What causes a teen to drop/ ghost a BFF?

[Anonymous]

I know that there is no real answer to this. Assuming that the dropped friend in question has not done anything malicious and is not annoying, etc, what caucuses a teen/ tween to suddenly ghost and drop a friend that they previously hung out with all the time and labeled at BFF? My spouse and I never experienced this growing up and it has been painful to watch our DC move through this transition.

[Anonymous]

Growing apart. Changing interests. Different maturity levels.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know but it sucks. Maybe the friend is trying to befriend a different set of friends and felt the old bff was holding them back.

[Anonymous]

DD was dropped by one of her two best friends- he was becoming male, and I suggested it might be a surge of hormones and/or wanting to be around other trans kids. DD took it well, gave him space, and now after a year of silence, they’re commenting on each other’s social media.

[Anonymous]

You meet your friends through different interests, and that also leads to friendship loses. I had a best friend growing up, we lived in the same neighborhood. We hung out all the time. In high school I played several sports, and met so many more people. I became very close to those groups. I think my best friend and I had been best friends because we were just two girls the same age in the same neighborhood and just by default hung out together growing up. She’s a great girl, but I just had more in common with my new teammates. I’m still friends with a lot of them half a lifetime later.

[Anonymous]

It depends on how they were ‘dropped.’ If it was gradual then I think that that is a natural part of friendship. If the friend was cold dropped then that speaks to poor communication skills of the droppee, attachment issues of the ‘dropping’ friend, or possibly poor parental models at home.

[Anonymous]

My son gradually pulled away from a friend. The friend was not a bad kid, and was generous, but was a poor loser at sports. As my son got more interested in sports, he grew tired of the kid accusing him of cheating or storming off, so the friendship gradually died out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know but it sucks. Maybe the friend is trying to befriend a different set of friends and felt the old bff was holding them back.

I think this is common.

[Anonymous]

There are some good possible explanations here OP. I'm sorry for your child. That's rough at any age.

The one thing I might add is are you positive that your child didn't do anything. Once another tween did something horrible to my tween, but the story this tween told everyone was how she couldn't understand why my child stopped speaking to her. It's probably not the case here, but just thought I'd throw that out there since it does sometimes happen.

FWIW, middle school is a common time for kids to make new friends. It just sucks when one party wants to move on and the other doesn't. Hugs to you and your DC.

[Anonymous]

I dropped a friend at that age.

Woke up one day and just couldn’t cope with the high maintenance. I tried to just back away, but failed, leading to social drama.

I don’t think she knew what happened and probably thought she wasn’t annoying.

[Anonymous]

I dropped a friend in 6th grade and I had a best friend drop me in 9th. The later was devastating to me, the former was awful for my friend. I’ve used these examples with my own kids to help them navigate friendships.

[Anonymous]

My best friend and I drifted apart at that age. Nothing happened we just no longer had much in common and were in different classes so we hung out with different people. I know I wasn’t mean and didn’t ghost her. But I will always remember her mom confronting me telling me it was mean to cut off friends and I wasn’t a nice person. Wtf. Her mom was way over the line and it puzzled me. Why did she need her mom to step in?

[Anonymous]

It can be multiple reasons. Maybe, they like the same person; maybe, they become competitive and both vie for popularity/trophies/whatever. Maybe, they do develop different interests and different crowds so that their 'old' BFFs are suddenly irrelevant.

Who knows. As long as there's no hostility/bullying, just let it be.

[Anonymous]

You start by assuming the dropped friend did nothing malicious -- how do you know that?

I dropped my very best friend freshman year of high school because she had been a simmering negative influence on me for three years. I finally realized I had to break away -- even though it meant about six months of being totally alone.

Best decision ever.

[Anonymous]

Happened to my DD in eighth grade. Former BFF wanted to be with the new it girls and got the invite my DD did not receive. Dropped my DD like a hot potato. I am a mom, and I know this is wrong, but I hate that girl for what she did to my DD.