressive, pushy and invasive. And her response to you makes it clear as day you’re not a real friend. Drop it.

What a strange impression, PP. She was trying to be polite and kind and confirm that her friend had indeed moved and what the heck is going on. On no planet is that pushy, invasive, or passive aggressive. OP, loved the way you chose to handle. Very appropriate.

1: they are clearly NOT friends
2: she was just ghosted but this person and immediately asks for her new address

This is creepy and pushy. Back off.

If she had been ghosted, there would have been on response to OP's text.

There would have been NO response.

[Anonymous]

Obviously she doesn't want to give you her new address.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP back with an update. Our girls are in 5th grade, so I'm confident DD got things straight. DH was surprised too. I hung out with my friend (one on one) a week and a half ago. She mentioned nothing. We talked about trying to firm up summer plans and vacations and such. We talked about the books we're reading, Love is Blind, all normal things.

In general, DH and I like to assume the best of people, so that's how I approached it. "Hey, DD told me today you guys moved to Wisconsin? Did she get that right? If so, please send me your new address so we can send you a housewarming gift! Also, so sorry we didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person. Hope the move wasn't too crazy!" She texted back over an hour later "Yeah lol" So ... I guess drop it?

You sounds passive aggressive, pushy and invasive. And her response to you makes it clear as day you’re not a real friend. Drop it.

The asking for the address part seems like fishing/pushing too hard. I would have just written the first part and not the rest and then write more after her response: "Hey, DD told me today you guys moved to Wisconsin? Did she get that right?"

[Anonymous]

I think this behavior is really strange and mysterious and I would continue to ask questions to try and understand, since it sounds like you valued this friendship. I'd at least follow up to "lol, yeah." That's vague, it's a non answer. It could be that she just doesn't care but it could also be that she's embarrassed, she's really struggling, she's overwhelmed, she's in trouble, etc.

I think the responses like "she's a pos" or "I'd drop her forever as a friend" are really harsh because this is just "off" behavior. It's not like she gossiped about you behind your back, insulted your kids, hit on your husband, or borrowed a bunch of money and refused to pay you back. She didn't actually DO anything to you. She's just engaged in a weird behavior and total failure of communication that you, and none of us, understand. To me, that merits some follow up to see if she is in crisis or if there is some context you are missing.

Either you really care about her, which means that you should give her the benefit of the doubt at least long enough to find out what is going on, if you can, or you don't really care about her and yours was just a friendship of proximity and convenience. If the attitude is "she's a pos" because she did something really weird and rude ONE time and you never even found out why, then my guess is that this friendship didn't actually mean much to you. If a friend of mine did this, I'd be very hurt and worried and I'd want some kind of explanation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have been friends for five years. We text a few times a week, get together a couple of times a month with and without husbands, our kids play together. We've never had a falling out or an awkward moment. I asked DD how school was and she said it was lonely without Larla. I asked if Larla was sick. "No, they moved to Wisconsin." !!! My friend NEVER mentioned selling their house, the Midwest, cheese, packing, ANYTHING!

Obviously we weren't as close as I thought we were and I'm reevaluating all my friendships. I am resisting the urge to call DH at work to gossip with him about this. Why wouldn't she have told me? This takes an Irish goodbye to a whole new level!

Text her.

[Anonymous]

This clearly sounds like there was some emergency or something got lost in translation. My 5th grader told me how a kid in her class moved back to NY where he came from earlier that year. Come to find out he was only back for a long weekend and didn’t move - some kids got it mixed up and then repeated until everyone was confused. Just text your friend to see what’s going on.

[Anonymous]

this is sooo bizarre op!!! Truly confusing. If it was a friend like it sounds like I might say something like is everything ok? But it's just so odd I wouldn't know what to do either.